Pursuit of the Apocalypse by Benjamin Wallace Read Free Book Online Page A

for free if you killed them later. They would believe anything you told them if you made it simple enough. And, if it was too complicated, you just had to make up a boogeyman for them to fight against. Even in the event they did ask questions, they were really stupid questions.
    Up to this point every single person had failed him, so it should have been no surprise that the two morons he found vandalizing the sign with pornography had been unable to capture the man. He hadn’t hired them for their brains. But it was still profoundly stupid of them to try and collect the payment.
    Their problem was obvious to him. They were too stupid to know how dumb they really were. It was a dangerous type of idiocy that couldn’t determine its own place in the natural order. Most people knew their limitations. If they didn’t excel at math, they would accept this and focus on other areas where they could succeed.
    No, these two were just dumb enough to think they could think for themselves. These two morons would blame numbers for being stupid and mock anyone who understood them. They no doubt saw this new world as a land of opportunity free of authority and most likely gave themselves credit for surviving the end of civilization as if they had personally outsmarted the bombs and other horrors unleashed on the world.
    Mr. Christopher chuckled at this. It never ceased to amaze him how many stupid people survived the end of the world while so many sensible ones had perished. It was a numbers game, he supposed. Going into the apocalypse the intelligent had been vastly outnumbered. It was only common sense they’d be a minority on the other side of it as well.
    The Librarian himself was an anomaly. The man clearly wasn’t stupid. He had eluded the bounty hunter countless times. Escaped every trap. Foiled every plan.
    When he began the hunt, Christopher didn’t believe half of what he’d heard about the man. How could he? The stories that spread from town to town were preposterous. They were stories of heroics and rebellion against evil that seemed crafted only to inspire others, like he was some poster child for selfless sacrifice. They were too perfect tales of a compassionate champion that stood for right against wrong, and occasionally bears. Every one sounded as if they had been borne of bards instead of facts.
    In each, the man was an underdog. He appears from nowhere to help the oppressed in their most desperate hour. He turns the meek and defeated into an army that stands against a superior foe. And in the end—triumph. Always triumph.
    Fairy tales. They could be nothing but fairy tales.
    But now, after chasing him for a year, even he, the skeptic, was beginning to believe more and more of these stories. And his legend continued to grow. Somehow the tale of what happened out west only days before had beaten Christopher to Bomb City. And that was one tale he knew to be true.
    Regardless of the truth, his bounty was a hero to many. But he had upset the wrong people in Alasis, and that made him the right target for a nice payday. No one paid as well for vengeance as the Great Lord Invictus.
    Mr. Christopher turned away from the road and walked back through the warehouse dismissing the incident with the two morons.
    The time for pawns was done. The game was drawing to a close and it would take someone smarter to handle the Librarian. He would have to face him himself.
    Mr. Christopher reached the Jeep where he had parked it in a dark corner of the building. He moved to the vehicle’s rear gate and inserted the key.
    He would face the Librarian, but he would still have the edge. Already he had turned the tide of the chase, and as long as he had his captive, his bounty would grow more and more desperate. And desperate men always made mistakes.
    He turned the key in the gate.
    As long as he had the girl, he had control of his enemy’s thoughts.
    He lifted the Jeep’s gate and said, “Shit.”
    The girl was gone.
    SIX
    Erica