Devastated Lands: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright page

  Disclaimer

  Acknowledgement

  PNW Map

  More Fiction Books

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59: TEN YEARS LATER

  Devastated Lands:

  A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure

  Bruce W. Perry

  Text copyright © 2017-8 Bruce W. Perry

  All Rights Reserved

  Email the author: [email protected]

  If you liked this book, kindly consider leaving a review on Amazon, even a brief one. This helps writers reach a larger audience and gain recognition for their work.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Acknowledgement

  I am indebted to the following U.S.G.S. web site for research on this novel's plot and adventure narrative: U.S.G.S. Volcano Hazards Program (https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount_rainier/geo_hist_summary.html)–and related pages, including the Cascades Volcano Observatory (https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/cvo/)

  Lahar: “Lahar is an Indonesian term that describes a hot or cold mixture of water and rock fragments that flows down the slopes of a volcano and typically enters a river valley.” –https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/lahars.html

  More Fiction Books by Bruce W. Perry:

  Accidental Exiles (A young Iraq veteran flees the Middle Eastern wars to Europe–available in paperback and ebook. "A genuine pleasure to read. It is hard not to respect any author who is able to capture the terror and heartbreaking nature of war, while also detailing the delicate heartbreak of missed chances and lost love, and Perry achieves both with a deftly-subtle hand. The tone is consistent, the pacing is perfect, and the plot is striking in a way that fiction often lacks." Self Publishing Review, 2017)

  Journey By Fire (A dystopian novel in which a man tries to rescue his daughter as the American West burns. This "tautly told tale turns out to be a vibrant addition to the genre... an effective odyssey through a burned, blighted future America." Kirkus Reviews, 2017)

  Guilt (A sinister mystique seems to haunt three American businessmen when they hire a guide to take them into the Swiss Alps. "A fast-paced and engaging novella with an intriguingly dramatic twist." Self Publishing Review, 2017)

  Lost Young Love (An older man reflects back on his flings. Owing a debt to satires like Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones," this novel is an honest, racy, self-deprecating romp. From humorous exchanges to existential musings about the meaning of love, this uniquely themed work will make you blush, laugh, and more importantly, remember your own early stumbles and triumphs in the realm of young love. Self Publishing Review, Aug. 2017)

  Gone On Kauai (A popular Hawaii noir novel–the second book in the Karl Standt thriller series–available in paperback and Kindle ebook)

  Barbarous Coasts (The first book in the Karl Standt detective thriller series)

  Compulsion (The third book in the Karl Standt detective thriller series)

  Ascent (A popular adventure story of survival and redemption)

  Chapter 1

  He lay on a hillside and scanned the gray, denuded scene through the crossbow's scope. He heard crickets, wind through grass, but nothing moved. An empty meadow bordered by withered, toppled-over trees. The debris fields and cooled lahar stretched to the horizon, like a giant soiled glacier that wasn't there two weeks ago. The air carried a charred, sulfurous odor.

  He unscrewed the scope from the bow, which had a handgrip like a rifle's. Then he carefully slipped the scope back into the rucksack. He lay back against the pack to rest. He was starved and feeling lean, but he figured the vast majority of wildlife had either been wiped out or driven by fear to miles distant.

  Although well hidden in the remaining tall grasses, Shane Cooper didn't let himself fall completely asleep. Not in the daylight. Not after what he'd seen in the shattered neighborhood just after dropping into the Puyallup Valley.

  The silence was broken by a faint sound coming from far away, like squeaking wheels in need of lubricating oil. It came from farther up the road, around a bend, and out of sight.

  In all the time he had spent in the mountains, he had developed a habit of preparation; a healthy paranoia that was, now in retrospect, justified. He'd taken his crossbow and Swiss Army knife with him, even on errands to fetch milk and butter.

  Back home, he kept the rucksack packed with essentials in his truck; food, water, powerful flashlight, a first-aid kit. Now that was with him.

  He'd known he wouldn't be able to predict when he would need them–society seemed frail, shaky, poised to teeter and collapse. He wanted to be able to move and protect himself when the time did come–he used to think about how mad at himself he'd be if the time arrived and caught him unprepared.

  He lived in a one-story cabin outside of Telluride, Colorado, high in the Rockies. He did mountain guiding for climbers, skiers, photographers, and tourists (he wasn't a hunting kind of guy). Once in a while, he'd be asked to join bigger guiding outfits, and that's what had brought him this time to the Pacific Northwest.

  He owned a gun, a repeating Winchester. It hung on a wall in his cabin. He did not have that for hunting, because he didn't shoot wildlife for sport. He figured he shared the Rocky Mountains around Telluride with them, and only the necessity to hunt for sustenance would ever change his mind. Like now.

  At any rate, he liked the bow better than a rifle. It was quieter; it didn't give his position away. His stomach growled as he stood up and hoisted the pack onto his shoulders. Odorous vapors from fires and eruptions drifted over the hillsides.

  He wanted to head east, away from the devastation at Rainier. He knew it could erupt again at any moment, toasting him in a way he was only lucky it didn't the first time around.

  He removed the scope again and put it to his eye, sweeping the countryside and road. He spotted a slumped-over man pushing a shopping cart. A small girl strolled next to him. The clattering, squeaky wheels made them louder than they were visible, a dangerous proposition, Cooper th
ought. It gave away their position and made them easy prey.

  The man and his motley possessions came into focus through the scope. A leash strung from the front of the cart, and at the end of it strained a big dog, partly a black lab, he thought. The little girl had long dirty blond hair and a plain dress. She fairly skipped along.

  Cooper watched them continue, then around the corner and out of sight. The guy, with scraggly hair, a long beard, and muddy clothes hanging off his body, seemed more desperate than Cooper was. He figured he'd let him wander out of sight, with who was probably his daughter, before Cooper headed east through the battered forests.

  He walked down the hill toward the road, figuring he'd take that route as the sun went down, when he heard men yelling. The dog barking; a little girl's scream. Cooper turned back west and ran up the opposite hillside.

  CHAPTER 2

  He reached the top of the hill, which was bare and covered in black tree stumps. He knelt down and surveyed the scene below. There were two men in dirty, dark-green fatigues. Black headgear; weird, painted-white faces. They held the skinny man roughly by a loose sleeve. A Jeep was parked nearby. They seemed to interrogate the man, pointing to his cart and its contents.

  The little girl squatted off to the side, her hands over her ears, as if to block out the conversation. The dog, tensed, its ears perked up, stood at the end of his leash.

  They definitely were not National Guard, Cooper figured, with their soiled and rotten aspects, their mugged-up faces. The Guard was supposed to be patrolling the countryside, but he hadn't seen any since the eruption. Nothing official, that is.

  The man who owned the cart then pulled his arm away from the interrogator, as though he'd had enough. He attempted to back away. He seemed to be pleading, both palms upturned. The second thug lurched forward and wrestled the skinny man to the ground. Then he stood up and put a heavy foot on him so he couldn't move. The other man removed a machete from a sheaf he had strapped around his shoulder.

  The girl stood up, crept to the cart, and silently loosened the leash on it. Clever, Cooper whispered. When the dog sensed his freedom, he bolted, heading west on the crumbled road. Cooper watched but stayed out of sight.

  "Kill the dog!" the bandanna-ed man yelled gruffly to his stout accomplice. That man lit off in pursuit of both the dog and the girl, who ran down the road calling out the name, which sounded to Cooper, still 100 meters away, like "Burt!"

  The man with the machete had it pointed at the throat of the skinny fellow, who seemed to be trying to reason with him. Cooper saw him put his hand between his throat and the sharp end of the machete, as he talked. Then the scope's lens rose and magnified the big man in dirty fatigues who loped heavily down the road, almost reaching the girl. Her hair flowed behind her. He grabbed her by the locks, and she looked back with wide-eyed fright; she screamed. She desperately reached back toward his big greasy hand to pull it away.

  Then Cooper watched the arrow leave his bow, the wire grow taut again. He could see the silver projectile against the sky, before seconds later it struck the lout solidly, a center shot, knocking him right off his feet, just as if Cooper had shoved him hard from behind. The man collapsed on the side of the road, onto the part of his body that didn't have the arrow protruding from it. Cooper didn't take his eye off the lens. The little girl paused, looked down at the pinioned man with a wonder at the protection that came from the sky. Then she turned and ran in pursuit of the dog.

  Cooper stood up and aimed the scope farther up the road. The skinny man lay on the ground, while the other thug scanned the hillside just to Cooper's north, trying to determine the origin of the arrow. He'd seen the arrow pierce the guy. Cooper didn't give him a second more of time. He rearmed, placed the crosshairs on the man's chest, took a deep breath, and released. The "pffft!" was the only sound on the remnants of the burned hill, when as if by magic, an arrow stuck out from the man's left breast plate, piercing the fatigue cloth as if it was aimed by a laser or attached to a string. He pitched backward, then lay and writhed next to the cart pusher. There, on the empty road, he died.

  Cooper could see the little girl running in the distance. He gathered his gear, stored it in the rucksack, then trotted down the hill to the road.

  The scruffy man who'd been pushing his cart had been killed by a bloody blow to the head. Cooper bent over and roughy reclaimed his arrow from the body of the machete killer, then made his way quickly down the road. The big man with the black kerchief tied around his head lay slumped on the side of the road, with a white-painted scowl. The make-up made both of the men seem wild and atavistic–a tribe that'd escaped from a crack in the earth, like the lahar had.

  Cooper took back the arrow from him; the girl was no longer in sight, having made her way over and down a hill. When Cooper reached the top of the hill, he saw her in a field, calling for the dog.

  The killing made him feel reckless, nervous, and wild; a fatigue of aftermath settled over him. It wasn't something that exactly came natural, although he accepted his skill at dispatching as a necessary deed. He needed water; his lips were dried and cracked. Likely, they all needed water and food. He walked fifty meters into a meadow with tall grass, straw-colored weeds and shriveled purple and yellow flowers. They made him think of the Rockies, in Fall.

  The girl turned and looked at him warily. As far as she knows, he thought, I'm just another threat, who's only standing on top of the heap of threats, for the moment.

  "Do you see him?" Cooper called out.

  "Who?"

  "Your doggie."

  "No," she said, wiping away a tear. The breeze blew through the flowers, which came up past her calico dress.

  "I can find him," he said, scanning the shattered woods that bordered the hills and the road. "What's his name?"

  "Turk," she said, and looked away.

  "Turk! Turk!" Cooper called out, but he couldn't see anything yet.

  "Darn," he muttered. "Which way did he go? Where did you last see him?"

  She pointed in the direction of the forest.

  "Turk," he called again, cupping his hands around his mouth, walking towards the woods. "Here boy!" After hesitating, the girl followed him. She stayed a safe distance.

  "The fella, with the shopping cart, was that your daddy?" She had a distant look, escaping somewhere into a nicer zone. He couldn't blame her, a kid outside in this lawless, loveless maelstrom.

  "That's Eddy," she said after a minute, then she looked behind her. "Where's Eddy?" She said it almost as an afterthought.

  "So, he isn't your daddy?"

  "Nah," she said. "He was just looking after me." Good, Cooper thought. He wasn't very good at the comforting skills; he had no children of his own. He'd never had to do comforting before.

  "Where is he?" she said, scrunching up her face. When he didn't reply, she said, "Is Eddy dead?"

  "Yeah, he is."

  "Oh."

  "Did you give the doggie his name? Turk?" he said, to change the subject. "It's an interesting name."

  "No, he likes turkey. For his lunch. Get it? Turk…turkey…you silly!" Cooper laughed, and that felt nice, releasing a warm surge inside. It had been a while. Then he saw the dog, wandering out from the edge of the woods.

  "Hey, there he is! Turk! Turk!"

  "C'mere Turk!" she yelled. The dog loped across the meadow toward them, disappearing and reappearing above the plants, dangling his leash. Cooper gazed over the emptied, flattened houses, the fields, and the gray, dirty lahar, which curled away like a rubberized blot on the landscape. He, the dog, and the girl seemed alone, for now.

  CHAPTER 3

  They bounced along the dusty road in the Jeep. It had no top; the girl sat in the front seat beside him. Turk, nose to the wind, ears flapping, sat behind them, along with their few belongings. Cooper had found the Jeep's keys on one of the bodies. When the girl wasn't looking, he'd dragged Eddy's body into the bushes. Now he was looking after this kid; he'd felt he didn't have the wherewithal to bur
y the man's body.

  They headed west, against his best judgement. East, away from the Cascade mountains, and the chaos, was where he wanted to go. She claimed her parents lived a couple of towns over, toward Tacoma and Seattle, so he gave in.

  We have to find Millie, she'd said.

  Who's Millie? Your Mom?

  Yeah.

  She's with your dad? What's his name?

  Tom. We have to find Millie and Tom.

  They bumped along the road. "What's that?" she said, pointing to the steaming path of destruction, as if she'd just noticed it. The lahar was barely a half mile away. The debris lay to the right of the road, the empty homes, some burned to the ground, to the left. If he stared at the lahar long enough, he imagined it moved, glacially, like a giant, sluggish snake.

  "It's called a lahar," he said over the wind. He wanted to get out of the town center, avoid the predatory squatters. The weird white-faced guys. Where the fuck did they come from? he thought.

  "What's a lahar? Sounds like 'har har'."

  "Anything but funny. Well, you knew that already. It came out of the volcano."

  "No kidding, man. I was here! I saw it! Kapush!" She made a hand motion like an explosion.

  "Call me Coop, not man, OK?"

  "Kay, Coop…"

  "What's your name?"

  "Ruff."

  "Ruff? What kind of name is that?"

  "That's what Turk calls me."

  "Ok, I get it. What's your real name?"

  "Ruff. I told you. So what's a la-hair?"

  Cooper adjusted his hands on the steering wheel, and for the moment, oh so brief, it felt like the old days, a drive through the country with a sweet little girl who reminded him of his sister.

  "You know Mount Rainier is covered in ice and snow? Tons of cubic meters of the stuff. Cubic miles, more like. When the mountain exploded, all this ice and snow melted and came loose and mixed together with rocks and mud. It made a hot slurry, a giant burning wave."

  "Slurry?"

  "Like oatmeal, but that you would never want to eat…"

  He came to an intersection and slowed down, rolled through it. Smashed up, charred carcasses of cars and trucks lay about. The pale sun settled closer and weakly to the edge of trees.