Wastelands, p.1
Wastelands, page 1
By
JK Franks
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by JK Franks
eBook. 979-8-9884788-8-1
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Hardback 978-1-964509-90-7
Published by JK Franks Media LLC, 2024
Editor: Debra Riggle
Email the author at author@jkfranks.com
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All rights reserved. With the exception of excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.
First Edition
For Julianne
Whose tenacity and resolve inspire me in my writing career. Your support is a pure force of nature.”
SAVAGE EARTH 3 WASTELANDS
JK FRANKS
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."
HEMINGWAY
PROLOGUE
Last Day wasn't only a wake-up call; it had been a sledgehammer to the face of humanity. The world I knew is gone. Now, it's a shadow, a wasteland where the cities and homes once stood.
The truth? The world is shattered, beyond what I thought possible. And the monsters out there, the Furies...they're not like anything we've ever faced. No matter how quick or strong I am, they are different kinds of nightmares. This isn't just a battle; it's a war for our very existence. And I’m standing here, trying to figure out if we’re fighting to live or only delaying the inevitable.
The Furies are methodical, ruthless, killing machines. They're reclaiming the Earth, wiping out what we built, turning our fields and cities into their hunting grounds. And the people, they're starting to realize―we're not top of the food chain anymore. Everything has changed. Food's more than a necessity; it's power, it's survival. And death...death is becoming more like a sweet escape from this new hell.
Yes, the world we knew is gone. This new world, born from 'Last Day,' is unrecognizable. You want to hold onto the past, but that’s a luxury we can't afford anymore. We've got to bury that old world, bury it so deep that the darkness of this new reality can't reach it.
This moment…this 'pinch-point' in our evolution, it’s going to define us. Will we make it through? I don't know. And sometimes, I’m not sure if survival is the better outcome.
I remember those days, you know, the normal ones. Your perfect lawn, the grill sizzling with synthetic steaks, a cold beer in hand. It was good…damn good. But we were blind―blind to the madness, to those in power who saw the world as their playground.
When those missiles launched, it wasn't simply an attack; it was the end of an era. Now, we're left picking up the pieces, trying to find meaning in this chaos. Every day is a fight, a struggle to claw back a fraction of what it means to be human.
I used to describe myself as a realist, but now? Maybe there's a bit of optimism in me after all. Stripped of all the tech, the conveniences, maybe humanity is simpler than we thought. More raw, more real, more adaptable. We're down to the basics now―survival, finding our people, rebuilding what we can. That's our victory, our hope.
Maybe, just maybe, being human is about more than we ever realized. Without all the gadgets and luxuries, we’re getting a hard lesson in what it really means to be alive. Question is, can we stay—alive?
CHAPTER
ONE
My armor felt like a lead weight on my bones, despite its nano-carbon infusion. I'd never felt more of such a bone-weary sense of hopelessness or less like a super-soldier in my entire life. I’d never felt less like a man. The upgrades to my brain, my bio-engineered gifts, they were all taking a back seat. I looked down at Carol's vacant eyes—once sparkling with life, now staring into nothingness. Could I have saved her? My top-secret genetic engineering said I shouldn't feel pain, but God, this hurt.
Carol embodied goodness; she didn’t deserve this fate. Hell, the planet reeked of good people's rotting corpses. None deserved their grim ends. Yet here I stood, craving justice, yearning to help. Shit, who was I kidding? Honestly, I yearned to lie beside this woman and embrace death.
Upon seeing Lux, I understood—he became my primary mission. My goal: to ensure his survival, to propel us forward. To maintain our focus on the moral path. But…what constituted the 'right thing' after losing three billion lives on my watch, with much of the world now a hostile wasteland?
I pinged Ada, my usually reliable AI, for any signs of life. But she was still silent. Her being offline was unnerving to me in ways I hadn’t expected. I racked it up as another casualty of this ongoing apocalypse. Fantastic. Even machines had started to abandon me. It's like all those theories about AI taking over had it wrong; turns out they can go AWOL just like us flesh-and-bones humans. I didn’t think she’d done so voluntarily, though. Something happened as the dropship neared the ground. Her connection began to cut out. A jamming system could be to blame; despite her reliance on remote servers and the web's myriad bands for connection, Ada's core resided within me. In theory, nothing should disrupt that.
Lux was staring at me like I was supposed to know what to do next. He was only a kid. A talented youngster for sure, but he was no soldier; I knew the look he was giving me. It wasn’t grief…well, not only grief. He wanted payback. His mother and his father were gone. Shit, his puppy Junie was back aboard the ship. I would have been pissed, too; hell, I was pissed. Think, Joe, you have to get your ass moving and come up with a plan.
"What’s the play, Boss?" Koog's still shaky voice broke through my mental fog; I heard the Marine’s pain in each word. Then, I saw Sumo watching me, my fur-covered sidekick who was growling softly, as if to say, ‘Do something, will ya?’"
Not sure I was equipped for the post-apocalyptic world. I was not that great with the pre-apocalyptic version. Joe Kovach was always a ‘doesn’t play well with others’ kinda kid. Now, I was in charge and had to help protect those in my care. Fuck! This was going to suck.
Despite its top-secret technologies and the fact that it was so exotic, (the DOD would probably still deny its existence), the TriCraft was a broken flimsy piece of shit. Crossbeams were canted at odd angles, one piercing the deck plating beside Carol's body. Acrid smoke was pouring out of a vent on a wall that used to be the ceiling. Shit, I could barely see anything. We had to get out of there.
As I pulled myself and my dog out of the dropship wreckage, I signaled Sumo to scout right while I gunned-up and swept left. Where we crashed was one of the worst places possible. We were surrounded by the skeletal remains of what used to be skyscrapers, now broken remnants of a world gone silent.
After a full 360 on the craft, I could tell it was beyond repair. One side was hopelessly caved in, and a section containing major portions of the control systems had spilled out onto the dirt like a disemboweled animal. Seeing no immediate threats, we returned to the hatch side where Lux was peering out cautiously. His face was covered in grime and eyes red. He stared toward his mother’s body, which I had wrapped in a tarp and moved off to the side. His eyes darted to the wrapped bundle that was his mother, lifeless…still…she was more wreckage among the debris. Watching him, I felt my own heart breaking; casualties were never easy, especially for the young, but I’d learned long ago to compartmentalize and prioritize. We would have to mourn later.
I moved closer to the boy. My years of adulting have included exactly zero hours acting in a parental role. "Kid, this is a sucker punch from hell, but we can't stay. We're sitting ducks out here."
He looked up at me questioningly. I realized he had no idea where we were, probably didn’t much care at that point. “We came down in a bad neighborhood. You know, like the last few places you were in back in North Carolina?”
He nodded feebly and wiped tears and snot from his dirty face.
I helped Lux stack rocks over his mother's body—a makeshift grave in a makeshift world. "We'll come back for her," I assured him, not even believing my own words. I knew the vines would claim her, or something else. She was now a part of this world and no longer of our own. My eyes also filled with tears, and I was thankful for the sound that broke my gaze away from the pile of rocks.
Our WitchWalker glided out of the rubble, scanning the scene in frantic jerks of her head. Her eyes caught mine, then flicked toward the metal apparatus near the rear of the ship. I’d passed it moments earlier but hadn’t paid any attention to it. The dull, gray metal looked like much of the surrounding wreckage. Not sure what I had thought it was, landing strut maybe. But…the TriCraft didn’t have landing gear, they were never meant to actually touch down.
Several minutes of digging and I had my answer. “Holy shit!”
“It’s the Decimator,” Lux stated in obvious confusion.
I nodded. “Yeah, we couldn’t free the ship from its launch cradle, so I signaled the Warbot to push us out the space-gate after you. I guess I forgot to tell it to let go.”
“You think it survived?” Koog asked, joining the Witch near the hatchway. “I mean, that was one hell of a ride, and I distinctly remember seeing hot plasma all around us.”
I shrugged. “They’re built damn tough, and this was the trailing edge, so coul d have been shielded from the brunt of the atmospheric burn.”
The Decimator was half-buried near the dropship. “Lux, help me dig. Koog, keep an eye on our friend. Are you better?”
I’d slaved his suit controls to mine, so I could see his vitals in the telemetry feed. Still, I needed his own opinion. Koog was a medical corpsman and a member of my team now.
“I’m getting there, sir. Probably concussion, torn ligament in my right leg, and something is wrong with my arm, too, but the meds are kicking in. I have a ways to go to be fully mission capable, though. I can guard, and I can recon via the drones.”
“Good idea, get the birds up.” The Witch looked out toward the horizon. I got the feeling her horde was coming, and she knew it.
Sumo sensed the approach of danger, too. He joined in the digging.
"So, our metal friend survived the drop," I said, walking up to the Decimator hours later. We'd spent days up on the Stone Mountain, reprogramming this mechanical beast to fight on our side. Now, battered and bruised, it still might be our ticket to surviving this clusterfuck. Only thing was, without Ada, Lux was the only one of us who knew how to handle the beast.
“Well, it didn’t try to kill us,” Koog said, grinning.
The large Marine was loving this shit. Wasn’t sure I was ready for an adrenaline junky on Banshee Team, but we go to war with what we have, not what we wish we had.
“Lux, you ready?”
I saw him nod through the thick armorglass on the Decimator cockpit. “Damn it.” My AI was still down. "Guess we're doing this analog," I mumbled, as I flipped open the manual interface cover and patched myself into the Decimator.
A green light flickered on the machine behind the kid’s head; a low hum followed. We had partial power, at least.
“See if it will move, and you know...try not to trip over your own feet.”
“Or shoot us,” Koog added way too cheerfully.
Lux easily climbed the mechanical beast out the half empty hole we’d dug. I noticed that he’d slapped his magnetic Team Banshee battle patch on one of the shoulders of the Decimator. “A new honorary member, I guess,” I remarked.
Despite our dire situation, the mood lightened, maybe a bit. We stripped everything useful from the TriCraft. One of Red-7s CML units had been stored in the onboard recharging rack, and we put it to work hauling gear. It was essentially a six-legged all-terrain golf cart, slow, but they were incredibly durable. The emergency supplies aboard the ship weren’t much, but plenty of water and ammo. In addition, the medical supplies might be useful.
“Where we headed, Master Sergeant?” Koog asked.
I wasn’t entirely sure, but I didn’t want to tell any of them that. I eyed the corporal, his head now wrapped in a bandage, and his battlesuit was holding one arm immobile like a sling. He had a dislocated shoulder; the leg was improving, but that would take time.
My readout said, ‘Closest Safe Zone unknown.’ More than anything else, we needed to be doing something. I wasn't fond of waiting around for danger to find us. The bitch always showed up when I was taking a shit or something.
“And her?” Koog asked under his breath.
I knew what he meant. ‘The Witch.’
I shrugged. “I told her she was free to go. Hell, we can't hold her, but she seems to want to stay close. I don’t know, I’m not sure she understands English.”
“Do we trust her?”
“Hell, no, Corporal. We only trust these.” I patted my rifle, which I hadn’t let go of since stepping outside. “Our weapons, our brains, and each other.” I leaned in close. “If she does something to cause us problems, put a round in her brain pan. You got me?”
“Ooorah, sir!”
In the distance, I heard the distinct sound of one of the murderous beasts. They’d been closing in for the last several hours. Now, I felt like they were circling us. Again, I wondered if the Witch was summoning them somehow. “Load up, kids, time to hit the road.” Sumo chuffed a response.
The Witch glided ahead of us, her senses more attuned with this world than any of us. Sumo, Koog, and I followed, our eyes peeling back every now and then to make sure our mechanical ally with Lux was trailing along. The thing's movements were sluggish, but at least it was mobile—good enough for government work.
As I guided our motley crew through the corpse of a city, I couldn’t help but think we were straddling the line between a Cormac McCarthy novel and a Pixar movie—only less poetic and way more desperate.
One last look back in the direction of Carol's resting place. Then, it was eyes forward, on the road that was left to travel. "Survive first. Mourn later," I told myself again. It's the only way to keep our living from joining the dead.
"I need to make a decision, and without Ada to help, I’m asking for your input," I said, breaking the lingering silence. Sumo chuffed his agreement, which was pretty much his way of saying, 'Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.'
The Witch was as strange as ever. Part eerie cool and totally enigmatic, she didn’t offer much. She was kind of like that character in every RPG game who you're not sure is an NPC or some badass level-99 player who simply likes watching you struggle. She whispered something under her breath and made an odd motion with her hands. I felt a shiver down my spine. Wasn’t sure if that was a good omen or a precursor to impending doom. I can’t get a fucking read on this chick.
I took a deep breath, the air tasting like ash and rust. "Listen up, everyone. This is about as fucked as it gets." I glanced around at the group, taking in their already weary faces.
"You know where we are, Boss? Cause I ain't getting shit on my readouts," Koog asked.
I knew what he meant, my system was glitching, too. Ada, as well as my comms, were down. We were totally cut off.
"We're in one of the Red Zones now. A wasteland. An area thought to be mostly devoid of life...at least life that's compatible with our own." I let that sink in for a moment, watching as the reality of our situation started to dawn on them. "We've got no choice but to push forward. We make it to some sanctuary, or a Safe Zone, that will be our best bet for finding supplies, medical help, and maybe some answers."
Lux scowled, his fingers clenching into fists. "What about the Furies? You said they’re out there. They're out there, waiting for us, aren't they?"
I nodded, my expression grim. I’d forgotten I’d mentioned that earlier, but better he knew what to expect. "Yeah, they are. But we've dealt with them before, and we'll do it again. We gotta stay sharp and keep our wits about us."
Koog grunted, wincing as he shifted his weight. "Easier said than done. My arm and leg are not exactly in top-shape, and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep up."
I gave him a sympathetic look. "Can you shoot?"
He nodded.
"I know it's tough, man. But we'll get you patched up as soon as we reach the Safe Zone. Until then, do your best to keep moving, Watch for attacks because we know they’re coming."
Sumo whined softly, nudging my hand with his snout. I scratched behind his ear, offering him a small smile. "Don't worry, buddy. We'll make it through this." I snugged his own helmet up and tightened the back plate of his armor.
The Witch remained silent; her eyes still fixed on some distant point in the horizon. I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of unease. There was something about her that was just...off. Like she knew something we didn’t.
A few hours later, we came to a stop, my boots crunching on the loose gravel road we’d been following. "We have four options, guys." I continued taking a pull on my water tube. "The closest Green Zone I can recall is about 200 miles to the south, we could try to push through but some rough terrain and, well…the stretch of Red Zone between there and us is even more lethal. Second, we try for a hardened government facility. It’s listed as a storage bunker on my command map up in the high mountains off to the west of us. It’s also still in the waste but should provide some safety and possibly better comms access to the Skyfi or MillCrypt networks.
