Part 01: The Long, Dark Road
He could not remember how old he was, or the last time he had felt truly clean. This was how he woke every morning, with these same thoughts. The dry, gritty dirt got everywhere. Into his hair, in the folds of his closing, even into his nose while he slept. As he shook himself awake, he wiped the sleep and the grime from his eyes. The dirt that settled on him nightly, the white grit that blanketed this part of the earth, was his least favorite plague. He could not remember the last time he woke completely free from its contamination, but then again he couldn't even remember how old he was.
He had been twelve when the Earth was scorched, that much he remembered. He recalled his twelfth birthday, and the sugary blue cake that his mother had presented him. His mother. He couldn't remember her face now, and barely recalled the sound of her voice. The long, hard, empty years between then and now had stolen that from his memories. But he remembered her laugh, light and sweet, and the smell of her perfume when she picked him up from school. For his twelfth birthday, his father had given him the sharp hunting knife he carried with him still. His mother had disapproved of the lessons in hunting and shooting, of cleaning fish and skinning rabbits, for a boy so young. But his father, whose hard and gruff face he had never forgotten, knew that twelve was old enough. And it was those lessons that had kept him alive through the twenty or twenty five years since the sky had burned.
He touched the knife affectionately, running his finger along the cold, clean steel. He always took good care of his tools, as his father had taught him. Those lessons from his father and the smell of his mother's perfume were all that remained of his parents since the day the Earth was scorched and his family had been stolen from him. He slapped the dust from his well worn backpack, it's once dark green fabric long ago faded to a dull grey. Some still called that day of fire "The War," though it had basically begun and ended with that one spectacular calamity as far as he could tell. The lean years since that day had muddled together, and he could no longer remember how many there had been. He had survived, by some miracle, and that was all that mattered.
He had spent the night in the relative shelter of a skeletal old shack. It had been a modest home once, but the front facade had crumbled into a pile of debris some years before. Crumbled much like the rest of the world. He put his gloves on before patting one of the corner beams of the shack in parting. The gloves completed his head to toe covering, even in the warmth of the late spring day. He would sweat, for sure, but sweating was safer than exposure. His feet took the first steps of the day, heading eastward. The coasts had been obliterated into blackened worlds of glass and ash, and he had learned two things since he had first joined the road so long ago. Keep to the middle of the country, and keep moving. Staying still welcomed death. He could feel the soles of his boots were wearing thin, but he had already scrounged a new pair. He was doing well so far on this day, and in this world every good moment had to be enjoyed.
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It was mid morning when he could smell the water. The land around him had been dry and brown, but even from a distance the stream smelled clean. It had to at least be a stream, and where good water met the road, it meant danger. Before he got too close, he left the road and proceeded into the brush far off the path. When he was almost out of sight of the road, he turned and began to parallel its course once again. In the still air, he could hear the babble of flowing water before he could see it. He worried he might suddenly come upon the water in the brush, he spotted a small stand of low trees where the water met the road. Once he had sighted it, he did as he had been taught, and hunkered down low in the dry brush.
There was something shiny in one of the trees, reflecting glints of sunlight. He sat for over an hour and saw no apparent movement. The reflecting light made him nervous. He saw a thin cloud of dust approaching from the horizon on the opposite side of the river and believed the safety of this crossing was about to be tested. He took a warm swig of water from his larger canteen and waited.
The dust trail soon resolved itself into a man on horseback, wearing white fabrics and two women carrying large jugs walking along behind the horse. A horse likely meant an established town. An established town would explain why there were so many people on the road, but not why they would risk venturing out for water. The women hung back as the man approached the stream. The man appeared to actually be carrying a pistol, which was extremely rare to see these days. The horse splashed through the shallow stream, the man's head swinging left and right as he scanned the trees and the land beyond the stream bed. After a minute of careful observation, the man gestured to the two women, and they began to approach the water with their jugs.
Observing from the brush, Evan spotted the movement in the tree closest to the water. Something large was hidden in its branches, and whatever was reflecting the sunlight began to move. The man on horseback must have seen it too, for he turned in its direction, just in time to see the object streak from the tree. The arrow caught him squarely through the neck. Evan thought it was either a remarkably aimed shot, or the shooter had been aiming for the man's head and missed. Either way, the rider toppled backwards off his horse, his legs somersaulting over his body before he hit the ground in a heap, never moving again.
One of the women screamed, and turned and ran. The other remained frozen at the edge of the river. The horse the man had been riding was startled by the loss of his rider and the woman screaming. The horse charged off into the brush at top speed, stopping briefly only to kick its powerful hind legs out behind it. The fleeing woman did not get far before a cleverly concealed hatch beneath a scrub bush lifted up and a man sprang out. As the man lept out onto the road, the running woman ran straight into the waiting man's arms. They were highway men then for sure. Two men swiftly swung down from two trees near the river. One was the arrow shooter, the other a shorter and skinnier man who Evan had not spotted. The men surrounded the second woman, who remained motionless.
Evan slowly dropped onto his stomach and began to creep closer. One man in a tree he could have taken, probably even two. But going up against three men was a gamble, and he had learned never to gamble in this dangerous world. So instead, he crawled through the dry and gritty dirt towards the men and the screaming women.
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It was Evelynn's worst nightmare come true. The two dirty men were circling her now, and she could smell the sweat and the stink on them. They were smiling leering smiles, and it disgusted her. It was a wonder Bernard hadn't been able to smell them from the river. Poor Bernard. If Evelynn looked over at his crumpled body, she knew she would burst into tears. And tears would not help her now. She was already trembling with terror. As she warily warded off the circling men, she could see the third brute was wasting no time. He was already on top of Megan, pinning her to the ground and tearing roughly at her clothes. Evelynn heard her daughter scream, and it drove an icy dagger through her heart. The tears came, despite her best effort.
Badger, conversely was delighted. His trap had worked perfectly, better than he could have ever hoped, and his heart was on the verge of bursting with excitement. He and his two men had waited in the trees on and off for three days. Not a soul had wandered along the road in that time, and his men were on the verge of giving up when this little group arrived. Now not only did they have a man with nice things to steal, they had women. And two women! Women sold to the right people fetched an enormous price, and old Badger knew the right people.
"Please," was all Evelynn could muster beneath her tears. "Please, don't hurt us." Badger and Tom both laughed heartily in response. Evelynn could see the hard edge in Badger's eyes, and beneath that something even worse. She saw burning, naked desire.
"Please, don't hurt us. Don't hurt that one," She said, pointing to her daughter. "Just tell us what you want."
"We want you, dearie," Badge replied with another laugh. "We want you and you are going to give us everything."
"Please, I'll do anything if you don't hurt the other girl and you let us go." That made Badger stop and think. This one in front of him was not a bad piece. She was a little older, not quite 40 he guessed, but she had a pretty face and nice body. The other one, the one who was screaming, was a real prize. She was obviously younger and had a nice, full set of breasts on her. She would be worth a big pay day if he could sell her unmangled.
The girl screamed again, and Badger turned to look at her. "STOP!" He bellowed to Finn, who had managed to get the girl's legs spread and was now positioned between her naked thighs.
"What?!" Finn replied in clear annoyance.
"Stop, I said. Can you tell if that one's a virgin?" Badger called over.
Finn unceremoniously licked his index finger, and then with the girls legs pinned beneath him, shoved his fat digit into her little hole. "My God, she's tight," he said and he probed into her. She screamed long and deep at his penetration, feeling the dirty finger prying her lips apart. Finn was about to slap her face hard to shut her up when his digit brushed against the membrane of her maidenhead.
"Oh man," He yelled out with yet another laugh, "She sure feels like a virgin."
