Apocalypse Slaves Pt. 05

Off to his left, more towards the south from what he remembered of the landscape, there were a couple of billowing dust clouds moving eastward. Caine shifted his view in that direction and saw two more scrap tucks also loaded down with chained, bound, and otherwise shackled, naked women. There were a couple of men too but they were tightly bound and hooded more so than the women were. "What is this? Slave Convoys?" Caine muttered to himself wondering what kind of hell he'd been thrust into.

A wail of agony and fear echoed up from the stairwell behind him, causing Caine to look back over his shoulder. Survivors were now in the lobby area with all of the skeletons. The other survivors would be a liability to him and once they started pouring out these raiders that appeared to be all over the place would know that something is going on here. Taking a few prisoners would then tell them that the cryo bunker is now open and ripe for the taking which meant that Caine wanted to be somewhere that was not here.

He fished out his compass and took a bearing. North was still north by his reckoning and it was only ten miles to his old house... if it still existed. It was a good place to start and formulate a plan. He stuffed the binoculars and compass into his pack and retrieved his 19^th Birthday gift from mom and dad; a sleek black Walther PPK complete with silencer. Yeah, he liked a lot of James Bond growing up and the Walther with silencer was highly illegal when dad bought it. But dad had also, correctly, reasoned that there wouldn't be a government around to enforce it once the shit hit the fan so it was okay to buy.

Out of habit he checked his magazine, chambered a round, stuffed it into the cross-draw holster under his left arm, and set out for home.

***

CHAPTER 41: New Reality

Home, as it turned out, was a bust. Caine's old neighborhood was burnt to the ground over the however many years since the Betelgeuse Shockwave devastated the planet. It was a painful realization to know that he had no clue what year it was. After a very brief moment of grief, he got going. It didn't pay to stop to remanence even though losing his survival motorbike that dad had given him on his sixteenth birthday was a major blow. God, he loved that thing. It was just like the bike from GTA that was modeled after the Tron and Akira bikes and he doubted that anyone around here would have anything that'd come close. He had intended on using that to get around as he'd spent many a day testing the limits of that bike going over hither and yon.

He did, however, find the northwest corner of his house and then he paced out twenty steps due north, then twenty steps due west. It was cheesy, just like an old pirate movie or a cartoon, but he and his parents were the only ones who knew about it. He dropped to his knees, unfolded his small spade, and dug down a few feet until he hit metal. He then excavated the long metal box that had laid undisturbed all this time. Popping the lid open, he found his old AR-15. With muscle memory, more than anything else, he had the civilian assault rifle loaded and ready to go within seconds.

The sound of a gun chambering behind him made him freeze. "Nice gun, boy," a gruff voice said. "But this here be my neighborhood and everything in it belongs to me." Caine looked back over his right shoulder to see some bum in rags standing there with a pretty shoddy looking pistol in the drifter's hands pointed his way. "That rifle belongs to me. Now set it on the ground and step away. Then, while yer at it, drop those packs and git!"

That pissed Caine off more than anything else. With slow, deliberate movements, he held the AR-15 out to his left while slowly snaking his right hand to the cross-draw holster. "That's it boy," the bum sneered, "Nice and slow."

The bum's eyes were focused on the gleaming new rifle so Caine took advantage of his distraction. Caine stretched his arm out as far as he could until his got his right hand around his pistol. Then, using a move he saw in an old spy movie, he dropped the rifle, whipped his pistol out, aimed, and fired. The bullet whizzed across the space between them making no more than a pfft sound. He caught the bum square in the chest who howled in pain from being shot. Caine rose to his feet, spun in place, adopted a better firing stance, and pumped five more rounds into the man. Then, he holstered the pistol, scooped up his AR-15, and scanned the area for more threats.

Sure enough, more drifters had come out of the ruins of the neighborhood wondering what the commotion was about. Caine sighted in on the closest one, looking through his ACOG scope, and dropped him with a couple of well-placed shots to center mass. Compared to his silenced pistol, the AR was deafening. He couldn't allowed himself to be concerned about stealth now. Now it was kill or be killed. He was already on to the next bum who had an old hunting rifle at the ready. A few shots were all it took to kill the man. By the time he sighted on the next one over, they were all making tracks off into the distance.

Caine finally got a minute to take in what happened. He looked down at the bum who first accosted him. "Fuck me... that move worked..." he said in astonishment. Then the enormity of what happened dawned on him that he just killed three men in self-defense and it threatened to overwhelm him until his father's voice seemed to come back to him. Don't fucking mourn for those you have to kill, boy! They won't shed tears over you! Caine nodded with a set jaw. "Right." Then he got to work checking the bodies for anything useful. The weapons he picked up from the drifters went back into his AR-15's gun case. After fishing out his HAM radio and finding the battery dead, he set it up with a solar charger and then proceeded to bury the extra guns along with two of his survival packs. If he couldn't use this area as a place to live at the very least, he could use it as a supply cache. Besides, he also had his parents' assault rifles buried elsewhere on the property that he could dig up later.

Once he was done, he grabbed his things and set out at a slow prodding pace on to the closest town to him; Lincoln. Already the sun was beginning to dip in the sky. He'd been out all day already. He hoped that in Lincoln he should be able to find some information and get a lay of the land. It wasn't far now as he could see the city and the old highway turnoffs just up ahead.

A roar of a loud engine on the road behind him got Caine moving off the road in a hurry. A quick glance back showed black smoke billowing up from smokestacks of something big. Until he figured out what was going on, he wasn't taking anything for granted. He dove into a small gully, found some underbrush to hide in, and kept his head low. A Raider Slave truck went lumbering by, clearly in no hurry. They also either didn't see him or they didn't have any interest in him. Small wonder too as he could see that their cages were now chocked full of new stock. From the looks of it; they were from the bunker as some of these captives still had some clothes on and they looked better than the leather and rags that the raiders had on. More had already been stripped naked.

A second truck came behind the first. Almost all of these women were naked. What few men who were captured were tightly bound, arms behind their backs, kneeling, with hoods thrown over their heads. Caine noticed one girl with really white hair cradling the head of a fine looking redhead as they drove past.

Caine tried to ignore the wailing and crying that came from the cages as many of them protested their newfound fate. He glanced up at the sky; the sun had shifted and he figured that at least a couple of hours had to have passed which gave the raiders plenty of time to have found the first stragglers out and to have connected the dots. Caine wondered if they were letting others know. As slow and quietly as he could, tuning out the multitudes that were crying out for help or saying things along the lines of "This is America! You can't do this to us!", Caine fished out one of the HAM Radios from the backpack, turned it on and kept the volume low. It, thankfully, had a charge to it once again.

Putting the radio on scan and then putting it up to his ear he listened in as it caught a signal. "...approaching Lincoln now," one voice cut in through the static. "Swing further south," another man directed the first. "We don't want the Old Man to have a reason to come after us."

To Caine's surprise, the truck that had just passed him swung down the off ramp of the highway to take the bypass road that would keep them out of the city. He turned the radio off and considered options. Hm... if raiders don't want to go into town then that's definitely where I want to go. Here's hoping that the enemy of my perceived enemy will be my friend. Caine waited for the truck to be out of sight, looked to see if there was another one coming, and then jogged it the rest of the way into town while keeping close to the edge for when the next truck came by.

*

The sun was starting to set, giving the sky an angry red/orange hue, by the time Caine trudged up to a guard's outpost on the outskirts of the city. By the way people hunkered down and leveled rifles at him, Caine figured that they were not the kind to entertain guests often. When he was within relative shouting distance, he slowly put his hands up and strode forward, letting the assault rifle dangle on its strap in front of him just in case. "I mean no harm!" he called out. "I want to talk to the Old Man!"

Guards shifted gazes as if trying to decide what to do. There was a pause and then a low murmur as people checked in with higher ups. Caine heard the crackle of a radio and excited chatter coming from one but he was too far out to hear anything. One guard stood up and Caine nearly jumped as he didn't see him hulking down in the shadows as his dark skin, a deep dark chocolate tone, stood up and motioned him forward with a frantic wave of his arm. "Put your hands down. Come in. Now! NOW!" he commanded. Caine didn't pass up on the offer. Summoning up what endurance he had left from the strange day he woke up to, he full out ran the rest of the way. "Follow me!" the guard said, taking off in a run into the city.

Caine obliged him and managed to keep up despite his extended exertion from earlier. This man was muscular and looked like he could break Caine in half if he had half a mind to. He was Caine was led right to the old Town Hall that still stood tall amid rubble, wreckage, and newly constructed shanty structures. The whole thing reminded him of a settlement off of that game he used to play. Now I'm living it... go figure.

A grey, aged man in an immaculate suit stood at the main doorway gaping in disbelief at him. "My God... it IS you! After all of this time," he breathed as if he were looking at a ghost. This, apparently, was the Old Man.

"What?" Caine asked cautiously. "Do I know you?"

"Caine... My God... I... I'd thought that you and your family were dead!" The Old Man reached out and grabbed Caine into a big bear hug, nearly knocking the wind out of him. He might look old, but his muscles were hard as steel underneath of the suit. "But here you are! After all of this time!" The Old Man had tears in his eyes as he then held Caine out at arm's length and looked the younger man up and down.

Caine became acutely aware of the growing throng of people whose expressions changed from distrust to outright awe at the Old Man's mention of his name. Some even began whispering his name as if he were a god from legend who'd come back from the dead. More still looked at him in wide eyed wonderment and there were a couple who even dropped to their knees to give thanks. What kind of fucking shanty town has Lincoln turned into? He even caught sight of one couple crying with joy as the crowd pushed in, some even reach out to want to touch him.

"Not now, not now!" The Old Man waved them off. "Later! I promise!" he said before ushering Caine into the Town Hall. He still had a disbelieving look on his face. "You must tell me, where'd you go after the wave hit?"

"Uh... I just got out of that old silo where we'd purchased space in the cryos..." Caine said as he tried to figure things out.

Dawning comprehension hit the man's face. "The cryo vaults... of course... That explains it all. You'd told me that your family got on the list. You must've made it if you're here and still looking the way you were back when the wave hit!"

"That voice..." Caine studied the man's face and saw the eyes. There was a glint of recognition. "No way... Hen? Henry Bailey? Is that you?" he asked, scarcely believing things himself.

"Yes!" Henry nodded empathetically. "Good God! It is good to see you! Come, sit down!" Henry led him into the main greeting room with all the plush furniture. "There is so much to say. So much to catch up on. So many people to introduce you too!"

"Right now I'd just settle on what happened and how you survived," Caine said as he was led to a chair to sit. He shrugged off his Go Bag and AR-15, exhaled in relief, and plopped down. It felt good to relax after the hard day of running and walking.

"Well, I won't bore you with the lead-up like I tell all of the young-uns these days since you lived it," Henry said, settling into his own chair. "Lauren, dear," he called over to one cute petite brunette girl that was standing nearby in a French Maid's outfit, who was looking his way with a worshipful expression. "Please get some water and sandwiches for our guest." Caine's gaze followed her as she moved towards what he assumed was the kitchen.

"Yes Mister Henry," she said excitedly with a slight curtsey as she headed off.

Caine wasn't sure but he thought that she was eyeing him as well. He shrugged it off and figured he was deluding himself. Even so, he watched her walk off and couldn't help but admire the toned legs underneath of dark pantyhose. "Maids? You own the Town Hall or something?" he quipped.

"What was the saying we used to do all the time? It's good to be the king?" Henry grinned. "I'm Governor of our little city-state here and this," he spread his hands to indicate the building around them, "is my home now."

"You're shitting me. How?"

"All in good time, my friend. First; let me catch you up to speed on world events as you are no doubt curious as to what happened." Henry said, waving off the question. You know how the Betelgeuse Wave hit first. Our sun then shed off a top layer in the form of a mini-supernova." He nodded at Caine's shocked look. "Yeah. It wasn't enough to kill us all but hot enough to cook us a bit to the point that we lost the ice caps and had about a foot or two of seawater flash fried in the Pacific Ocean. We got the edge of the shockwave since, if you remember, it was just coming on daytime here."

"It was a bit of a blur to me, actually," Caine admitted. "Even though to me it happened earlier today." Caine then related his own story to his friend.

Henry nodded grimly as Caine explained things. "It sounds like the independent power plant keeping the bunker going started to fail. We had a lot of earthquakes in the days after and the shaking probably caused some of the units to go bad the way they did. With no one to repair and maintain them, well, it's a miracle any of you came out." He gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry about your folks."

"Thanks, man," Caine also shook his head grimly. "Sorry, it's just weird to hear your voice again and see that face. I keep expecting to see the guy I graduated High School with that I remember seeing only a few days ago."

"Was it that soon before the wave?"

"Yeah, you remember we had a Playstation Marathon Party will the old gang that weekend before the alerts came? You were just out of College about to go do your day job thing here in town."

"Oh yeah..." Henry chuckled as the memories came back.

"Hen..." Caine leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He'd been dreading this question but had to ask. "How long has it been?"

"Let's see... I was twenty when it happened and you went into deep freeze... I'm sixty-five now... It's going on, forty-five, forty-six years now.

"Forty-Six..." Caine breathed in wide-eyed disbelief as he leaned back into the cushioned chair. Hid mind reeled at the notion that he was that far into the future from that of what he'd once known. He was vaguely aware of the cute brunette maid coming back and placing a glass of water in his hand and a tray of tea sandwiches down nearby. He thanked her and slugged down the water, now aware at just how dehydrated he was and mentally berated himself for not drinking more from the canteens.

"Look at the bright side," Henry grinned, "At least you still have your looks and your youth."

"Eh, you were always the pretty boy of the group. Explains why, out of all of us, you went into politics." Caine said, his brain still working a mile a minute. His eyes focused on his old, no pun intended, friend. "How'd you survive?"

"Well, unlike you and your family who were prepping for this event, I was at work that day. When the alerts came in I went down to the lowest level of City Hall that I could get to and crawled under a desk and waited. When the sun went mini-nova on us, we surviving astronomers called it a flare-up, it felt like someone body slamming me in wrestling class back at school. Just about a hundred times worse. Being that deep kept me and a few others alive including the future Missus Bailey."

"Missus? No shit. YOU got married?" Caine laughed.

Henry gave him a withering glance and a sardonic smile. "Yeah, Yeah, and I remember the old jokes that it'd take the apocalypse to get me laid to since I wasn't the ladies' man like you and the rest of the crew were. Only difference is I'm still alive and everyone else is dead now... well... save for you. The joke got old before the world ended."

Caine looked slightly abashed. "Sorry, man.... It's just that... It's been a weird day for me..."

"It's okay. Life went on for me and you're still in the late stages of being a teenager. I won't hold it against you." Henry looked out the window thoughtfully. "The vault being open explains all the increase in raider activity that we've seen today. It's like someone ringing the dinner bell and they're going to spend a month picking that place clean. They'll probably leave us alone for the time being now that they have fresh stock."

"Stock?"

"Slaves," Henry smirked at Caine blanching at that. "What? Surprised?"

He wasn't. Not after what he'd seen. It was just weird having his earlier suspicions confirmed. "It's hard to come to grips with the reality." Caine rubbed at his eyes and leaned all the way back in the chair as the enormity of what has happened hit him. "My parents dying in cryo was probably a good thing. They won't have to deal with all of this."

"Probably," Henry agreed in a morose tone. "Knowing how the gangs around here operate; they'll kill the men that they cannot subdue and control, enslave the women, and give the kids off to parents in their warped little adoption programs that they have."

"Do I even want to know?"

"No, you don't." Henry shook his head. "Were there any kids there?"

"I dunno..." Caine shrugged. "Maybe... I didn't exactly stick around to take a census." His head swam. "Look, I hate to impose, but do you have a place for me to crash at? My place is a smoking ruin."

"Of course. We've converted the entire upstairs into suites. You can have one of those for as long as you need one." Henry got to his feet. "Take all the time that you need to recover and then I'll show you around."

*