LONG ROAD AHEAD

PROLOGUE   Underground command bunker, Maryland, 3579...               The red light flashed while the warning sirens sounded in the background, warning the nearby residences to take cover. The fallout bunker was filled with chaos. “Sir, we have confirmed reports that the enemy has launched their nuclear weapons,” the Secretary of Defense announced with great horror.             “Sir, our satellites are showing four other launches in four other countries,” a soldier at the portable command centre added.             “Sir, the time is now,” the Secretary urged. “We must defend ourselves. We must launch.”             With a heavy heart, the Commander and Chief nodded in agreement. “Launch the nuclear warheads, and may future generations forgive us what we do today.” CHAPTER 1   The Wasteland 3856...                  Craven slammed the bloodstained pendent on the top of the bar as he took a seat next to the man who had commissioned his services. The man next to him, and he used the term loosely, owned the shabby rundown bar they now sat in, along with the scummy brothel upstairs.             His client could not have been more than possibly thirty, but living in areas of high radiation for long periods of time had ravaged his body as it had so many others. The wasteland was riddled with hot spots, making radiation sickness a common cause of death.             Craven slid the bloody pendant over to his client. The man was sick; that much was clear by the fact that his brown hair was thinning so much that patches were void of hair altogether. His skin was a pale white, almost ghostly, with numerous bruises, blisters, and open sores. He was thin, skin and bones like so many people. His face was sunken around the cheeks and eyes. There were dark circles around his eyes. If Craven had to guess, he would say this man likely did not have many years left if he had a year at all.             The bar owner had already lived a long life for an average man in the wasteland. Between the patches of radiation, the sparse food, limited drinkable water, unusable soil, not to mention the fact that everything and everyone was trying to kill you… the average life expectancy was very short. Most people died in their twenties and those who did not only survived by sacrificing the lives of others. Craven had heard stories that people of the ancient cities had once live well into their eighties and some into their nineties, but frankly, he found those stories hard to believe. It was like believing in Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy.             “You did it,” the bar owner said with a toothless grin, his gravelly voice straining and cracking. “You got him,” the pleasure in his voice was eerie.             “I always get them,” Craven said. At twenty-one, he had never failed a mission. He always found what he was looking for and always completed the task he had set out to do. His father had taught him to track, as his father before him had done, and his father before him. Craven came from a long line of warriors and rogues. Mercenary was in his blood.              “You are a talented assassin,” the bar owner smiled, taking the pendant up in his bony fingers.             “Assassin is such a nasty term,” Craven said, turning up his nose.             “You prefer mercenary?” The man asked mockingly.             Craven rolled his eyes. “I prefer my pay,” he said, getting to the point.             “Don’t you even want to know why I wanted that bastard dead?” He asked, eyeing Craven carefully.             “Your reasons are your own and of no concern to me,” Craven said with impatience. It was a job and nothing more. No different than any other job he had taken during his short life. “What does concern me is my wage. If you do not wish to lose your head, you will quit wasting my time and pay me what was agreed,” Craven warned. He was not a patient man. He did not like to play games or chit-chat with low-lives.             The grin faded quickly from the bar owner’s face as he rose from his seat. Craven watched him shuffle behind his bar, squatting down to fish through the rubble and junk he kept back there. Craven looked around the bar at the other patrons seated at the crummy wooden tables constructed from the rubble of numerous other things, drinking grog and eating roasted… whatever the cook happened to catch in the trap that day. The room was filled with everything from travellers to locals, normals and mutants alike.             After the nuclear war some three hundred years ago, the face of the known world had changed. Most of the plants and trees had been destroyed, the soil had been rendered useless from poisons and radiation, and almost nothing would grow. A lot of the drinking water had been tainted. Most of the world’s animal and human populations were destroyed in the war. Those that were not lucky enough to die in the war soon died off from the radiation.             Overnight the world’s population had been reduced by ninety percent; a handful of survivors who were far enough from the initial blasts, who had found underground shelter, or had been exposed to limited radiation were all that remained. They survived and multiplied as normal human beings. Not everyone had been so lucky, though. Those who had been forced to live in high radiation areas, those who had not been able to find safe shelters to protect themselves from the ramifications of the blasts, or safe food to eat; those that were not lucky enough to die, suffered illnesses and genetic oddities… horrible mutations. With three hundred years of breeding of mutations, such oddities had become as vast and prominent as any race. Almost half the washstand’s population were mutants. More than seventy percent of the wasteland suffered radiation sickness, and more than eighty-five percent of those living in the wasteland was weak and starving to death.             Craven, however, was in a rare fifteen percentage. He was young, strong, and healthy, and above all, he was normal. A combination that was not unheard of but not often found. He had been raised in what had once been an ancient bomb shelter in a low radiation area of the Dead Forest. His parents had sacrificed many meals to see he was fed. Day by day, they grew thin while he grew strong. A parent’s loving sacrifice to be sure their son had a fighting chance in a dangerous world.             Craven could not wait to get moving again; he was not one for staying still for too long. These shantytowns were not often built in hotspots, but he still preferred to stay on the go. Being in one place for too long just led to problems. The wasteland was a lawless place filled with scoundrels and unscrupulous individuals. One had to watch their back or find a knife in it.             Craven glanced up at the prostitutes lined up along the rail of the second story, all making eyes at him calling out lewd and racy comments trying to win his business. A virile young man with all his own hair and teeth, Craven was aware he was considered a rare catch, without a doubt, a welcomed change from their usual customers. It was a collection of boney, thin, snow-white whores with bruises from their johns. He had in the past partaken in one or two, after all, men had needs, but he would pass tonight. These particular women looked sickly, and he would be afraid to break one.              “Here you go,” the owner said, placing a small brown sack on the top of the bar. “As agreed,” he said, grinning his sickly grin. Craven took the small sack and opening it. He took a look inside. Inside the sack, Craven found numerous small red gems and gold pieces. Mentally he made a quick visual count. “It is all there,” the man assured Craven.             “Of course, it is,” Craven smirked, knowing better than to trust anyone. He reached inside and took out one small gem to inspect the quality. He held it up to the light to examine the cut, the clarity, and the weight in his hand. Satisfied with his reward, he placed the gem back in the bag then tied the tiny pouch onto his belt. “I know you are too smart to double-cross me, Lector.”             “Of course, I would not. I adore you,” the bar owner grinned. “Stay and have a drink,” he offered, taking out a dirty, chipped clay mug. “Or perhaps one of my girls would suit you,” he offered. “Half price because I like you so much.”             Craven stood up, shaking his head. “Not even if you were paying me. I’m likely to catch something in this hell hole,” he snickered.             “Hey, I take offence to that.”             “You were supposed to,” Craven headed out of the bar stepping out into the blazing sun; the searing heat immediately burnt his skin. Craven pulled the hood of his cloak up, shielding his face from the harsh sun. He started walking through the center of town, his eyes on all the busy merchants trying to make it through the day. He found one who had lugged in drinkable water from someplace else and was selling it to the masses for a tidy profit. Craven stood at the cart, paying the man a ruby to refill the three canteens he carried with him.             As he was waiting for the man’s wife to fill his canteens, Craven could not help but notice the woman standing next to him. Like him, she was shrouded beneath a heavy grey cloak meant to protect her from the blazing sun above. A bow and a quiver of arrows were slung over her shoulder. She was an archer, which was very odd for a woman. She was small, extremely petite from what he could tell beneath that heavy cloak.             He watched as she reached out, accepting a filled canteen from the merchant thanking him. Craven noticed a thickness to her arm. She was thin, yes, but clearly well-fed, and her skin was bronzed from the scorching sun. She must spend much of her time outdoors. The woman tucked her canteen away under her cloak then turned so suddenly she bumped right into him, knocking Craven back a half step.             Both their hands came up to grab on to one another. Hers to balance herself and his to stop her from falling. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” she apologized, her voice was lyrical, soft and beautiful. She looked up, and her gaze met his. Craven had a full unobstructed view of her beauty. A classic oval-shaped face with a small perky nose and full red lips. She had big doe eyes; they were an amazing soft grey like fog on the water. Beneath her hood was a wild mane of thick golden hair pulled back in a loose braid that fell and rested over her right shoulder.             Beneath her cloak, she was dressed in cut off light blue jean shorts and a dark, heavy grey wool shirt with long sleeves that did not come lower than her narrow waist. He could still see a hint of her flat firm belly beneath it. Over her shirt, she wore a tanned leather armour vest and a thick tanned leather weapons belt around her hips. Hanging from it was a sword, a hunting knife, and two pistols.             She wore heavy boots like anyone else who was accustomed to travelling great distances. She was a nomad, he realized, someone that lived off the road and kept moving like him. She was young, maybe eighteen, old enough to be on one’s own in the wasteland. She was very pretty, which for her, was dangerous. A healthy young beautiful woman would catch a hefty sum on the slave market. A lesser man would follow her out of town and jump her. His eyes drifted to the sawed-off shotgun holstered to her thigh. Then again, she seemed well protected, which could explain her freedom.             “Excuse me,” she said, offering him a disarming smile before pushing passed him.            Craven returned his attention to the merchant’s homely wife, who leaned over the cart to hand him his canteens, a cheeky grin on her pasty face. “I would check my pockets if I were you, love, I think you might be a bit light,” she giggled knowingly.             Craven tied his canteens to his belt and patted himself down quickly, his hands stopping over his jeans. His sack of rubies was gone. Craven spun around to see the girl with the arrows darting quickly in between the people in the crowded street. She had lifted his pay that dirty little pickpocket. Craven took off after her as she bobbed and weaved through the crowd.             He would have yelled for someone to stop the thief, but in this lawless wasteland, the likelihood of anyone bothering to help him apprehend her was slim. She was fast, quick on her feet and sure-footed. Craven watched her ran up a stack of barrels, over the flimsy tin roof of a shack, and drop down over the clay wall cutting her off from his sight.             Craven was not about to give up so easily. He jumped up on the barrels and climbed onto the roof, then leapt over the wall landing hard on his feet on the other side. There were people everywhere in every direction. Merchants and whores, travellers and hunters selling their catches. He looked in every direction, trying to spot the pretty little thief that had pilfered his pocket, but she had eluded him. She was quick; he would grant her that. If he had caught her, he would have rung that pretty little neck.             Accepting his defeat, Craven cursed under his breath and started walking. He was broke once more and would need to hunt his dinner. Craven headed for the edge of town. He was not going to stay here. He could not afford a bed, and if he slept in the street, he was likely to lose more than his purse.