David L. Robbins - Endworld 03 - Twin Cities Run.pdf

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Twin Cities Run by
David Robbins
OUR STORY SO FAR …
It's one hundred years after World War III.
There are survivors.
Before the inevitable came to pass, a wealthy filmmaker named Kurt
Carpenter established a survivalist retreat in northwestern Minnesota,
near Lake Bronson State Park. Carpenter planned wisely, providing ample
provisions for the Home, as he dubbed the site, and detailed instructions
for his followers, the ones he called his beloved Family. One of those
instructions: to protect themselves, the members of the Family should not
attempt to contact the outside world until it became absolutely necessary.
It's necessary.
A form of premature senility is affecting Family members. The current
Leader, wise Plato, decides to send one of the Warrior Triads out on a
dangerous mission. Using the SEAL, a prototype vehicle Carpenter spent
millions developing before the war, the Warriors must travel to the Twin
Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and attempt to find certain scientific
and medical equipment and supplies.
Life after World War III has done a radioactive flip-flop, and between
the radiation and the chemical weapons unleashed on the environment,
those still alive never know what to expect next. Menace is everywhere.
There are the clouds, mysterious green vaporous substances, appearing
out of nowhere, devouring all flesh in their path. Hordes of mutates roam
the land, deformed former mammals, reptiles, or amphibians, endowed
 
with ravenous appetites, attacking every living thing. Inexplicably, bizarre
strains of giantism have developed in select species. New threats arise
daily.
Before the Warriors can leave for the Twin Cities, the Home is
assaulted by the vicious, plundering Trolls. The conflict between the
Family and the Trolls is chronicled in The Endworld Series #1: The Fox
Run .
A month after the battle with the Trolls, three Warriors and another
Family member set out in the SEAL for the Twin Cities. They manage to
reach Thief River Falls, where their trip is abruptly curtailed by their
confrontation with the enigmatic Watchers and the deadly Brutes. This
adventure is related in The Endworld Series #2: The Thief River Falls
Run . The Family Warriors, and a woman they rescue, a resident of the
Twin Cities, are injured in their fight with the Watchers, and they elect to
return to the Home to recuperate before attempting to reach the Twin
Cities.
Which brings us to: The Endworld Series #3: The Twin Cities Run .
Chapter One
"Did you guys just hear something?"
The four men stopped their activities and listened for a moment.
"I didn't hear a thing," the lean gunman in buckskins replied. His blue
eyes twinkled as he grinned at the beautiful, muscular woman standing
next to their vehicle. "You must be getting jumpy in your young age!" He
placed his hands on the pearl grips to his Colt Pythons, one revolver in a
leather holster on each hip, and chuckled. "I knew you'd get antsy," he
stated, "the closer we got to Home."
"I ain't jumpy, White Meat!" the woman responded indignantly. "I
thought I heard something move in the woods."
"Did you hear anything, Geronimo?" the blond Warrior asked one of his
friends.
Geronimo, a superb hunter and tracker, and the only member of the
Family with any vestige of Indian blood in his veins, shook his head.
 
"Nope. Sure didn't. But I was talking to Blade." His dark hair swayed as he
turned his head, his brown eyes probing the surrounding forest.
Blade, the head of the Warrior unit known as Alpha Triad, rose from
his kneeling position by the fire he was preparing for their midday meal.
His massive muscles rippled in the sunlight, his brawny hands hovering
near his prized Bowie knives, as he faced the woman. "Are you positive you
heard something, Bertha?" he demanded.
The dusky woman nodded, her curly hair bobbing. "I'm a soldier with
the Nomads, remember? I know my business," she affirmed with
conviction.
Blade ran his left hand through his wavy dark hair, his gray eyes
scanning the nearby trees. It was possible Bertha was mistaken. After all,
she had spent her entire life in the Twin Cities, and she was not
accustomed to the outdoors and the normal sounds associated with the
creatures inhabiting the tall timber.
"I wish we were back at our Home," the fifth and final constituent of
their party said, a tall man with flowing brown hair and a beard and
moustache.
"We'll be there by tonight. Josh," vowed the gunman. He raised his
right hand and felt the stubble on his chin and the corners of his blond
handlebar moustache. "Good thing too. I can use a bath and a shave."
"You sure can, Hickok," Geronimo said.
Blade was still trying to detect movement in the nearest undergrowth.
Nothing. Bertha must be wrong. He could feel the burning sunlight
warming his naked chest, soothing his wounds. The run-in with the
Watchers and the Brutes had been costly. He still experienced sharp pain
every time he moved, both in the gaping tear in his right shoulder and the
bullet crease in his right side.
"You're not exactly a rose either, pard," Hickok commented to
Geronimo.
Blade smiled, wondering how Hickok was holding up, knowing the
Family's supreme gunfighter was in even worse shape, with a nasty gash
over his right eye, and four relatively minor bullet wounds: a nick on his
 
neck, a scrape on his left heel, a furrow along his left side, and a hole in the
fleshy part of his left shoulder, almost in the same spot where he had
sustained another gunshot during their struggle with the Trolls. If his
injuries were bothering him, Hickok was doing a superb job of disguising
the fact.
Bertha, the woman they'd saved from the Watchers, had also been hurt.
Her left arm was heavily bandaged, the legacy of a Brute's attempt to
consume her, to literally eat her alive. Bertha was wearing a baggy flannel
shirt, covering the bandage, and jeans confiscated from one of the dead
Watchers.
Geronimo, still attired in a green shirt and loose-fitting pants sewn
together from the remnants of an old tent, had received several bumps
and bruises, but nothing serious.
Of all of them, only the Empath, Joshua, was uninjured. He was
standing calmly at the rear of the transport, his hands folded in front of
his waist, serenely gazing at some white clouds on the far horizon. Even
his clothes, faded brown pants and a light blue shirt made from a
discarded sheet, were the least torn and worn. Joshua wore a large Latin
cross around his neck.
Blade lazily stretched, relishing the peace and quiet. He had taken a
pair of green fatigue pants from one of the larger Watchers, to replace his
ragged jeans. Like Hickok, Geronimo, and Joshua, he wore moccasins.
Bertha had placed new black boots, again from one of the vanquished
Watchers, on her scarred feet, toughened from years of going without
shoes. She had giggled when she placed the boots on, delighted at the
luxury.
"While you're getting the fire started," Hickok said, addressing Blade, "I
reckon I'm going to go water a tree."
"Water a tree?" Bertha repeated, puzzled.
"It's his quaint, if dumb, way of saying he's going to take a piss,"
Geronimo explained.
"I still can't get used to the way he talks sometimes," Bertha mentioned
as Hickok strolled off.
 
"He thinks he's talking like the real Wild Bill Hickok would," Geronimo
said, grinning. "Let's keep it as our little secret that he sounds like a jerk."
He winked at Bertha and she laughed.
Hickok had reached the line of trees and he glanced over his shoulder.
The SEAL, resembling for all the world the picture of a vehicle called a van
he had seen in an automotive book in the enormous Family library, was
parked in the center of Highway 59, or what was left of the roadway after
a century of neglect and pounding by the elements. If all went as planned,
after a quick repast, they would continue north until they hit Highway 11,
head east, and be at the Home by dark.
The vegetation at the side of the road was dense. Hickok pushed his
way through, searching for a suitable tree. While still a youngster, he had
developed a penchant for urinating on the biggest, tallest tree he could
find. The habit had become almost a ritual, his way of telling life to get
screwed for the bum steer he'd been handed. Why couldn't he have been
born before the Big Blast, before everything bit the dust?
Several chickadees were chirping nearby, and two flies buzzed around
his head as he approached his intended target.
Why, he wondered, was he suddenly peeing so frequently? Did it have
something to do with the constant bouncing around in the SEAL? Maybe
he should have the Healers check him over after they returned to Home.
Hickok reached the towering Northern Red oak he'd selected and
stared up into the branches high above his head. Had this particular tree
been standing before World War III? Would it still be here a hundred
years after he passed on to the higher worlds, as Plato referred to them?
What would it…
The chickadees abruptly ceased their singing, and the entire forest
went quiet.
Danger.
Something made a snorting sound, and before the gunman could react,
before he could even think about concealing himself, the terror of the
woods, the scourge of the land since the Big Blast, ambled around the
expansive trunk of the Northern Red oak and stopped four feet away.
 

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