ARMOR [New World Book 2]

NEW
WORLD

BOOK
2:

ARMOR

by

C.
L. Scholey

TORRID
BOOKS

www.torridbooks.com

 
Published by

TORRID BOOKS

www.torridbooks.com

An Imprint of Whiskey Creek Press LLC

Whiskey Creek Press

PO Box 51052

Casper, WY 82605-1052

Copyright
Ó
2012 by
C. L.
Scholey

Warning:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without
monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five)
years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Names,
characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

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, without permission in writing from
the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-
61160
-181-7

Credits

Cover Artist:Gemini Judson

Editor: Melanie Billings

Printed in the United States of America

Other
Books by Author Available at Torrid Books:

www.torridbooks.com

New World Book 1: Shield

D
edication

For
friends who lost the battle,

you
are gone but not forgotten.

For
friends who battle,

your
courage is your armor.

Prologue

“It’s too dangerous, Amy.”

Amy could see the underlying
terror in the woman’s face before her though she tried to act strong. Her
friend’s dark blue eyes were filled with worry. Amy watched as she lifted a
finger to tuck back a mop of tangled red hair from her face. A quick squeeze of
her friend’s hand for reassurance was all Amy could offer. Both women knew it
didn’t matter that Amy’s mission was dangerous, she had no other choice. The
others in the cave were close to starvation. Amy was the strongest, pitiful as
it seemed to her.

“It’ll be fine, Meg,” Amy
reassured her. She cast a quick glance around to check the perimeters of her
vision as was habit. Dangers always lurked in the shadows when they least
expected it. “I’ll be in and out of the men’s camp before they know what hit
them.”

“If they catch you…”

“They won’t,” Amy was quick
to say. She repressed a shudder of fear. Both women knew what would happen if
Amy was caught. Death would be a pleasant alternative.

Amy looked up at the sky. It
was a rare night to catch a glimpse of not only one star but two. The meteors
burned so much of the Earth the atmosphere was cloudy with a constant smoky,
polluted haze. With the eruption of so many volcanoes, sometimes ash would fall
like snow to make them even more miserable. The fine layers of dust rose with
each step taken. Amy likened it to a death march every time she emerged from
their cave. Freezing rain at times dropped like gray paint. The water mixed
with the ash on the ground to form puddles of filth.

Without the sun’s ability to
shine through the murky fog it grew colder each passing day. The Earth was
there…and yet not. Like an open coffin displaying death. No one really had much
time, Amy even less. The year before the world fell apart she was diagnosed
with breast cancer. It had been a devastating blow to the then twenty-four-year-old.
Amy’s mother had died of the same disease ten years previous. Her mother had
found out too late.

With treatment, Amy would
have had a good chance—but not enough to get her to Ulsy. Only the healthy,
rich and young were given salvation on the new planet. Amy was deemed a lost
cause. Only a handful of doctors remained on Earth for a short period of time.
As fast as was possible all women of childbearing years had been tested and
shipped to Ulsy. Those who didn’t pass all the tests were turned away without
any kind of treatment. Surprisingly, Amy was still alive and kicking. She
assumed it was because of the six women and three children at her cave who had
depended on her for the last few months.

The biggest surprise was how
many men were left behind to die. Even the healthy and strong. To Amy it almost
appeared those on Ulsy were harvesting women for the new planet. She knew it
was an odd thought, but at the end the shuttles seemed only to be transporting
women. Earth had been left with a very angry group of men. The men seemed as
volatile as the meteors and just as explosive.

“It’s dark already,” Meg
said. She too looked up at the stars. Her expression was mournful. “Pretty soon
there won’t be any daylight left at all. We’ll be in perpetual darkness.”

“I know,” Amy said quietly,
there was no use in denying the obviousness of their bleak situation. “I better
go.”

“Come back to us,” Meg said
and hugged her.

That was how they always said
goodbye. There was no good in bye, just a sense of finality on a last journey,
so they stopped using the term long ago. Their goodbyes were reserved for the
dead. With a nod and a lopsided grin Amy made her way into the night. A
backward glance and she saw Meg disappear into the well-camouflaged cave. The
crevice to enter the cave was tight; it was hard for the women, all
malnourished, to squeeze through. They had to enter standing, with their
bellies squeezed taut, and breath held. No man would ever fit.

The forest before Amy was
quiet. It always was. It wasn’t in the beginning when Amy had first joined with
the other women and children. For a while during the day, a few birds would
chirp, now they were all gone. It had been well over a month since the last
bird had flown overhead. Silence during the day was scary, but the darkness was
far worse. At night in those first months there had been screaming and terror-filled
howls as a fight for life ensued. Death was everywhere. Animals hunted people,
men hunted the animals, and both man and beast hunted the vulnerable. Amy shuddered
with the thought.

People banded in packs for
safety. Unfortunately, it seemed to have turned into a gender war. Man against
woman as the food became scarce. Large carnivorous zoo animals that roamed free
were a constant threat. They never knew what waited around the next bend: man,
polar bear, gorilla or enraged elephant. Amy had tried to teach herself to
hunt. Most weapons were scarce; they had made their way to the new planet,
Ulsy, with the survivors deemed important enough to keep. With the discovery of
a planet that could sustain human life came the hope of salvation.

Shuttle after shuttle escaped
the Earth’s atmosphere in a race against time. Finally, time was up.
Earthquakes shattered the foundation of the planet. Sinkholes devoured entire cities.
Tsunamis hammered coast after coast claiming more land until half the planet
was submerged. To say the situation was capricious was laughable. The last
shuttles had ceased to travel back from their new home as Earth fell apart.
Earth was on its own. Only a handful of survivors were left out of the
billions. Because of her cancer, Amy wasn’t given a shuttle pass. She had been
sentenced to death on hell as far as she was concerned. It was almost laughable
her cancer had become second to her worries. In a pool of new unforeseen
lotteries there was a likelihood she could be consumed by a tiger first.
Talk
about your food for thought.

Amy had tried her best to
learn to hunt. Her ability with a bow and arrow were pathetic. She couldn’t
throw a spear to save her life; her arms just weren’t strong enough to
penetrate a hide. She had been reduced to thievery. It was a dangerous game of
survival stealing from desperate, cruel men. The women were given no choice. In
the beginning, the men would offer food for sex. It was like a game to them. As
the food dwindled and reality set in that things would never get better, the
men offered nothing and took what they wanted. Vast cruelty roamed the Earth.
No one stopped them.

Amy and the others hid in
their cave during the day and roamed when they could at night. Lately the
others had stopped roaming, stopped caring. They were a sad sorry lot,
abandoned by their own race. Amy just couldn’t give up, it wasn’t in her
nature.

Determinedly she made her way
across the vast expanse of decaying foliage. The Earth had a new
odor—decomposition—it reeked with it. Long gone were the sweet smells of the
lilac bush. Amy hadn’t seen a flower bloom in a year. Looking up into the
withering height of the trees was a mistake. They looked like skeletons cast
against a gray sky. Their long bone-like limbs were bare of leaves. They swayed
eerily in a death dance as the wind moaned between them. A chill shook Amy’s
entire body and she wrapped her arms across her breasts. Her entire world was
gray.

Around her feet were tied
rags that made barely a sound on the crumbling forest floor. The rubber soles
of sneakers burnt out long ago on the charred ground and left a telltale
stench. With many layers of cloth she could add to it or replace it—no smell, and
a lot quieter for thievery. Her body was layered in tattered clothes for
warmth. Lately there had been no such thing as warmth. The fire at night in the
cave took the chill off but no more. The brackish water found in puddles or
muddy streams was forever boiling over the small flames for drinking in
battered tin cans. When desperate, which was often enough, they hung many
plastic bags on the bare limbs hoping the rain would fill at least a few.

Amy couldn’t remember her
last real bath. The streams that still ran were frigid. Dunking her head and
becoming soaked was a sure road to pneumonia. Amy wondered why they bothered.
Life was an empty shell. The perpetual glass wasn’t half-full or half-empty;
out here the glass didn’t even exist. As her shoulders slouched she gave
herself a good shake.

“Now none of that,” she
commanded herself aloud. “Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t consider
yourself smelly. Just look at it like blending in. A great camouflage. You will
find food tonight and let tomorrow take care of itself.”

The soft cloth on her feet
felt the stones and sticks beneath but she trudged on. Her destination was soon
in sight. The rocks were slick when she eased herself over to a pile of
structured debris. The men’s fortress was surrounded by a five-foot-high thick
wall of timber and small boulders. It resembled organized chaos. Four fires
burned brightly in the center of a well-defined circle. Amy could hear the men
talking and laughing. They had no need to be unseen. They were the predators. Normally
they posted a sentry, but not tonight. Tonight they seemed particularly rowdy.
Amy hoped they didn’t have a woman; she wasn’t on a rescue mission. They
couldn’t afford to take in any more stragglers.

A gust of wind and Amy’s nose
tingled with the scent of cooking meat.
Ah, that’s why they’re
so
happy
. Amy shimmied over a log and then crawled under another. She pressed
herself into the ground. It was a tight fit even though she was thin from lack
of food. Her hands rested under her chin, with her head tilted to the side and
for a moment she just lay there breathing in the smell of venison. If she
closed her eyes she knew she would envision her father in their smokehouse
making jerky. Amy kept her eyes open. She had no time for sentiment—her father
had died too; he had perished in a landslide.

A large man near the first
fire was on his haunches cutting a huge chunk off the hindquarters of the
animal. Amy swallowed hard when his teeth sank into the portion he held and he
groaned his delight with exaggerated chews. Juices dripped from his ratty
beard-covered chin to splash against his grubby shirt collar.

Amy licked her lips; her
mouth watered, filling with saliva. She wanted that meat. Her eyes darted
around the area. She had been here before but never this close. Only lately was
any attempt to steal from the men done near their domain. It couldn’t be
helped. The men had thought the women were weak and so they only traveled in
pairs to hunt. They hadn’t counted on desperate women in a group of seven knocking
them on their asses and taking their kills. Soon enough the men had smartened
up and though a blow to their egos, they hunted in larger packs of nine and
ten.

Food for Amy and her cave had
been almost nonexistent for three days now. It was dangerous to travel too far
from the cave but the immediate area was expunged of edible items. She was
starving, desperate and willing to risk her life for her sake as well as her
companions. Amy scooted backwards and roamed carefully around to a darker side
of the circle. She would need to get in and out in a hurry. A small round stone
settled into her slingshot from her back left pocket. Once it flew, there would
be no turning back.

Taking a deep breath and
muttering a few words to herself for encouragement, Amy chose the largest man
inside the circle. He strutted about like a cock and a blow to his ego would
send everyone scattering. A thumb and forefinger pulled back on the thick
rubber band and she let the rock sail. The large man howled in surprised pain
when the stone struck him behind the ear. His food dropped to the ground. He
was bellowing out orders. The men were in motion. Quick as a shadow in the night,
Amy was back under the tight-fitting log, hiding. The men were scrambling over
the high fence in their haste to get to where the shot had been fired. Amy held
her breath. Her hiding spot was close to the food and the huge hunk the man had
dropped was almost within her reach.

With steely determination Amy
made her move. A quick roll, once, twice, then she grabbed the meat and rolled
back. Her face buried into her prize the second she was undercover. Great
mouthfuls disappeared past her lips and were barely chewed before she gulped it
down. The men were still raging all around her while she stuffed her face as fast
as she could. If she wasn’t careful they would smell the food if they came too
close to her. She choked it down her throat. The men’s blundering fury-filled
steps made it easy to keep track of them. When Amy finished her meal and licked
her fingers clean, she inched her way out of her hiding spot. The men were
shouting back and forth but were now listening and unmoving.

Feeling rejuvenated, Amy once
again plucked her slingshot from her back pocket and took aim with a rock from
her jacket. The man she was aiming for was farther than she wanted but she had
to get them moving back in the other direction. She took aim. Her shot fell
short but it rebounded off a tree and struck another man in the groin. Down he
went with a howl gripping the family jewels as if someone was about to pluck
them from him. Amy giggled at the sight then quickly covered her mouth. She
dove back under her hiding place.

The men were again on another
wild goose chase. Amy had her knife ready. She rolled out from under cover and
was soon on her knees sawing into the haunch of meat. It was almost searing hot
where she gripped it. She was fast. Two quick jagged cuts and she had enough to
feed her group for two days. She dropped to her side and rolled. Before she
made it to her hiding spot she was stopped. Amy screamed when she was hauled up
by her short hair. The meat and her knife were ripped from her hands.