Hooded Man
AN OMNIBUS OF POST-APOCALYPTIC NOVELS
HOODED
MAN
PAUL KANE
ABADDONBOOKS.COM
An Abaddon Books™ Publication
www.abaddonbooks.com
This omnibus published in 2013 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.
Editor-in Chief: Jonathan Oliver
Commissioning Editor: David Moore
Cover Art: Mark Harrison
Original Series Cover Art: Mark Harrison
Design: Simon Parr
Marketing and PR: Michael Molcher
Publishing Manager: Ben Smith
Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley
Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley
The Afterblight Chronicles™ created by Simon Spurrier & Andy Boot
Arrowhead
copyright © 2008 Rebellion.
Broken Arrow
copyright © 2009 Rebellion.
‘Servitor’ copyright © 2009 Rebellion.
‘Signs and Portents’ copyright © 2009 Rebellion.
‘Perfect Presents’ copyright © 2009 Rebellion.
Arrowland
copyright © 2010 Rebellion.
All rights reserved.
The Afterblight Chronicles™, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.
ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-576-6
ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-577-3
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
The Afterblight Chronicles Series
O
MNIBUS
E
DITIONS
America
School’s Out Forever
Hooded Man
I
NDIVIDUAL
T
ITLES
The Culled
by Simon Spurrier
Kill Or Cure
by Rebecca Levene
Dawn Over Doomsday
by Jasper Bark
Death Got No Mercy
by Al Ewing
Blood Ocean
by Weston Ochse
Arrowhead
Broken Arrow
Arrowland
by Paul Kane
School’s Out
Operation Motherland
Children’s Crusade
by Scott K. Andrews
CONTENTS
Introduction
by Jonathan Oliver
The Chronology of
The Afterblight Chronicles
INTRODUCTION
A
S MUCH AS
The Afterblight Chronicles
are a series of action-packed novels set in the aftermath of the apocalypse, as much as they are about cultists with guns, heroes with attitude and epic journeys across the wastelands of a world gone to hell, they are also about legends.
For in the ashes of Earth, new legends will be born, as those who have survived seek to put back together the broken pieces.
But what we have here is not only a legend, he is a legend reborn.
I’m from Robin Hood country myself, having been born and raised in Nottingham, so I’m somewhat familiar with the stories of the Hooded Man and his coterie of rogues. So when Paul Kane, a writer whose work I was familiar with from horror fandom, came to me with the idea of a post-apocalyptic Robin Hood, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Paul has steeped himself in the myths and legends of Sherwood, but what he gives us here is a fresh take on a familiar figure. He reminds us why certain legends endure and his novels in the series speak about the need for heroes, and what heroes are, in a way that raises this trilogy above your run-of-the-mill action adventure.
That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of thrilling escapes, frantic gun-play and brilliantly-executed set pieces within these pages, there’s lots and lots of that. But Robert is far more than a hero that tackles violence with violence – at the heart of his crusade is a desire for justice and fairness to return to a wrecked society.
So these then are the new legends of the Hooded Man, a hero for the end-times.
Jonathan Oliver
Oxford, March 2013
For Mum and Dad who helped me find my path through the forest, and for my darling Marie who coaxed me out of it.
The spirit of Robin Hood
Lives forever in Sherwood Forest
And in the hearts of those who seek him...
CHAPTER ONE
T
HE ARROWHEAD EMBEDDED
itself in the wall just millimetres from his left temple.
Thomas Hinckerman had screwed up his eyes as the crossbow was raised, flinching only slightly when he heard the impact; in one way relieved to still be alive, in another wishing this ordeal would be over soon, one way or the other. The apple on top of his head wobbled slightly. There was a wetness running down his face; he assumed it was sweat. But when he opened his eyes and looked down – carefully, so as not to dislodge the fruit he was balancing – he saw the spots of red on the floor. The bolt had nicked his skin...
And seconds later there was pain.
Not that he could feel it much – this latest wound paled into insignificance compared with his others: the bullet hole in his shoulder, for example, the fingernails dangling off, pulled with pliers, the missing teeth, or how about the cigar burns on his stomach? Still, he’d fared better than Gary and Dan. Their bodies were still cooling on the floor near the entrance to the station.
It had been his idea initially, taken from those stories of refugees trying to enter Britain simply by walking, long before the virus came and took its toll. Before the Cull. Back then, those people had wanted in, but now it seemed like a much better idea to get out of the country before things grew even worse.
Thomas suggested it to Gary, a former scrap metal dealer, and Dan, who used to be a butcher, who both felt the same. He’d met them at the local impromptu meetings early in the Cull, when everyone was still trying to figure out what could be done about their loved ones, their neighbours, those who were dying all around them. They weren’t the kind of folk Thomas would have mixed with before all this, not the sort of men you’d see hanging out at the library where he had worked. But fate had thrown them together, and they’d stuck like glue: through all the madness that had followed.
Now they were dead. Just like he would be soon. Thomas was under no illusions about that, not after he’d seen them murdered in cold blood. His last memories of the men he’d trekked thirty-one miles with, sharing adversities he never would have thought possible, were Dan’s brains exploding all over his own shirt, feet still twitching as he hit the ground, and Gary dancing like a puppet as he was riddled with bullets from a machine gun.
The three of them had emerged from the tunnel and into the station at Calais that morning, their torches almost out of batteries, supplies exhausted a day ago, glad to be free, glad to be back above ground. They’d passed dormant trains, their yellow noses rusting, glass at the front smashed. They’d seen no one, not until they reached the station. There Gary spotted a lone figure sitting on one of the benches inside the foyer.
They must have been watching from the start, though. As the trio walked over to make contact, Dan was already dropping, a bullet coming out of nowhere to blow half his head away. And then the other men emerged – a half dozen or more, heavily-armed; one with silver hair carrying what looked like a sniper’s rifle. That’s when they’d pulled Gary’s strings...
They’d been waiting, too, he found out. Waiting for someone like him to come. Thomas had been left alive – just clipped with a bullet – to tell them what he knew.
He was dragged to his feet by two men, one with a paunch, the other smoking a cigar. Their leader wasn’t a huge man, but carried himself well. He had the air of someone much larger. He was dressed in grey and black combats, and was wearing sunglasses. When he took them off and stared into Thomas’s face, he saw that the man’s eyes were just as black as his glasses. There were jewelled rings on most of his fingers. He spoke with a French accent, and his first question was: “Are you in pain, Englishman?” When Thomas nodded, the man smiled with teeth as yellow as the noses of those trains. Then he stuck two of his ringed fingers into the hole in Thomas’s shoulder. His whole body jerked, but he was held tightly by the men on either side.