It's Better This Way (10 page)
*****
“Are you sure this is still the best plan?” Mom asks me as I strap on the survival pack.
“It’s really the only plan. They’ll send someone looking for Hardaway and his crew soon enough when he doesn’t come back. Better that we show up pretending to be a big group of recruits and gut the place from the inside than test whether or not everything we were told was true about their defenses,” I reassure her.
“How come you have to go?” she asks, adjusting the straps on my pack.
“Because it’s my plan? I don’t know. I just do.”
“You still think you’ll find her, don’t you?” she asks in a low voice.
“Look, Mom—”
“My God, Evan, please stop calling me that if you’re going to share my bed. It’s just creepy.”
“Look,
Jenna
,” I say, emphasizing that I know her birth name just fine.
I decide to not attempt again to explain to her that calling her ‘Mom’ is just a habit that probably won’t go away. Besides, she’s almost twenty years older than me.
“I have to know. Or at least find out. I don’t even remember what she looks like anymore, and I can’t imagine what she would look like twenty-three years later if she was alive. The last pictures of her were in my email.”
“I’m sorry, Evan,” she says, putting a hand up to cup my cheek. “I know it’s important to you, but you are important to me. I don’t want to see you hurt. To be honest, I don’t want to be hurt again.”
I knew what she meant. She’d stopped taking long-term lovers over ten years ago when Tremaine had been killed. As far as she was concerned, I was heading into the same territory as Tremaine, with my rushing off to destroy the evil-doers. She’d kept a steady string of lovers all that time, but that was her right. No one questioned her sexual appetite any more than they questioned anyone else’s, even though the rumors might suggest otherwise. She wanted me to be safe, at her side, in her arms. I wanted the same thing, but I had one last search to make, along with an even more important task to perform.
“It’s okay,” I say, leaning in and giving her lips a quick brush with mine. “I’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.” I give her a smile, and she returns it, but a tear falls down one cheek. “I have to go, the troops are waiting for me,” I say, brushing away the tear.
She hugs me tightly, almost making us fall down because of the weird balance of my pack and her hanging from me at the same time. “Be careful, and come home safely. Bring everyone home safely.”
I walk out of the main house and see the volunteers who are going with me. Over seven hundred of our four thousand members are going. Even against five hundred we’d be an unstoppable force, but against half that number, and with them thinking we are all recruits that Colonel Hardaway has given the rallying speech to, it seems almost too easy. Ellie runs up and gives my legs and midsection a hug. Branda hangs back, giving me a small wave. She knows about Mom. Jenna, I mean. It isn’t pleasant to see how hurt she is about it. I can’t think about that now, though. We have a long march through the cold and the snow ahead of us.
“Ready?” I ask my crew with a shout.
I’m answered with a few hundred clicks of heels being brought together and another couple of hundred slaps of hands on rifles. I smile.
“Forward march!”
It’s Harder This Way - available Q3 2014
It’s Better This Way
By Travis Hill
Copyright 2013
Cover art by: Cheryl @ CCR Book Cover Design
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Dedication:
This story is dedicated to Jackie, Junior, Missy, The Dude, and Daisy. Yes, I have five cats. Yes, I’m an old cat woman. Except I’m not a woman. But I’m an old cat woman.
ISBN-13: 978-1491219812
ISBN-10: 1491219815
Character Page
MAIN CHARACTERS
Evan Greggs - main char (38)
Tony Galliardi - Evan’s scout partner (40-ish?)
Mom (Jenna White) - owner of the Farm (56)
Jerry Glavin - council (61)
Deena Samuels - council (wife of Dana) (37)
Dana Samuels - council (wife of Deena) (33)
Mitch Duncan - council (51)
Ben Valera (Benny) - council (30)
Kim So - council (?? Looks 25, probably 50+)
Thad Danvers - council (husband of Walter) (47)
Walter Danvers - council (husband of Thad) (43)
Heika Ramsel - council (70)
Branda Hager - Evan’s sometimes-girlfriend (28)
Ellie Hager - Branda’s 8 year old daughter (8)
Colonel Eric Hardaway (50) - US Army
Sergeant Waters (34) - US Army
Corporal Charles Hackett (26) - US Army - bookish/nerdy
Corporal David Hamida (31) - US Army - Former citizen of the Farm
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Arn - interior gate guard (40) - dated Tony Galliardi previously
Kenny - interior gate guard (37)
Dane Bodeker - Evan’s friend (36)
Dredge - blacksmith (?? No one knows, looks anywhere from late 20’s to early 40’s)
BORING AUTHOR STUFF GOES HERE
I do feel guilty that I didn’t write any more. That I haven’t written more since. This was intentionally written as a stand-alone story, and I immediately moved on to other books, not really expecting anyone to read, let alone like this little story. Though readers have clamored for more of this universe since the beginning, it wasn’t until I received a review that claimed this story is up there with Hugh Howey’s “Wool,” that I decided it was time to get going on a sequel.
(I know, I know. Before you scoff, and trust me I scoffed A LOT when I read it… okay I actually squealed like a forty year old girl because Hugh Howey is to me and a ton of other self-published authors, kind of like Justin Beiber is to tweenage girls. I do not in any way, shape, or form, believe I am on the same level as Hugh Howey. I have many more mountains made out of vanquished author skulls to climb before I can even see him on the horizon.)
I’m about to write both a prequel and a sequel to “It’s Better This Way.” They’ll be just as dark and morally vague as this book is, but that’s what happens in a post-apocalyptic world. One story will be the first year after Evan escapes from Boise, to right around the time he arrives in Corvallis to try and find his sister. The other is the story of Tremaine, and how all that nasty business with the crazy, religious husband and wife team came about. And was settled.
One last thing I’d like to mention, if it wasn’t obvious, is that I’m a huge supporter of the LGBTQ community. My stories always seem to end up having someone or multiple someones that are LGBTQ. I’m not trying to preach, I just write what I know, which is rule #1 according to every author ever, and what I know is that LGBTQ persons are part of my everyday life. I’m related to a few, I’m friends with a lot more, and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner we get beyond arguing whether it is a choice or not (hint: it isn’t), the sooner we can focus on things like building spaceships that will take us to new star systems. I’m a firm believer that we cannot achieve a feat that requires the resources of an entire planet, an entire species, to be able to travel the stars, until we learn to live together and stop being assholes to each other (me included).
If you disagree, well, come tell me about it at
www.angrygames.com
. Or email me:
[email protected] / [email protected]
I reply to every email, even if the email contains enough hate and venom to make my head explode as if vaporized by a bull weapon.
If you liked this story and want to see what other stories I have that you might like (go ahead, get the samples, I’m all for getting samples before I spend money), then have a visit here:
www.amazon.com/author/travishill
(I’m also available at Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, you get the idea)
If you are one of those twitter persons I keep hearing about, I am:
@Angry_Games
.
If you are on Facebook… well, I actually don’t like Facebook all that much. But… I suppose I have to have some Facebook in my life:
http://www.facebook.com/angryauthor
Thank you!
Travis Hill
May 17, 2013
November 13, 2013
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
The main reason I am able to have this page at the back of a book I have written is because of my wife Carly. She has supported and encouraged me the entire way. She’s my true BFF. And she wants to call most of the stories I write “REVENGE FIST” (probably in all-caps as well). I politely inform her each time that while the title is supremely awesome, and that I love her very much, it probably doesn’t fit
Cherise Kelley, my first professional editor… thank you. And if any readers find errors, I’m sending them to do donuts on your lawn with their cars while shouting at you with a bullhorn.
Janifer Anderson, Brandi Hedden, Kendall Nellis, Kathy Estridge, and the entire Tonight Show Band. These people actually read this story and gave me feedback (or just didn’t tell me it was awful), and Jan gave me great editing help. We are now BFF’s forever.
Jeremy Irons, Brenda Larsen, and Priscilla Bingham, three of my professors at the College of Southern Idaho, for kind of forcing me to write for a living. You three knew I would be terrible at everything else, and you were right!
My brother for not smashing a brick into the back of my head late at night when I’m writing while I have my noise-canceling earbuds in and I’m almost too tempting of a target. I know he thinks about it sometimes. He’s my brother. That’s what brothers do.
Jeff Johnson for listening to me babble like an idiot about ‘how awesome this new story I’m writing is!’ almost every night.
Killswitch Engage and DevilDriver. I rarely listen to anything else when writing. PLEASE come to Boise, Idaho one day. I might be the only one that shows up to the concert, but I’ll pay for at least four tickets if that will help.
And finally, Amazon for the Kindle, and furthering the popularity of the e-reader and e-book revolution. I still love my dead tree books, but these days, my Kindle gets all the coffee stains, jelly smudges, and cookie crumbs. No doubt my books are happy to get a break from my inability to read them without nearly ruining them in some way.