Mountain Man - 01 (34 page)

Gus shot them both, tapping each in the head with final kill shots as he looked around the corner. He walked around the house, looking for targets. He found out one of the men he had killed through the bedroom window had been a woman. A brunette wearing a toque. A shotgun lay just out of reach of her fingers. He found four other women and wondered how the hell they had gotten caught up in such a pack of raiders.

Feeling the energy leave him, he wandered around the house, seeing where they had peppered the exterior with shot. They had chopped off the doorknob to force entry through the second doorway. He circled back around, coming from the direction of the mountain and the wind generator. None of the solar panels were damaged, thankfully. All in all, the damage was mostly structural, with the odd broken window. Not as bad as it could have been. He figured the house had been important to the attackers. Of course it would be. The place was a gold mine, especially with winter coming.

Gus came full circle to the sliding doors and eased himself back inside the house. There, sitting up against the railing and facing him, was the football player. He snarled when he saw Gus, and Gus kept his gun on him. The man breathed weakly, and blood smears marked the hardwood floor where he had pulled himself across it. The bodies of the rest of the pack were sprinkled around, unmoving and quiet.

“Fucker,” the big man said, and then coughed.

Gus stepped up to him and reached out. He removed the hockey helmet from the guy’s head and placed the barrel of the Ruger against his shaven skull, just above his eyes.

The football player followed the weapon until it made contact with his forehead, then he closed his eyes for a moment, and made no move.

The aches slowly crept back into Gus, and he stood with the pistol ready, watching his target’s pained expression. Gus thought about asking him who they were, and what Roxanne had been to them. He thought about asking if there were any more of them out there or in the city below.

In the end, he didn’t ask anything.

In the end, he shot the football player between the eyes, the blow-through spattering the steps.

Gus stood and listened for a bit, noting the rising of the wind coming through the house, and felt cold. He inspected himself and found that nothing had hit him. Not one goddamn thing.
Superior firepower
flashed faintly in his head, and he rapped the barrel of the Ruger on the side of his helmet. Thinking about his hand, he stuck one out in front of him and inspected it.

Surprisingly steady.

Gus walked through the main level of the house, upstairs and down, but didn’t find anyone else. The place was going to need paint and some screen doors. That thought made him smile. Tomorrow. He’d get at it tomorrow. He’d repair and seal the house once again before the temperature really took a dive. He shambled into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. Smiling grimly, he pulled out a new bottle of Uncle Jack and eased off his helmet. It still hurt. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his beard. He didn’t care. He opened the bottle and looked at it at arm’s length.

“I knew your brother,” he muttered, hearing how his missing teeth affected his speech, and took two scalding swallows.

When he opened his eyes and turned around, the Captain smiled at him.

“Saucy bastard.”

Noting that his ribs were killing him, he stepped over to the sofa and sat down heavily. He placed the Ruger in his lap and nursed the bottle of Jack Daniels. After another shot, Gus looked toward the sliding door and the sunshine blazing in. He knew that if he went there and looked out, Roxanne would be lying on the deck where he had left her, and a small part of him wished she was still alive.

Smacking his lips, Gus didn’t know if there were any raiders remaining in the house. He thought that, if there were any left alive, he’d just sit and drink and wait to see if they came to him.

If they had the balls.

There, in his living room, the mountain man took shallow breaths and drank at leisure, listening to the weary moan of the wind.

Two days later, the red SUV slowed to a stop on the highway, the tailgates blazing in the drifts swirling around its base, hiding the wheels and making the vehicle appear as if it were hovering. The sun was up there somewhere, out-muscled by a brooding low pressure system that coated everything in freezing white. The weather had come early, much earlier than Scott had expected, and he supposed that the best place to be, if anywhere, would be in a town somewhere. He regarded the long white lick of pavement curving away around a shadowy fence of trees. He’d decided to head down to Halifax. Something had nagged him about the smaller town of Windsor, something that had hooked his subconscious and wouldn’t let go. He checked it out, taking a couple of days to sufficiently explore it, but only found undead lumbering about as if trying to escape the cold. He suspected that Halifax might indeed be the place for a killer like Tenner, and thought he was wasting time with the smaller towns.

Looking out at the drifting snow drifting, Scott sighed, reflecting on the path he had chosen. An image of Gus popped into his mind. He wished the mountain man well, but didn’t think he’d ever see him again. His was no longer a life of scavenging off the old world, and he didn’t know how long Gus and Roxanne would be able to do it. He couldn’t. Even before the world went into the shitter, he had been restless. That was one thing that could be said for the present day. It gave freedom to do whatever one liked, whenever.

But what a cost.

A gust of snow blew against his window, rasping it with a moan. Scott checked his blind spot. Nothing. He was still the only one out in this frigid shit. Gus had been right about that. The winter slowed them down. It didn’t kill them, but the cold affected them enough that a person knew some deadhead wouldn’t be running up from nowhere to pounce. He looked at the lit-up dashboard and figured it was time to get on.

Halifax called.

And he was going to see what it wanted.

One Month Earlier

Tenner slowed the black SUV at the city limit marker for Halifax before finally stopping at a green sign welcoming visitors to the coastal metropolis. Beyond the signboard, the dilapidated husk of the city appeared as a great dark shadow under the cloud-filled sky. Houses with their windows smashed out lined the highway leading into the city. Cars of all models littered the highway like poisoned metallic corpses.

Tenner got out of the hybrid and pulled his winter coat closer around him. He gazed toward the flat mirror of the sea and watched seagulls coast across the sky. They were the only animals he’d seen in a while, and he took a moment to appreciate them.

After a few moments, he turned his attention to the Welcome to Halifax sign. He didn’t like the sign. It was behind the times. Tenner shook his head and proceeded to the back of his SUV. He popped the rear door and rummaged through his supplies. He stepped away from his ride, shaking the can of spray paint, and walked over to the sign. Tenner paused for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek, before spray painting the necessary adjustment. Once finished, he took a step back and inspected his work.

There
, he thought.
That’s more like it.

Welcome to Hellifax.

He smirked at his own wit. The new wording meant everything to him. The old town was about to meet the new mayor.

Thoughts whirling and expectations high, he got aboard his vehicle and drove deep into the gloomy halls of the downtown area.

Intent on raising hell.

Enjoy the story? Want to read more from Keith C. Blackmore? Check out these titles:

The Missing Boatman (horror)

Cauldron Gristle (horror)

The Bear That Fell From The Stars (science fiction fantasy)

The Troll Hunter (heroic fantasy)

131 Days (heroic fantasy)

Coming soon
: White Sand, Red Steel (heroic fantasy)

And be sure to check out
www.keithcblackmore.com
for news on new releases, blog thoughts, reviews, and guest authors.

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Mountain Man
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