The Day After Never - Covenant (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3) Read online

  The Day After Never

  Covenant

  Russell Blake

  Copyright © 2016 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact:

  [email protected]

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  Table of Contents

  Books by Russell Blake

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Excerpt from The Goddess Legacy

  Books by Russell Blake

  Co-authored with Clive Cussler

  THE EYE OF HEAVEN

  THE SOLOMON CURSE

  Thrillers

  FATAL EXCHANGE

  FATAL DECEPTION

  THE GERONIMO BREACH

  ZERO SUM

  THE DELPHI CHRONICLE TRILOGY

  THE VOYNICH CYPHER

  SILVER JUSTICE

  UPON A PALE HORSE

  DEADLY CALM

  RAMSEY’S GOLD

  EMERALD BUDDHA

  THE GODDESS LEGACY

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – BLOOD HONOR

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – PURGATORY ROAD

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – COVENANT

  The Assassin Series

  KING OF SWORDS

  NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN

  RETURN OF THE ASSASSIN

  REVENGE OF THE ASSASSIN

  BLOOD OF THE ASSASSIN

  REQUIEM FOR THE ASSASSIN

  RAGE OF THE ASSASSIN

  The JET Series

  JET

  JET II – BETRAYAL

  JET III – VENGEANCE

  JET IV – RECKONING

  JET V – LEGACY

  JET VI – JUSTICE

  JET VII – SANCTUARY

  JET VIII – SURVIVAL

  JET IX – ESCAPE

  JET X – INCARCERATION

  JET – OPS FILES (prequel)

  JET – OPS FILES; TERROR ALERT

  The BLACK Series

  BLACK

  BLACK IS BACK

  BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK

  BLACK TO REALITY

  BLACK IN THE BOX

  Non Fiction

  AN ANGEL WITH FUR

  HOW TO SELL A GAZILLION EBOOKS

  (while drunk, high or incarcerated)

  About the Author

  Featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Chicago Tribune, Russell Blake is The NY Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, including Fatal Exchange, Fatal Deception, The Geronimo Breach, Zero Sum, King of Swords, Night of the Assassin, Revenge of the Assassin, Return of the Assassin, Blood of the Assassin, Requiem for the Assassin, Rage of the Assassin The Delphi Chronicle trilogy, The Voynich Cypher, Silver Justice, JET, JET – Ops Files, JET – Ops Files: Terror Alert, JET II – Betrayal, JET III – Vengeance, JET IV – Reckoning, JET V – Legacy, JET VI – Justice, JET VII – Sanctuary, JET VIII – Survival, JET IX – Escape, JET X – Incarceration, Upon a Pale Horse, BLACK, BLACK is Back, BLACK is The New Black, BLACK to Reality, BLACK in the Box, Deadly Calm, Ramsey’s Gold, Emerald Buddha, The Goddess Legacy, The Day After Never – Blood Honor, The Day After Never – Purgatory Road, and The Day After Never – Covenant.

  Non-fiction includes the international bestseller An Angel With Fur (animal biography) and How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated), a parody of all things writing-related.

  Blake is co-author of The Eye of Heaven and The Solomon Curse, with legendary author Clive Cussler. Blake’s novel King of Swords has been translated into German, The Voynich Cypher into Bulgarian, and his JET novels into Spanish, German, and Czech.

  Blake writes under the moniker R.E. Blake in the NA/YA/Contemporary Romance genres. Novels include Less Than Nothing, More Than Anything, and Best Of Everything.

  Having resided in Mexico for a dozen years, Blake enjoys his dogs, fishing, boating, tequila and writing, while battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog:

  RussellBlake.com

  To get your free copy,

  just join my readers’ group here:

  http://bit.ly/rb-jet

  Author’s Note

  The Day After Never originally started out as a trilogy. I had a story that could be told in three episodes, each roughly 75K words, and my plan was to tie up all loose ends by the end of the final book.

  Unfortunately, that’s not how things turned out.

  As I wrote the third installment, an idea began to percolate, and by the end of this volume it was clear to me that I’d have to either write a fourth book, or this one would need to be double the word count, making it almost War and Peace length. That didn’t seem viable, so I decided to make the trilogy a four-part series, where I deal with the additional plot items that arose during Covenant’s creation in the final book.

  Chapter 1

  Duke lay on his stomach near a tiny stream, crossbow in hand and night vision goggles in place. The black nylon straps of the harness enveloped his head like a medieval torture device. Flashes of lightning crackled on the northern horizon, pulsing on the periphery of the night sky like artillery in a distant battle, though the storm was too far off to hear any accompanying thunder.

  He’d been in position for a good half hour, waiting patiently for dinner to show itself, secure in the knowledge that it was a matter of time before some unwary animal came in search of water and ended its stay on the planet. He had gotten into the nocturnal hunting routine quickly once he and Aaron had reached his hidey hole in the foothills, and they’d dined on rabbit and venison since they’d arrived.

  Duke had abandoned the trading post, hauling everything he could fit on an overloaded cart. He’d rigged several solar panels at his simple two-room cinder-block bunker, which provided sufficie
nt power during the day to recharge the scope and operate the radio as well as a small refrigerator that barely kept their food below room temperature. He missed the conveniences in his old home but realized he’d made the right choice; the danger from the Locos had become too substantial to ignore. There was no question in Duke’s mind that the trading post had already been looted, but he felt nothing when he thought about it – the place had served its purpose, and he could open another one elsewhere once any heat had died down.

  He’d put out a warning call on the radio the morning he’d left, on the off chance that the kook in Artesia might be monitoring the airwaves, but when he’d gotten no acknowledgement, he had ridden into the wilds without looking back, Aaron by his side. In the end, the buildings where he’d eked out his existence for the last five years were just some walls and a roof on a godless stretch of nothing, and he held no regrets at leaving it behind. That was how life went in the post-collapse world, and he was grateful for every day that he awoke drawing breath – there were far too many who didn’t each morning.

  The hideaway, a former power line maintenance bunker that had long since ceased to matter, was tucked into the remote reaches of the foothills at the end of a dirt track that had washed away over the years and been reclaimed by weeds and prickly pear. But it had water from the stream, was on defendable high ground, and most importantly, was well away from the highway, and so relatively safe from the miscreants who used that strip of asphalt to visit terror on the unsuspecting.

  A slight motion in the eerie neon green of his goggles drew Duke’s attention to a clump of brush to his left. A gentle breeze from the north wrinkled the surface of the water, thankfully carrying his scent downriver, away from where he’d detected movement. He inclined his head slightly, careful not to move any more than necessary, and scanned the foliage.

  A furry form eased into view, its leporine nose twitching and long ears cocked slightly back as it surveyed the surroundings, some primitive part of its brain warning it of a danger its eyes couldn’t detect. Eventually thirst got the better of it, and Duke inched the crossbow forward – a relatively easy shot at fifteen yards, but not a given. He held his breath as the animal crept in fits and starts toward the water’s edge, and he peered down the iron sights. His finger began gently squeezing the trigger, and then the hare was gone in a blur, startled by an explosion of gunfire from up the slope.

  Duke rolled and forced himself to his feet in one seamless maneuver, his heart thudding in his chest as shots shattered the night. The higher pitched rattle of Aaron’s AR-15 was answered by the deeper chatter of AK-47s – at least three or four, Duke guessed.

  “Damn,” he muttered as he retraced his steps toward the bunker, crossbow in hand, the landscape glowing neon green in the scope. In the days at the hideaway they’d had no trouble and seen nobody, but they hadn’t relaxed their guard, sticking to shifts and keeping a watch for any sign of encroachment.

  Based on the pitched gun battle taking place less than a quarter mile away, that lull in their misfortunes was over.

  Duke stuck to a game trail and did his best to move silently along the dirt. The gunfire increased in volume as he neared the shoot-out. At the edge of the clearing beneath the building, he could make out muzzle flashes and counted four gunmen blasting away at Aaron’s position.

  He estimated the distance to the closest shooter and frowned – he would have to skirt the brush line to get close enough to be deadly with his Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. The Barnett Ghost 360 crossbow was astoundingly accurate when used with the carbon hunting bolts he favored, but he wasn’t confident it would put a man down with a single bolt, whereas the pistol could place four rounds in an area the size of a soda can at fifty yards on a bad day. He pulled back into the thicket and moved north to where he’d seen the gunmen, and re-emerged almost directly behind the men.

  Duke waited to confirm there were only four, and when he was certain of the count, slid the pistol from its holster and drew a bead on the nearest man, now no more than twenty-five yards away. He centered the sights on the man’s back and squeezed the trigger. The pistol bucked three times in quick succession, its deadly bark blending with the nonstop firing from the attacker’s AK. The crouching man fell forward, dropping his weapon, and Duke nodded to himself – one down.

  The other three shooters hadn’t noticed their associate’s demise and were still firing away at the bunker with undiminished fury. Duke sidled to his right and aimed at the next attacker, who was lying on his stomach to shoot at Aaron. Duke adjusted the pistol slightly to compensate for the greater distance and put his second group of three shots between the man’s shoulder blades. Two of the rounds shredded through his upper spine at an angle, exiting from the base of the front of his neck before being stopped by the hard dirt beneath him. The gunman flailed like a beached fish and then fell still.

  At the bunker, Aaron must have noted the halving of the incoming fire because his AR-15 rattled at the two remaining shooters, the 5.56mm rounds slicing through the grass around them. One of the pair cried out as a well-placed shot took the top of his head off. One gunman remained. Duke held his fire – the angle was less than optimal for a kill shot. The shooter and Aaron exchanged a few volleys, and then, realizing he was the sole member of his group left alive, the attacker rolled onto his side and pushed himself to his feet.

  Duke waited until the man was close and emptied the Sig Sauer magazine at him. The 9mm rounds punched into the gunman’s chest but were stopped by the ceramic plate of his flak jacket, momentarily stunning him. He froze, and then a burst of automatic fire from the bunker cut him down from behind. Duke watched as the man’s mouth formed an O and he pitched forward, his AK-47 sailing from his hands as though pulled by an invisible cord.

  Silence settled over the clearing, and Duke called out to Aaron, “We got them all. You okay?”

  A few seconds later Aaron’s voice answered, “Yeah. You sure that’s everyone?”

  “I’ll be there in a second. Don’t shoot.”

  Duke made his way toward the bunker, pausing at each of the fallen attackers to toe their weapons well away. When he reached the building, he took in the bullet-pocked mortar around the door and windows and grunted. A grim-faced Aaron stood in the doorway, still holding his rifle.

  “What happened?” Duke asked.

  “They tripped one of the wires. Came up fast.”

  “Any idea who they were?”

  “Negative.”

  Duke stepped into the room, ejected his spent magazine and slapped a new one in place, and went for his rifle, setting the crossbow by the door. “This is bad news.”

  “Gunfire will attract some attention,” Aaron agreed.

  “Let’s check on the animals.”

  Aaron followed the trader to the area where the horses were corralled further up the hill and was relieved to find them unharmed. On the way back to the bunker, Duke’s mind was processing furiously, his mouth a thin line, his eyes slits beneath a frowning brow.

  At the killing field they quickly gathered the men’s weapons. Their hair was long and unkempt, and all were Caucasian, with no facial tattoos or other identifying marks. Three had their eyes frozen open, their limbs already stiffening in death, and Duke’s nose wrinkled at the stench rising from them – a combination of death, dried sweat, and lack of basic hygiene wafting from their tattered clothing.

  “They aren’t Locos or Raiders,” Aaron observed.

  “Yeah. Probably scavengers. Problem is there may be more of ’em.”

  “Could be.”

  “Which means it isn’t safe here anymore.” Duke’s frown deepened. “Hate to ride at night, but I don’t see much alternative, do you?”

  “We can stay put and load for bear.”

  “If there’s twenty of ’em, that’s not such a good idea. Besides, as you said, the shots will draw every Raider and lowlife for miles around.” Duke shook his head. “No, we got to pack up and git. Let’s do it.”

 
“Where we headed?”

  “We’ll camp north of here. There are some decent spots near the river. We’ll figure out what to do next come tomorrow.”

  Aaron nodded. “Damn shame. I was just getting used to this toilet.”

  Duke threw a final glance at the dead men and then fixed Aaron with a worried stare. “I want to be gone in ten minutes. Pack everything we can carry. Leave the rest. The cart would slow us down too much and make us targets.”

  “Gonna miss the power,” Aaron said, looking up at the solar panels arranged on the roof of the building.

  “We can add it to our regret list. Now hurry up – time’s a-wasting.”

  They made short work of hauling their possessions to the horses. After packing the saddlebags of all four animals, they mounted up, Duke with his night vision goggles in place to guide the way, and set off in the darkness, guns held at the ready.

  They rode for three hours and set up their camp on the bank of the Black River near a spit of sand just above a rapid, the water rushing in the narrows before burbling over a scattering of boulders. Once their tents were pitched, Duke tossed Aaron some dried jerky, and they chewed wordlessly. When they’d swallowed their meager supper and washed it down with river water, Duke sat cross-legged in the moonlight, his AR-15 by his side.

  “Least it isn’t raining,” he said, studying the horizon where the distant storm was playing itself out.

  “So where do we go next?” Aaron asked.

  “Beats me. But we can’t go south, and there isn’t much west. That leaves north.”

  “Loving’s gone.”

  “Yeah, but there’s more than Loving in that direction. We’ll find somewhere we can put down roots and start a new business. Just got to be the right place.”

  Duke had a considerable store of gold, ammo, and weapons with which to start a new trading post, so he wasn’t worried about adapting. His profession, like prostitution, was one of the oldest and always in demand. They would move carefully during the day and see what the future held. Maybe they’d find something up by Carlsbad, maybe further north.