Free Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) by Kyle West Page A

He looked a little sick, but
none of the Raiders I was with dropped.”
    “Yes. Everyone died, except me. I’m the only
one who made it out. At least, the only one I know of. I lost my
dad and my friend, among other people.”
    She looked at me. “I’m sorry. I really am.
But it was a mistake on our part. You have to believe that.”
    “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. I
don’t know what to do now. I’m trying to find a city. I won’t
survive long out here. I was just trying to find some food, which
is why I snuck into your camp.”
    The girl looked me up and down, seeming to
see me in a new light. I looked past her, toward the mouth of the
cave, wondering when, or if, she would let me go.
    “You’re going to die, you know,” she said.
“They’ll come after you. They’ll make you wish you were dead.”
    “I wish I were dead now.”
    “Don’t say that. You keep saying that, and
you really will be dead. Trust me, you don’t want that.”
    “What do you know? Maybe I do. My dad is
dead, because of you. My friend is dead, because of you. There’s
nothing you can do to make up for that.”
    The girl looked at me, and scowled.
    “You don’t want my help? Fine. But if you
decide you want to survive out here, I can teach you everything you
need to know. How to make a fire. Where to find food and water. All
the good places to camp. Who to trust, who to avoid, what cities
will let you in. It will take you years to figure that out on your
own. I can teach you in hours.”
    “Thanks, but I’ll be fine on my own.”
    “I doubt that. How long have you been out
here?”
    “One week.”
    “Have you found any food or supplies in that
time?”
    I looked at the backpack. “Kind of.”
    “There’s only a few kinds of people who would
sneak into a Raider camp and steal their gear: the insane, the
stupid, and the desperate. I think you might be the third, but the
first two are sounding pretty accurate, too.”
    She handed me the backpack I had stolen. I
held it awkwardly in my hands. I had no idea why she was offering
to help me, or why she wasn’t just taking the backpack to her
Raider buddies and leaving me for dead. It didn’t make any
sense.
    “Now,” she said, “you can either come with me
and keep all that stuff, or you can go out on your own without it.
Your choice.”
    I looked up at her. She was serious.
    “Let me at least see what I’d be losing out
on.”
    The girl didn’t say anything as I set the
pack on the ground and began rifling through its contents.
    A pot. Some cans of food. Some bullets.
    There was a heavy shirt. Might make a good
extra layer for the cold nights.
    I lifted up the shirt. Below it at the bottom
of the pack were dozens upon dozens of small, silver batteries.
    “What the hell…?”
    “All our pay was in Brux’s pack. I’m willing
to split it with you, if we work together.”
    “Batteries? Seriously?”
    “They’re currency.”
    “But they’re worthless…”
    “To you, maybe. With these things, you can
walk into just about any settlement and get food, weapons, whatever
you want. There’s well over three hundred batts in there.”
    “That’s…insane.”
    “Look, kid. Batts are valuable. They’re from
the Old World, and they’re useful. They give heat, cook food, and
power machines that would otherwise be useless. They’re a
commodity, and someday, all of them will be gone. These are even
the good kind…the kind that can last for decades. And if you can
get your hands on some rechargeables or solars, you’d never have to
raid again.”
    “Fine, I believe you. So why would you want
to split them with me? That’s the part I don’t understand.”
    The girl didn’t answer for a moment. She
looked into my eyes.
    “Because, believe it or not, I actually feel
bad for what happened. Most Raiders aren’t bad people. We were just
in a bad situation, and we do what we must to survive. If I’ve
already ‘killed’ everyone who matters to you, maybe this