Free Children of the After: The Complete Series: A Young Adult Postapocalyptic Action and Adventure series by Jeremy Laszlo Page A

sighing loudly.
    “Yeah, but raises a lot of new ones. Do you think we should approach them, maybe at least ask them what happened?”
    “Let’s go talk to them,” said Will, weighing in with his own opinion.
    “I don’t think so,” Jack objected. “Not yet. What if they did this?” he added, gesturing to the buildings around him. “We still don’t know anything. They could be dangerous.”
    “Yeah, but they could also be a lot of help if they aren’t dangerous,” Sam argued.
    “Yeah,” Will agreed.
    “Guys, I’m sorry, but Dad said to keep you safe, and that’s what I’m doing.”
    And that was the end of it, at least that’s what Sam thought before something caught her attention, or rather the lack thereof. The sound of the man on horseback and cart had stopped again.
    Lifting her gaze from Jack to the road beyond, the air caught in her chest as she locked eyes with the man on horseback just a block down the street. Without the ability to warn her brothers, her heart began hammering in her chest as the rider drove his heels to the beast’s flanks and began thundering towards them. Finally her control over the air in her lungs was restored but all she could manage was a scream, but Jack had already turned around as the rider thundered towards them.
    “Run!” Jack shouted as Sam took heed of his words and began down the road the way they had come, half dragging Will with her.
    The thundering of hooves grew louder and louder, and briefly Sam wondered how it could be that her track star brother remained behind her and Will when it occurred to her that he wasn’t with them at all. He had stopped to buy them time and in doing so, protect them.
    * * * * *
    Will raced along as fast as his little legs would carry him, pumping out a steady rhythm as his feet slipped atop the broken shards of glass beneath him. Moving as fast as he could, Sam tugged at his arm tirelessly, dragging him to speeds that were unobtainable on his own. Behind them the man on a horse thundered towards them, seemingly with malice in his heart as he gained on Will and his siblings.
    One block and then another they ran, when Sam looked back over her shoulder, not at him, but beyond, as her face contorted in fear. Will stopped, dragging Sam to a stop with him, as he spun to look back the way they had come. His eyes going wide, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach as his airway closed. Barely jogging a block behind, Jack had all but stopped as the man upon the horse was right on top of him.
    Faster than Will could even process, the man on the horse reached down as he thundered past and grabbed ahold of Jack’s collar, dragging him along with the horse as he slowed the beast to a stop. Reaching up towards his neck, the collar choking him, Jack thrashed his legs about, pulled off his feet by the man in the saddle.
    Will felt himself hiccup. He still wasn’t breathing. It was an attack. Sam screamed, and everything went black.
     
    Unsure how much time had passed, though it felt like little more than a blink of an eye, Will’s sight and hearing was restored. Pulling himself up to a seated position, all was just as it had been before, except Sam was no longer holding his hand. Then he saw her.
    Will witnessed in that moment when, like a crazed animal, Sam raced back down the street the way they had run, screaming, with a length of charred pipe in her hands. Fighting to focus as the edges of his vision went black again, Will watched as Sam lunged towards the man whose bearded face was much obscured by the shadow of his hat. In defense, the man leaned away from the blow meant for his head. Sam missed, but it didn’t matter.
    As she struck the man’s shoulder in a glancing blow, he released Jack’s sweatshirt as the pipe was driven downwards with all Sam’s weight into the neck of the harmless beast that carried the attacker. Frightened by the blow, the beast spooked and reared up on its hind legs, kicking and neighing, spilling