From Dust Rising

By Cy Bishop

The end of the world was heralded by bombs. Not nukes as most assumed, but chemical bombs that devastated the planet’s surface, leaving behind a slowly dying world with caustic gas constantly rising from the ground and dissipating into the air. Any form of shelter, where the gas can condense into a deadly fog, has become too dangerous to risk. The remaining survivors have adapted to life outdoors, on the move, doing their best to stay alive in a world of murderers, Slavers, and zombie-like Ragers that mindlessly destroy anything and anyone they come across.

Ronan has long survived by keeping to himself, happy to use whatever underhanded tricks he can to get the upper hand of anyone he crosses paths with. But then he finds himself stuck with Lily, a pampered lady who knows nothing of survival. Worse, her particular sensitivity to the gas constantly slows them down. Getting her back to her people means riches beyond his dreams, but it also means traveling a little too close to a deadly gang that’s gunning for Ronan. He'll have to find a way to get her safely home before her ignorance gets them both killed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cy Bishop
• Release date: Jan 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311994691

Cy Bishop

I enjoy life in the Pacific Northwest with my family and a constantly excited, thick-headed black lab. I obtained a degree in Counseling Psychology from Northwest University in Kirkland, WA, which I use to create fully dimensional characters with unique personalities and quirks. When not writing, I can usually be found reading, watching movies, or wasting entirely too much time on the internet.

Book preview

From Dust Rising

by Cy Bishop

Copyright 2014 Cy Bishop

Smashwords Edition

With special thanks to:

God, my patient family, Google,

Sonja Hutchinson (sonjahutchinson.com) and Jessica Dodson

for all their help,

And Mads Eneqvist (madseneqvist.com) for contributing cover art

Journal Entry 1

I apologize for the poor handwriting. My wrist is bandaged, and I’m not too proud a man to admit that I still quake at every passing sound. I hope it’s legible, as I record this for future generations.

What led us here is too complex to explain in detail. The post-World War III hostilities, the treaties forbidding atomic weapons, the whispers that other countries were building nuclear bombs for world domination.

The details are not so important as the facts: we struck first. They struck better.

We don’t know what the bombs contained, but they weren’t nuclear. The explosive substance within them started a chemical reaction beneath the first few layers of earth. It spread rapidly throughout the mantle to, as far as we know, every corner of the world.

We lost billions to the bombs. We lost even more as the gas emerged.

Outside, this odorless substance rises through the air, diluted enough to have only minimal ill effects, and those can be combated through a thick scarf wrapped over the nose and mouth. (to be breathed just fine, so long’s you’re normal and all) But indoors, or under shelter, it condenses into a heavy, purple fog. This form of the gas is deadly. Gas masks are useless; the filters become clogged too quickly. If you inhale more than two, maybe three (four or so) breaths, the damage begins, starting with immediate loss of consciousness and ending with death within two or three (three or four) minutes of continued inhalation.

As we who remain struggle to survive, we’ve had to adopt a new style of life. Shelters can turn deadly in minutes. Even huddling under a tree is risky. We must sleep unsheltered, exposed to the heavens.

As bad as all that sounds, (He thought it sounded bad to sleep outside? Priss) we learned that not all who breathe the gas are killed by it. It seems that approximately eighty-five percent die. Five percent survive the exposure, but lose their higher brain functions. Like toddlers, they act on base impulses for food, shiny objects or trinkets, and the like. While they are generally harmless, it is best to avoid them. (They’re called Dopers. Give them a piece of candy and they’ll follow you anywhere, carry your junk, whatever. Good deal.)

The remaining percentage is where the true danger lies. These people also lose their higher brain functions, but even more so. They become like pack animals; more than that, like wounded animals. I have seen men and women literally torn limb from limb. They make no attempts to hide their approach, so can be heard coming and avoided. And they must be avoided. They seem bent on destroying anything the bombs missed. (Ragers. He got this one right. You see a pack coming, you run your legs off, or they’ll tear them off for you.)

One final note for this entry. Some people are particularly affected by the gas, even in its diluted form. While a filtering scarf is enough for most to breathe the gas without discomfort, (Discomfort? Folks used to be real pansies) these people find relief from nothing short of a gas mask. A single breath of the condensed form is enough to render them unconscious, and death occurs in only a minute or so. However, they have a unique advantage: they detect a tangy odor in the gas and thus can smell it from a distance. (Sensies. He got this stuff right, too. They gotta wear gas masks outside or they start choking on the stuff.)

Chapter 1

For some reason, the sky seemed darker than usual today.

Ronan closed the journal and slid it inside his pack. He didn’t have the first idea who the original writer was, some distant ancestor from generations back. He had only a vague understanding that the one who’d made the corrections and notes in the margins was his grandfather, or perhaps great-grandfather. The history of who wrote the book had never been that important to his family, so long as it kept being read.

Read it like the Bible, his parents told him over and over again. He’d once asked what a Bible was. His father backhanded him across the face and said, It’s a book you read every morning unless you want your hide beaten into the ground. Now sit down and read.

He was no longer a child, and his father was no longer around to beat his hide. But the childhood habit had become an adulthood routine years ago, though he could almost recite the whole thing from memory by now. The lessons in the journal had kept his skin intact more than once, and so he kept reading every morning, one passage a day, as if it were a ritualized spell that summoned good luck and kept him alive to the next sunrise.

He looked up again to the two wisps of clouds that drifted in the blue-gray sky above the walls of his tent. The heavy canvas walls were designed more for camouflage than shelter, painted on the outside to resemble the barren dirt landscape that made up most of the country, save the occasional swamp, sinkhole, or oasis. Good for staying hidden, unnoticed. Not that there were too many people traveling out here between the shanty-town cities built over the swamps and mudflats where the gas was mostly absorbed by the layers of water. But better safe than sorry.

Especially these days. Ronan rolled up his sleeping mat and stuffed it into his pack, leaving space on the side for the tent and its poles. A handful of baubles and an even smaller handful of coppers clinked in the bottom of his bag. Not nearly enough. He’d need more, a lot more, and he had to stay out of sight until he’d gathered it.

The ground rumbled and shook underneath him, only enough to rock him from side to side for a few seconds before it settled. The first mini-quake of the day, and not an impressive one at that. He finished tucking his mat away and dropped flat on the cracked earth, lifting the bottom edge of the canvas until he could see outside.

Dirt. Sand. Dust. A long-dead, dried skeleton of a bush. A long-dead, dried skeleton of a man beside it. A vulture in the distance, just about the only living thing that managed to thrive since the End came. Except for the bugs. And even those were fewer in number these days.

No signs of Ragers. No signs of Slavers. No solitary shadows testifying to a lone traveler like himself. And most importantly, no Overlords.

He repeated his scan beneath each wall of his narrow, rectangular hiding place. Satisfied that he was utterly alone, he stood, his head just emerging through the open top of the tent, and swiftly dismantled the structure, keeping an eye to the south as he did so. When they come after him, that’s the most likely direction they’d come from.

Not that there weren’t any Overlords to the north, or east or west, for that matter. The gang was the most unified and well-spread throughout the wastelands that were once called America, leaving him nowhere to run and hide from their wrath. Their inhumanly swift messengers would certainly have spread the word of his little incident by now. But the city where it had gone down, Cyber, lay to the south, and the Overlords there would’ve been the first to mobilize. He had to make sure he stayed ahead of them, no matter what.

It took some muscle to force the folded canvas into place in his bag, as always. He welcomed the chance to unleash some built-up steam. If the world were just, he wouldn’t be in this mess. He hadn’t even known the skinny punk at the bar was an Overlord. And he hadn’t cheated the kid any worse than anyone else would have. The guy was just asking to be a mark with his loose grip on his bag of coppers and that dopey, innocent face.

Besides, the kid pulled a knife first. No one could blame Ronan for drawing in defense. Anyone else would’ve dodged. Anyone else on this entire planet, men, women, and children included, would’ve seen Ronan’s strike coming and bobbed to the side, resulting in a nice warning graze across the arm, maybe the shoulder. But not this idiot. No, he had to lunge directly into the strike. Ronan’s blade was halfway up the kid’s aorta before Ronan even had a chance to see what was happening.

And then it was all Overlords swarming the bar, screaming for blood. Ronan barely made it out with his own possessions in hand, never mind the bag of coppers which technically should have been his, thanks to the kid’s stupidity.

Instead, he was on the run. Thanks to the kid’s stupidity.

The last corner of tent finally submitted. He tied the bag’s cover flap shut and slung the bag over his back. Checked the south. Headed north.

Any other gang, and they wouldn’t chase him to the next city. Any other gang, and they’d have taken that bag of coppers and considered it a wash. Any other gang, and Ronan could throw a few baubles their way to make peace.

But the Overlords didn’t let things go so easily. It was going to take a lot of coppers to get out of this one. And collecting the coppers was only the first step. Once he had a bag bulging enough to make even the strictest Overlord pause, he’d have to find someone in the gang weak and pliable enough to be bribed and with enough status to get his name cleared. Tricky, especially since most Overlords would rather knife him on sight than let him get the first two words out.

One step at a time. His feet continued one after the other, marking the paces across the desert terrain. He dug out a can of mystery food out of his bag and slurped down something sludgy that might have once been beans as he walked, keeping his mind focused on his goal. First scavenge, scrounge, trade, and cheat to get enough coppers to make a new friend. Then worry about finding that friend.

Nothing stirred as the early morning hours melted into early afternoon, same as every day. The ground rose in a gentle slope under his feet, the loose dust and sand thick enough to make each step sink a few centimeters. He’d get a good workout today if nothing else.

The ground shook as he neared the top of the rise, but barely enough to make his legs wobble. He didn’t bother slowing his pace. There was no need. Not until he reached the crest and stood, surveying the area below him and swaying slightly in rhythm with the last grumbles of the mini-quake.

Buildings. He backed up a few steps and crouched. If anyone was down there, they’d see a bump on the hill, nothing more. As he scanned the decayed structures below him, though, it became apparent how deserted the place was. Not surprising. This stood far enough from the cities that he’d be surprised to find anyone still upright out this way. But the journal said to check building clusters for people before approaching, so that’s what he did.

Like any remaining building cluster, the area was vaguely round, shaped by whatever terrain or miracle had protected the buildings from the bombs and ensuing chaos. The structures around the outside of the circle stood as charred, broken sentinels, reminders of the dying world they existed on. But closer to the center of the circle, the buildings grew more and more intact. He could count at least four in the middle that looked solid, though one had bright red Xs painted over every door and window. Breached. Filled with the gas. Deadly.

That still left three to search. He stood and headed down the hill toward the cluster, mulling over what he’d seen as he walked. Two of the buildings had massive windows all along the street side on the first level, then another level of brick wall set with occasional windows. One of the two had a third level, similar to the second level. That one had clearly been picked over already; he’d been able to see the damage to the windows from the hill. No point starting there.

The two-level showed no signs of being looted yet, but he’d seen some of those creepy, faceless, plastic human figures lying at random near the windows. The place probably once held clothes for sale. It meant he might find a handful of coppers, if he searched carefully, and possibly some shiny necklaces to sell to the brothel girls, but nothing much else. Not worth his time.

His feet naturally set a path to the third building. Four stories. Two glass-set doors on the street side. Lots of windows, some with narrow boxes hanging off the sides. Most likely one of those big buildings with many homes crammed inside. He’d always had luck with those. Even if someone had worked the building before, there were so many places to search, so many things to find, no one ever was quite thorough enough.

Before entering the building, he took a moment to walk around the outside. Bare walls to the south, more windows and narrow boxes. The backside was the same. The north face boasted a rusted metal walkway barely clinging to the side of the building. That was all he needed to know. The journal taught that a breach can be easier escaped by climbing the outside of the building rather than taking the risk of being caught in the fog. If the building breached while he was inside and he couldn’t reach the front door, this would be his escape route.

He returned to the front and tugged on the handle of one of the doors. The hinges let out a grunt and stuttered open. He peered inside at a broad hallway. Frames hung on the wall, but the light from the glass doors only reached so far, and he couldn’t quite tell what was in them. Didn’t matter. No one much cared for wall decorations these days. He pulled out one of the tent poles and swept it back and forth in front of his feet as he walked down the inky hallway, letting it find all the discarded tripping hazards on the floor and notify him of any turns in the path. One hand ran along the wall until it found a raised chunk of wood. A doorway.

The door swung open without resistance, and light filtered through a dust-coated window to show a room that had already been dug through. He passed to the next room, a kitchen, in similar state. He poked into a couple bare cupboards before deciding that this home had already been searched too well. On to the next one.

The first room in the next home looked similarly tossed, but the kitchen proved that the last searchers had been in too much of a hurry. Ronan found three cans of food behind a bug-infested bag of flour, then a handful of small knives that had fallen behind a drawer, probably when someone yanked the drawer out too hard. The fridge only belched foul air at him when he cracked the door. No point in looking there.

He took his time with this one, checking the other rooms as well. Flecks of light dappled the bathroom ceiling, courtesy of broken mirror shards scattered across the floor. A handful of worthless junk rested between the shards, more likely courtesy of the home’s former occupants than any scavenger. The rush to collect possessions and flee had left many floors decorated like this one.

He relieved himself down the bathtub drain and moved on. A bedroom contained a handful of necklaces and bracelets half-buried under torn blankets. Most of the shoes in the closet were in too poor shape to do any good, but a couple still had intact soles. He stuffed those into his bag along with the other finds and headed for the next home.

Several hours later found him with a slim collection of goods and trinkets. Nothing to jump up and down over, and certainly not enough to get him out of trouble with the Overlords, but it was a start. Besides, he’d hardly even begun the real work. The first floor had already been searched by scavengers, as he’d expected. But not many people took the time to check the higher floors. Most folks were too superstitious to stay in one place too long. Stay in one place and tempt fate, they said. The quakes will release the gas and kill you while you’re still digging. The Ragers will come through when you aren’t looking. Better to search fast, find what’s easy to find, and move on before anything bad gets to you.

He didn’t share these superstitions. He had the journal.

His tent pole struck a wooden note. He groped the air until he found a banister. Stairs. Good.

As he suspected, the second floor was a treasure trove. Jewelry. Canned food. Intact shoes and soles. And coppers everywhere, in little jars and under cushions and inside little pouches. Knives. Tools. If the rest of the building was like this, then step one would be complete in no time at all.

He slowed and looked around as he finished searching the fourth home on the second floor. He hadn’t heard any signs of other people around. Maybe, once his problems were dealt with, he could return here. Quiet. Secluded. Safe. And he’d even seen a few intact mattresses. He could drag a couple up to the roof and have a proper bed to sleep on at night. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Ronan the traveler sleeping in a real bed in a proper home.

Or on a proper home, as the case may be. Couldn’t sleep inside and risk the gas breaching and building up on him while he slept. Still, the thought of a mattress, a real bed to sleep on, just about had him drooling. The sun was starting to make its descent through the sky. Maybe he would field test his idea tonight.

Thump.

He dropped into a low crouch and scuttled behind a faded armchair, peering around one side to watch the door. His fingers slid around his favorite knife, a thick blade he’d found in a kitchen years back. Waited.

No signs of anyone in the hallway. No sounds from outside.

The sound came again, and he realized it came from above him. Not directly above, but above an adjacent home, the one he’d been set to search next. No wonder he hadn’t heard anything before now. He crept to the hallway, listening hard.

Footsteps. Light and singular. One person, on the small side. Possibly a woman.

Not a Rager. The steps were too slow and deliberate for that. Not a Doper. They tended to stay close to wherever they breathed the gas and turned, and this building wasn’t breached. Not a Slaver. They only traveled in groups. Not likely to be an Overlord, not alone so far from the cities.

Odds favored the mystery person being a traveler, a scrounger like Ronan. There were a few other possibilities, but the likelihood was too slim to be a concern. The key was, the person was alone and didn’t seem to have noticed Ronan’s presence. If they were hostile, he could easily get the upper hand and take them down before they could pull anything. And if they weren’t hostile, perhaps they were in a trading mood.

He pulled his knife free from the straps that kept it close to his side. Felt his way to the stairs rather than using his tent pole as a guide. The sound of the metal pole hitting the walls might catch attention he didn’t want. Stayed close to the walls so the stairs wouldn’t creak as he climbed.

As he felt his way down the hallway toward the occupied home, the rustles of movement grew louder. Whoever it was carried on with whatever they were doing, oblivious to his presence. Good.

A faint glimmer of light showed between the door and a frame that had been jostled by too many mini-quakes to stand square any longer. Even better. He pressed close against the wall and nudged the door with one knuckle, encouraging it to open just a few centimeters more. One of the hinges let out a tiny pip of protest. He cringed, but the rustles continued uninterrupted. Oblivious was the right word, for sure.

He peeked inside.

Nothing looked right on the other side of the door. It was so foreign, so bizarre, that it took him a moment to muddle through his brain and find the word for what was wrong.

Tidy. Everything was tidy.

A table stood upright beside an armchair, a