After The Purge, AKA John Smith (Book 2): Run or Fight Read online

  Run or Fight: AKA John Smith

  Copyright © 2020 by Sam Sisavath

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Road to Babylon Media LLC

  www.roadtobabylon.com

  Edited by Jennifer Jensen, Wendy Chan & Grace Kastens

  Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design

  Contents

  Books in the After the Purge Series

  Also by Sam Sisavath

  About Run or Fight

  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

  Books in the After the Purge Series

  The Vendetta Trilogy

  Requiem

  Tokens

  Remains

  AKA John Smith

  Mist City

  Run or Fight

  Also by Sam Sisavath

  The Purge of Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

  The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

  The Gates of Byzantium

  The Stones of Angkor

  The Walls of Lemuria Collection (Keo Prequel)

  The Fires of Atlantis

  The Ashes of Pompeii

  The Isles of Elysium

  The Spears of Laconia

  The Horns of Avalon

  The Bones of Valhalla

  Mason’s War (A Purge of Babylon Story)

  The Road to Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

  Glory Box

  Bombtrack

  Rooster

  Devil’s Haircut

  Black

  The Distance

  Hollow

  Daybreak

  The Ranch

  The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

  Hunter/Prey

  Saint/Sinner

  Finders/Keepers

  Savior/Corruptor

  The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

  Most Wanted

  The Devil You Know

  About Run or Fight

  THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.

  All the man who calls himself John Smith wants to do is continue with his wandering ways. Explore the country and stay out of trouble, especially when it’s none of his business. Easier said than done.

  His life gets overly complicated when Smith runs afoul of a man who calls himself the Judge, as well as the people who are opposed to the Judge’s tyrannical rule. Two sides, both looking for an advantage over the other, and Smith has just landed smack dab in the middle of their ongoing feud.

  It’s a conflict that has simmered for years and is about to explode into all-out violence. All it will take is a match to light the powder keg.

  What’s a wandering post-apocalyptic ronin to do? For Smith, there are only two available options: Run or fight.

  One

  Don’t get involved.

  There were three of them, because they always came in threes. There had to be something about the number. Maybe a magical formula, only known to the wicked, that told them two were too few and four were too much.

  Three, then, was the perfect number, for men like them.

  It’s none of your business.

  Not that Smith knew anything about how men like them thought or what drove them to do the things they did. He wasn’t one of them. He had killed, yes, but only when he had do. And certainly he had never done to the boy and the woman what this trio was planning to do, or might have already done.

  Better yet, hide while they still haven’t spotted you.

  It didn’t take long for Smith to conclude that the gang was going to kill the boy and rape the woman. Or maybe they would rape the woman first and then kill the boy. The other option was to kill the boy while raping the woman. Either way, the boy was going to die, and the woman was going to wish she had.

  He’d seen it all before. Too many times to count. The world was full of these men. It’d always been, but the devastation wrought upon society by The Purge allowed them to let out their inner demons. Once upon a time, he’d been part of a group that tried to stop men like these.

  Those days are long over. This isn’t your job anymore. You know what will happen if you get involved.

  So don’t get involved.

  The voice was right. The voice was always right.

  All he had to do was just sit and watch but not get involved.

  So that’s what he did. He sat and watched.

  One was short and balding, and stocky in appearance. He could have just stepped out of a CPA office. Though, of course the wardrobe didn’t match the look. Sweat-stained cargo pants, boots (to give him some extra height, maybe), and there was a pump-action shotgun cradled in his arms. The exact opposite of dangerous-looking.

  The second one was tall and lanky, almost skeletal from a distance. His leanness wasn’t because of the food he’d had to eat, because anything that could make you fat didn’t last since the world went to shit. No, the scarcity of fattening foods wasn’t why the man was so thin. He was probably like that long before he grabbed the woman by the hair and pulled her up from the ground with enough force to make her scream.

  The third and last of the gang was the biggest by far, because of course there always had to be the big one. It was how the makeup of such a group was built—the small one, the medium one, and the big one to rule them all.

  This one was broad-shouldered with short blond hair, holding an AR-15-type rifle in one hand as if it were a toy and not something that could kill another human being with the simple (so, so simple) pull of a trigger. Early forties, with obvious scars on his face that looked more like war paint. Smith wondered where the man had gotten those, though no doubt they lent credence to his status as alpha dog.

  The leader had his back turned to his comrades as they manhandled the woman and boy, and seemed fixated on the sun setting in the horizon. Like his friends, he carried a bulging pack on his back, but he wore his effortlessly, whereas the other two seemed to struggle with theirs. The packs, along with the extra rifles they had slung over their shoulders, made all three men look more like pack mules.

  It was a pretty part of the Midwest, not that Smith knew where exactly he was. He’d lost track of how far north he’d wandered after leaving Donna—or Margo, as she preferred to be called these days—behind with that friendly old couple a few weeks back. He imagined the girl looking for him after he snuck out of the cabin in the middle of the night, but it wouldn’t be long before she forgot about him. He wasn’t that memorable, after all.

  He had a simple destination: North.

  Once he found an ocean he couldn’t cross, he’d figure out his next step. That was the good thing about not having a home. No one to go back to, no one waiting for him, and no one to disappoint.

  After a long day’s w
alk, he’d found a nice place to sit and watch the sun as it cast a thick orange glow across the field of swaying grass and solidago flowers, some so yellow that they looked almost golden against the setting sun. Thus the flower’s nickname “goldenrod,” he guessed. Smith had been here for half a day, sitting underneath the large elm tree and enjoying the shade and crisp air. He’d been alone all day—just how he liked it—until now.

  Humans had a bad habit of ruining Smith’s day.

  The boy was whaling on the stubby man who looked like an accountant. The guy was in his fifties as far as Smith could tell, and stood very still while staring at the boy, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening. The kid seemed to take the lack of action on the man’s part as permission and began swinging harder and even wilder at the Accountant’s legs. It wasn’t until he landed a little too high, near the crotch area, that the man finally took a few annoyed steps back.

  The woman was shouting at the boy. Trying to calm him down. Which wasn’t quite working, because she was trying to talk through tears. Hard to convince someone everything was okay when tears were streaming down your face and your voice was choking.

  Smith had no clue how the boy and the woman had initially crossed paths with the trio. All five of them had just appeared out of nowhere on the flat and empty highway in front of him. Their voices had woken him up from what had been, up to that point, a pretty good nap. Something close to a hundred yards separated him and the road. About the length of a football field.

  There was nothing but knee-high grass and goldenrods separating Smith and the group, which was why they hadn’t seen him when he was lying down. Even now, all it would have taken was for one of them to turn in the right direction. It wasn’t like he was hiding. He hadn’t moved since being woken up by the commotion. The fact that he was wearing dark brown clothes probably helped him to camouflage against the tree trunk behind him.

  He was sure the big man (the leader) would see him first, but the guy was too focused on the sunset just over two hills—like the breasts of a woman lying down on her back—farther up the road to notice. He told himself to lie down, to stay hidden. It would have been easy. All he had to do was slide down the trunk of the tree and disappear among the grass. As long as they didn’t leave the road, he’d stay invisible.

  So why didn’t he do it? Why didn’t he just do the obvious thing? Why did he instead reach down and undo the clasp over the SIG Sauer holstered on his right hip, then make sure the safety was off the AR-10 lying on the ground to his left, next to the binoculars he’d used to spy on the fivesome earlier?

  It was just as a precaution. That was all.

  …that was all.

  The woman released a bloodcurdling shriek as Tall and Skinny punched the boy in the back of the head. That was enough for Big Man to finally pull his focus away from the sunset and look over at the commotion behind him. Even from 100 yards away, his turn signaled clear agitation at the interruption of his view. As Big Man turned, his gaze fell across the big elm tree, along with Smith sitting against it.

  Now you’ve done it, the voice said. Now you’ve done it…

  Big Man did exactly what Smith was expecting. He lifted his rifle slightly, but seeing that Smith hadn’t responded, never fully raised the weapon into a firing position. Instead, he might have squinted at Smith as if trying to figure him out, or maybe how long he’d been there watching them. If the man had binoculars, like Smith did, he would have seen that Smith was not an immediate threat.

  Not yet, anyway.

  The leader said something to the other two, but 100 yards was too far for Smith to overhear, and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. The Accountant and Tall and Lanky glanced over at Smith. So did the woman, who was kneeling over the boy. The kid had fallen to the blacktop when Tall and Lanky struck him and hadn’t gotten back up. Smith would have needed his binoculars to see what kind of expression was on the woman’s face as she looked across at him.

  Would it be hope? Dread? Indifference?

  She was wearing pants and a long-sleeve shirt. Both articles of clothing were slightly torn but not enough to show skin. It was slightly chilly, but not freezing. There was a time when people worried about weather patterns. Those were, as someone used to say, First World problems. These days, they were Who Cares problems.

  Smith focused on Big Man as the traveler left the road behind and began walking toward him. Smith remained where he was, unmoving, and watched the other man approach at a steady, unhurried pace.

  One hundred yards was a long walk.

  Big Man was calm, but his comrades were fidgety in the background. The woman, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the temporary reprieve to care for the boy, who looked hurt. Or maybe he was just stunned from being punched.

  The leader finally stopped about ten yards from where Smith sat and gripped his rifle in front of him. His finger, Smith noticed, was already in the trigger guard, though the barrel was pointed down and just slightly to the right. It would have taken precisely one second to swing the AR up and into firing position. His dark clothes made him stand out like a sore thumb against the field of goldenrods.

  Smith wasn’t too worried about that, though. He was certain he could draw and fire the SIG first without having to move from his current position.

  Reasonably certain.

  “Hey,” Big Man said.

  “Hey,” Smith said.

  “Didn’t see you there.”

  “I wasn’t hiding.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  One corner of Big Man’s mouth tugged upwards into an almost-grin. “Must have been the clothes. Made you blend in with the tree.”

  “Happy coincidence.”

  “Was it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Big Man shrugged, then looked around. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “Same thing you are,” Smith said. “Passing through.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We’re new around these parts. You know what’s up the road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You wanna tell me?”

  “More road.”

  Something that might have been a snort. “And…?”

  “And what?”

  “What’s after that?”

  “Even more road.”

  A chuckle as the man’s eyes fell on the AR-10 lying in the grass next to Smith. He had probably seen the SIG in the holster long before that. “Nice piece.” Then, when Smith didn’t bother with a reply, “AR platform, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “10?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A lot of ex-military guys go for the AR-10. You ex-military?”

  “Why do you give a shit?”

  This time the other corner of the man’s mouth tugged upward. “Just making conversation.”

  “You’re wasting your breath.”

  “Not very friendly, are you?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Big Man snorted. “You alone?”

  “What you see is what you get.”

  “No one hiding behind that tree?”

  “You know how long I’ve been watching the three of you manhandle that woman and child before you finally spotted me?”

  “No. How long?”

  “It was a rhetorical question. The point is, I didn’t have to just sit here and do nothing until you finally noticed me.”

  “Point taken,” Big Man said. “So…”

  “So, what?”

  Big Man glanced back at the highway. Not at his two friends, or at the boy and woman specifically. He was just making sure Smith knew what he was talking about when he turned back around and said, again, “So?”

  “So…what?” Smith said.

  “Just wondering,” Big Man said with a shrug. “I’m Peoples.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  The man who c
alled himself Peoples made a full grin this time. “Where you headed, mystery man?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Just being friendly.”

  “You can stop. No one cares out here. Least of all me.”

  “Ornery fellow, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not your fellow, and you’re blocking my sun.”

  “What were you doing out here, anyway?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “I didn’t believe you the first time.”

  “Look at my face. Do I give a shit what you believe? Turn around, keep going, and don’t look back.”

  “There’s three of us and one of you.”

  “There’s one of you. The other two aren’t going to do shit when I shoot you for wasting my time.”

  “You think you can take me?”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  Peoples’s fingers, covered by fingerless gloves, tightened noticeably around his weapon. “Dangerous world to be talking like that.”

  “Keep going.”

  The big man narrowed his eyes. Smith thought he could see it—the urge to find out if Smith could take him. He’d seen it before.

  Smith thought that he could. He had practice. A lot of practice. Reaching for the SIG was even easier because his right hand was in his lap, inches from the gun. All he’d have to do was slide it sideways and down, then pull the trigger as soon as the pistol cleared the holster.

  Half a second, tops.

  Peoples, on the other hand, would have to tilt his rifle upward and swing it around to aim at Smith. That would take at least a full second.