Deadland's Harvest by Rachel Aukes
For my parents.
Thank you for letting me read all the comic books I wanted.
PURGATORY
Chapter I
“Cash!”
I tried to open my eyes, but they were glued shut. I opened my mouth to respond, but my tongue was too parched and swollen. I couldn’t even move through the shivers that racked my dew-drenched body.
“Cash! Damn it, where are you, girl? Cash!”
I willed strength into my arms to push myself up, but could barely lift my head.
I wanted to tell whoever was calling to me to be quiet, that the herd had disappeared only a few hours earlier. Instead, I could barely force out a rough, garbled syllable. “Here.” Trying to speak choked my sandpaper throat. Blood trickled from my cracked lips.
“Cash!”
The voice was closer and louder now, echoed by other voices, each one calling my name. I pried my eyes open, but the world remained a cloudy blur.
“Up here,” I called out louder this time, though the words still came out as only a coarse whisper.
With the last of my strength, I rolled over the backpack that had been propping me up on the angled roof, and let myself roll down. As I picked up speed, I clawed at the shingles to slow my descent, but it did nothing but scrape the skin from my fingers. I fell off the edge and plummeted to the ground ten feet below. Agony shot through my abused body, and I collapsed, my head hitting the ground with a thud.
A pleasant numbness followed, and crystalline stars glittered through my vision. They were the first things in over a day that I could see sharply. As the stars faded, I could make out a man-like shape moving toward me.
A gunshot fired, and the shape collapsed. The acrid stench of plague and rot hit me.
Zed.
Another shape approached, and I tried to kick away, but my limbs weighed a ton, my movements sluggish. Arms wrapped around me, holding me in a relentless grip. I whimpered as I waited for dull, broken teeth to shred my skin.
“Cash, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
Once the words sunk in, the tension in my muscles gave way, and I inhaled the fresh soapy smell of a man who’d recently bathed. Through my blurry vision, I could barely make out the blond clean-shaven soldier in full gear. “Tyler?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I felt myself lifted off the ground and I held onto his shirt. My leg that had a gunshot through it throbbed with each sway of Captain Tyler Masden’s steps, but I welcomed the pain. It meant I was alive.
They found me!
It was hard to think, with black clouds drowning my happy thoughts as quickly as they came. I was jostled around and found myself laying on a cold hard surface. The rumble of a big engine starting reverberated through my body. My consciousness ebbed against the soothing engine vibration, but I didn’t mind. I was safe now.
“Holy shit, she’s alive.” I heard Griz’s familiar deep voice off to my left, sounding a million miles away.
“Here,” Tyler said, lifting my head. “Drink this.”
Something pressed against my lips. Cool liquid poured into my mouth and streamed over my tongue. I tried to gulp the water, but it burned, and I choked. I coughed out nearly everything I had drunk. When Tyler held the bottle to my mouth again, he only allowed a trickle of water to pass through. I took a tiny sip. Then another.
“You’ve been up on that roof for two days?” Tyler asked while I forced down the water my cramping stomach threatened to heave.
I tried to nod, but that sent more water dribbling down my chin and neck.
Tyler pulled the bottle away. “Whoa. That’s enough for now. You have to take it slow, or else you’ll get sick.”
“More,” I said, reaching for the water again.
Someone touched my calf, and I hissed. Pain from the gunshot wound burned up my leg, causing me to wince. Blackness tunneled my vision.