Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands by Brian J. Jarrett

in for a treat,” Rita replied. She turned to Lester. “You ain’t uninitiated, I’m sure.”
    Lester grinned. “I’ve been known to partake on occasion.”
    Rita returned the smile. “Well, these two are getting their cherries popped tonight.” She raised her glass higher. “Down the hatch.”
    Lester tipped the glass back and swallowed half of the amber liquid. He grimaced as the liquid went down. “Been a while,” he said, smiling weakly.
    Rita chuckled. “Lightweight.” She downed her glass in a single gulp, slamming it down on the TV tray. It swayed precariously, but remained standing. “That, my friend, is how you put it down.”
    Lester leaned back in his chair, sipping the whiskey. “Impressive.”
    Rita turned to Sam and Chloe. “Go on,” she said. “Get them cherries popped.”
    Chloe gulped a mouthful of the bourbon and grimaced. Sam followed, swallowing hard before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Geez,” he exclaimed, eyes watering. “That really burns!”
    Rita chuckled. “You’ll get used to it. Wait’ll it hits your belly and the buzz comes. Nice and clean.” She poured a second glass and downed it, smacking her lips. “That’s the good shit,” she said, leaning back into her chair. She looked around the room. “Now, let’s kill this bottle.”
    * * *
    They talked, sharing stories of their lives before the world succumbed to the virus. Lester listened with rapt attention, nearly hard from all the psychoanalysis he was able to perform. Rita’s little drinking session turned out to be the perfect form of group therapy. Lester couldn’t have organized it better himself.
    Sam was an open book. The boy spoke of his dead mother, their time on the road and her death at the hands of the white beasts that only came out at night. The boy spent much of his time afraid and when he wasn’t afraid he was trying to prove himself, to his mother and—most recently—to Chloe. Lester could tell the boy was in love with her. He might as well have had it tattooed on his stupid forehead.
    Chloe was, as usual, guarded and selective. Her account of her life was merely a superficial version of events, never digging below the surface to the real fear and pain that lay beneath. Had the world still existed as before she would have been a particularly satisfying challenge; a tough nut to crack. But he would never have killed her if she was a patient; too easy to track it back to him.
    But in this new world, he could have it both ways. If given the choice between the world pre-virus or post-virus, Lester knew he’d always choose the way things were now over the way they’d been. The new world was a playground where he could indulge his every whim. And he couldn’t wait to watch the light go out in Chloe’s eyes.
    Rita…such a stupid cow. She was a low-brow dullard with a cookie cutter view of the world, courtesy of an equally dull upbringing; as unimaginative as she was unbearable. Lester watched her as she drank herself silly, thinking that a shotgun and a foul mouth had fooled him into believing she could be a killer. Rita wasn’t a killer. Who better than Lester to know? She threatened, but that was the extent of it. Should a self-defense situation present itself to her then she might very well pull that trigger, but under normal circumstances she had only a bluff card to play. Typical of those empathic souls—and stupid ones at that.
    So he watched and he listened. He nodded where appropriate. He cycled through his list of learned emotions, the muscles in his face responding to learned stimuli, reacting like a puppet on a string, an actor playing a role. He smiled, he frowned, he laughed. He even teared up, when the time seemed right.
    All except his eyes. His eyes never smiled. They never laughed. They never cried. They stayed the same all the time, black and still, like a bottomless lake on a moonless night. Even he knew it, but remained powerless to control it. One skill of the empathic that