Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 by James Harden Page A

“Look!”
    “I see it,” Marko answers.
    I wake immediately.
    “What’s going on?” I mumble to Kenji.
    He points ahead.
    There’s a large cloud of dust about half a
mile in front of us. The cloud appears to be moving fast. My first thought is
that we’re being attacked by a nano-swarm.
    “Get the EMP grenade,” I say. My voice
croaking. I think I fell asleep with my mouth open.
    “It’s not a nano-swarm,” Sarah says.
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s a herd of kangaroos,” Billy answers
excitedly from the front seat. “It’s dinner.”
    Marko floors the accelerator, shifting
gears. He then turns off the road to head them off. The car bumps over the
rocky desert ground. I’m launched out of my seat and nearly hit my head on the
roof.
    “You might want to buckle up,” Marko says.
“And hold on to something.”
    I buckle my seat belt as quickly as I can.
Kenji and Sarah do the same.
    “What the hell are you doing?” I ask
    “We’re hunting,” Marko answers. “We gotta eat.”
    “These herds move around from place to
place,” Billy explains. “They go where the water is, where the food is.”
    “Maybe we should follow them,” I say.
    “We don’t have the fuel to follow them,”
Marko says as he drives over a ditch.
    The ground is getting more and more uneven.
The car is bouncing around quite violently. The Evo Agent in the back must be
getting thrown around.
    Suddenly, Marko hits the brakes hard and
we’re all thrown forward. He unbuckles his belt quickly and Billy hands him his
rifle. He rests the barrel of the rifle on the hood of the car. He takes
careful aim.
    There’s no messing around, there’s no
wasting time.
    He fires one shot.
    It is all he needs.
    In the distance we see a kangaroo on the
edge of the herd drop to the ground, skidding and tumbling along.
    Billy claps his hands. “You got him!”
    Marko jumps back in the car, and hands his
rifle to Billy.
    We speed off again, towards dinner. I’ve
never eaten kangaroo, but people have told me it’s tasty as long as you cook it
right. My stomach begins growling again at the thought of fresh cooked meat. In
a matter of minutes, Marko has driven over to the kangaroo and we’re all
standing around it.
    To my surprise, it is still alive.
    Billy retrieves a hammer from the glove
compartment of the Landcruiser. He turns to Marko. “Can I?”
    Marko nods.
    Billy smiles and says, “Thank you, thank
you, thank you. I won’t let you down.”
    “Just get on with it, would ya ?”
    Billy wastes no time. He stands over the
dying, scared kangaroo. It is still trying to scramble away. But it can’t.
    Billy raises the hammer. He aims for the
head, the skull. He aims for the brain.
    He only needs one hit.

 

Chapter 15
    Marko and Billy strap the dead kangaroo to the hood of the car. We offer our
help but they don’t need it.
    They have done this before.
    In no time at all we’re back on the road,
heading west. An hour or so passes and once again, exhaustion gets the better
of me. I tell Kenji I’m probably going to fall asleep. I tell him this so at
least one of us is awake, so at least one of us has some idea of where we’re
actually going.
    “Sleep,” he says. “We don’t know when we’ll
get the chance again.”
    I am thankful for Kenji’s vigilance. But
I’m also a bit worried.
    We
don’t know when we’ll get the chance again…
    We have an important couple of days coming
up. First, we need to find the walled town. And then once we find the town, we
will need to convince whoever is in charge to not only give us a car, but also
enough fuel to get the others and get back.
    And then we have to convince them to let us
stay.
    The uncertainty of all of this is scary and
terrifying. My life and my friend’s life will be in the hands of other people.
I mean, right now, our lives are in someone else’s hands. This whole situation
is stressing me out. And this uncertainty, it’s the last thing I think about
before I fall