Xenofall (The Wasteland Chronicles, Book 7) by Kyle West Page B

guard down. “Did you live here, Last Man?”
    The man gave the slightest of nods. “Yes. They all died. I remember it like yesterday. I left this place a village, and returned to find it a graveyard.”
    “What is your name, Last Man?” Anna said. “I lived here a long time ago, but haven’t been back until today.”
    “Yours first, girl,” the man said, in a harsh tone. “I tire of people and their tricks.”
    “Anna,” he said. “My mother was Heather. My father, Ben. We lived at the crossways. The north side.”
    The man was silent for a long time. His posture relaxed, ever so slightly. But he was by no means less dangerous.
    “Yes. You’re Ben’s girl, alright. You have his eyes. His fierceness. There’s no doubting it.” He spat at the ground. “Ben’s dead, now. I thought you were, too.”
    “Now tell me who you are.”
    “Victor.”
    “Victor,” Anna said. “I don’t know that name.”
    “Few did,” Victor said. “I was a hunter, far away from the town. It doesn’t surprise me I escaped your notice. But if ever you ate some wild game in this place...it might have been by my shot that it came to be.”
    “And you live here, in this place?” Anna asked.
    Victor shrugged. “It is better than the west, with the Reapers. And better than the east, with its death. Here, there is a spring, and food in the hills for a man who knows where to look.”
    “And what do you do, when you’re not hunting game?” Anna asked.
    “I hunt men. Reapers, mostly. I hunt them where I find them. I think they avoid this place, now. They say it’s haunted.”
    Victor gave the tiniest trace of a smile.
    “There will be plenty of Reapers today,” I said. “They’re coming from Los Angeles.”
    “Why?”
    “They are making a final stand,” Anna said. “The Empire. The Angels. The Reapers. If that stand isn’t made together, then the monsters will win.”
    Victor gave a bitter laugh. “Angels. An Angel hasn’t walked this town in five years.”
    “The Angels have reformed,” I said. “We’re three of them.”
    “Is that so?” Victor gave us an appraising look, but it was hard to tell whether or not he approved. “No true Angel would work with a Reaper.”
    “They would,” I said. “If the world were ending.”
    The man gave a bitter laugh. “The world has already ended, boy. The Old World has passed, and if one day no man wakes to see the new, I won’t grieve for it. Man, monster, what’s the difference?”
    I realized we were speaking with a man who saw no good in this world, who saw no reason to fight for it. There was little we could do to change the mind of such a person. He had suffered more than his share of evils, and those evils had broken him.
    “There’s still hope, Victor,” Anna said. “Just as you believed I was dead, in truth, I was alive. Just as you believe that we are all going to die, and that we are deserving of that death, we believe you’re wrong. My friends and I worked hard to get everyone to stand together. Many have died to make it happen. This is our last chance to make a difference, and every man’s support counts. Even yours.”
    The man merely stood and watched us. It was hard to guess at his age – he could have been thirty, or sixty. The face was red, wind-chapped, weather-beaten.
    After a long while, he nodded.
    “So you say.”
    “The army will be passing through here this afternoon,” Anna said. “If you change your mind...ask for Char.”
    The man looked at Anna for a long time, before giving a slow nod.
    She turned to us. “Come on. We should get moving.”
    We turned back to the ship. As we ascended the boarding ramp, I looked back one last time. He stood there, the wind blowing the tails of his duster. He raised a single hand in farewell. The eyes were sad. Watchful.
    We entered the ship and once more took to the air.
    ***
    W e flew eastward beyond the mountains, right over the border of the Great Blight. Anna lowered the ship to better