Read Land of Dust and Bones: The Secret Apocalypse Book 7 for Free Online Page B

legends.
    But then again, maybe I’m not making these
stories up. Maybe the stars are telling me their history. Maybe the stars are
speaking to me.
    The sun rises over the eastern horizon and
I lower my head. I shield my eyes from the glaring light.
    The temperature rises quickly. And Kenji
tells us to stop.
    But not to rest.
    He points ahead. There is another thing on
the horizon. A danger. A treasure. Water. Food. It’s a… truck. I think. It’s
hard to tell. My vision is blurry and unfocused.
    “What do you think?” I ask.
    “I think that’s the biggest truck I’ve ever
seen,” Kenji says.
    “Road train,” Sarah explains.
    “What?”
    “It’s what they call a road train. It’s
basically just a big ass truck that pulls a lot of trailers. Usually three or
more. They’re only legal out here in the desert. Too big to drive them near
towns or cities.”
    “Well, whatever it is, it’s massive,” Kenji
says. “Could have supplies. I say we check it out.”
    We move towards the big rig together. Kenji
leads the way. Sarah and I follow closely behind. This road train has five
massive trailers. It is parked on the side of a long and straight road. As we
get closer we can see that each trailer has claw marks down the side. And teeth
marks. From something big.
    Most of the tires are flat. They appear to
have been slashed or shot out.
    We move quickly around the truck. We check
the driver’s cabin first.
    From the outside, it appears to be empty.
    “Stay back,” Kenji says.
    “Why?” I ask. “What are you going to do?”
    “I’m going to check inside.”
    “Make sure you check the rear of the
cabin,” Sarah says. “There’s usually a sleeping area in the back.”
    “Sleeping area?” I ask.
    “Yeah, so if the driver needs to, they can
pull over and take a nap. You never know, there could be some water bottles
back there.”
    Kenji opens the passenger’s side door and
climbs up. He moves between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat,
disappearing momentarily into the sleeping quarters. And even though Kenji is
right there, even though he is only a few feet away, the fact that I can’t see
him makes me extremely uncomfortable. I suddenly feel very, very alone.
    A few seconds pass. Seconds that feel like
hours.
    “Kenji?”
    No response.
    I grip my gun tight. I flick the safety
off. I step up into the passenger’s side door. “Kenji!?”
    There’s a curtain draped across the entry
from the driver’s cabin to the rear, where the sleeping area is. And Kenji is
nowhere to be seen. He has just disappeared.
    “Kenji!?”
    He sticks his head out of the curtain,
drawing it to the side. “There’s nothing back here.”
    I take a deep, deep breath. I loosen my
grip on the rifle.
    “Let’s check the trailers for supplies,” he
says.
    We climb out of the driver’s cabin, or prime
mover, as Sarah calls it. It is a long step down. I nearly fall over. I ask
Sarah if Optimus Prime from the Transformers is called Prime, because of Prime
mover.
    She raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, probably.”
    Kenji waves us forward and we move towards
the fifth and final trailer. We have to force each lock open, and then swing
the doors open. Kenji climbs up first. Sarah and I follow. But the trailer is
completely empty.
    All five trailers are empty.
    “Well, that was a waste of time,” Sarah
says.
    “Yeah,” Kenji agrees. “Looks like someone
has already picked this clean.”
    I nod my head. “Let’s keep moving. No point
sticking around here any longer. Unless we want to wait here until the sun
sets? We could take shelter in the sleeping quarters of the prime mover. That
way we can still keep an eye on things outside.”
    “That might not be such a bad idea,” Sarah
says.
    “How much water do we have left?” I ask.
    Kenji ignores me. He holds his hand up,
telling me to be quiet. “Wait. I’m just going to check the driver’s cabin
again.”
    “What? Why?”
    “Because I didn’t leave the door