Read The Day After Never - Covenant (Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller - Book 3) for Free Online

saddlebags, and then did the same with his backup horse while Aaron followed suit.
    Duke eyed the interior of the barn and hefted his gun. “I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep. It’ll be your turn before you know it.”
    “Shame he had to leave all this. You can see it must have been pretty nice before…before they got to it.”
    “Way the world works. No point in moaning over it; Lucas didn’t.” Duke paused. “He did what we’re going to do: move on.”
    “That’s probably healthiest. Nothing left now that the town’s gone.”
    Duke shook his head. “Just some walls.”
    “We headed to Artesia tomorrow?”
    “Might as well.”
    Duke made his way to the gate with his rifle and night vision monocle and set out three magazines by his side. He glanced at the time as twilight darkened the ranch and calculated five hours for his watch. That would put Aaron on deck at midnight, which was fine – five hours of sleep apiece would be adequate, if not ample.
    Duke had survived on far less.
    Motion caught his attention at the far side of the gate, and he raised the monocle. A big rabbit, skinny with youth, bounced into a nearby clump of bushes. Duke smiled to himself and shook his head at the tasty bounty only a few yards away – an easy shot if he’d had his crossbow, which he hadn’t thought to bring. He picked up a rock and tossed it at the animal. “It’s your lucky day, little guy. Enjoy it while it lasts,” he whispered, feeling an odd sense of kinship with the rabbit, which was also doing its best to get by in a hostile world.
     

Chapter 7
    Cano returned from using the radio and sat with Luis and the two Crew gunmen, who were visibly anxious as they waited for Tucker’s man to show. It was nearly two when the gangly young man arrived in a rush, horse in tow.
    “You got the guns?” he asked.
    “Don’t worry about that. We have them,” Cano answered.
    “Let’s see ’em.”
    Cano rose and moved to his saddlebags. He withdrew two AKMs with folding stocks and held them out so the man could see them.
    The young man nodded. “Name’s Carlton.”
    “Let’s ride. Wasted half the day in this dump,” Cano said, swinging up into the saddle.
    “Got to be back in an hour,” Carlton said.
    “You will be.”
    The group rode out of town and made for the truck stop, the sun blazing overhead through the muggy humidity. When they reached the parking lot, they dismounted, and Cano escorted Carlton into the interior, where the flies had multiplied a thousandfold in their absence, joined by rats and a plethora of insects in the consumption of the men’s corpses.
    Vermin scuttled away as they approached, and Carlton drew in a sharp breath at the overwhelming smell of putrefaction. The heat had done the bodies no favors, and the young man swallowed hard several times and barely made it three steps away before heaving up his breakfast.
    Cano watched impassively as Carlton retched, and then moved to the corpses and leaned down to brush away a skin of maggots that had formed on their faces. He glanced up at the young man.
    “You know them?” Cano growled.
    Carlton peered at the corpses in the gloom and shook his head. “Never seen ’em before.”
    “You sure? Take a closer look.”
    Carlton wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “That’s okay.”
    “I wasn’t asking.”
    Luis touched Carlton’s arm and guided him nearer. “Breathe through your mouth,” Luis advised, and Carlton nodded weakly.
    Carlton regarded the first dead man for several beats and shook his head. “Nope.” When he moved to the second, his eyes widened for a split second.
    “What is it?” Cano demanded.
    “I…I got to get outta here.”
    “Not before you tell me what I want to know.”
    “I’m gonna be sick.”
    “Then be sick,” Cano said.
    Carlton staggered away and bent over, supporting himself with hands on his knees as he dry heaved. The spell lasted fifteen seconds, and when he straightened, his tanned