Page 41 of Amaros

Crossing her arms, Grace looked more like a kid than ever as she sulked in silence.

“Try the radio,” Amaros requested, then reversed out from beneath the trees.The oversized tires bumped over the debris from the storm.The hail had melted, but the dents they’d left in the ground remained.

Zoe turned on the radio to the same station they’d tried before.Again, they heard the same man ranting.

“New York is an even filthier den of iniquity than it was before the Rapture,” he was saying.“I had a dream last night that aliens from a dark, foggy planet will soon be arriving.They’ll turn people into their pawns and use us in an endless war while they plot to take over our world.”He fell silent, so they must have caught the tail end of his speech.

“This guy sounds like an actual prophet,” Zoe said, disturbed at how close he was to the truth.

“He sounds like a raving lunatic,” Grace muttered.

“He might be both,” Amaros decided, then braked when he saw a new landslide.“I’m going to have to move the rubble out of the way,” he said, annoyed at the delay.

“We’ll help,” Zoe offered.It was a cold, clear morning.Her breath frosted when she got out of the truck.Grace was small, but far stronger than she looked.It only took them a few minutes to clear one of the lanes.They left the other lane obstructed for now.

“That will do,” Amaros said.He’d taken a watch from the sporting goods store and checked it.“Camriel will sense me once I get closer to New York.He’ll make his way to us, so hopefully we won’t have to travel to the heart of the city.”

“You have no idea just how big New York is,” Grace said as they climbed back into the truck.“Manhattan is at the center.If your dude is there, it could take hours for him to make his way off the island and reach the Bronx.God only knows how bad the roads will be once we get closer to real civilization.”

“I guess we’ll see when we get there,” Zoe mused.“The Rapture happened in the middle of the night,” she went on.“The freeways might not be clogged.With luck, people returned home once they realized they didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“We can only hope,” Grace said skeptically.

“The people we’ve met so far have stayed in their towns, or fairly close by,” Zoe reminded her.

“Things aren’t so bad out in the sticks,” the teen argued.“It’ll be far worse in the cities.Would you want to hang around with crazed mobs roaming the streets?”

“Most people will realize their food will run out sooner or later,” Amaros said.“Finding supplies will be their first priority.Battles will be fought to gain control of supermarkets and other places where food and drinks are sold or stored.”

“The great food wars of the post apocalypse,” Zoe joked, but none of them laughed.

Amaros made better time once they reached the base of the mountain.The freeway wasn’t as bad as they’d feared to begin with.The knight had memorized the map.He managed to avoid the worst of the accidents by taking exits and using a different pathway.The main route became completely blocked, so he finally exited from the freeway again.

They passed through smaller towns to see signs of anarchy everywhere.Bodies littered the streets, sidewalks and front yards of both elegant and ramshackle houses.Grace cracked her window as they neared the outskirts of New York.“Ew, the stench is even worse than I’d expected,” she said, then gagged and shut the window again.

“Rotting flesh is never pleasant,” Amaros said.He’d slowed down and had to wend his way through the abandoned cars.

“It’s going to be like this all the way to the city,” Zoe figured.“It’ll get worse and worse until we can’t go any further.”

“Can your friend sense you from this far away?”Grace asked.

“No,” the knight said, shaking his head.“I need to get closer, but Zoe is right.It’s going to be difficult to drive much further.”

“How far away are we from Manhattan now?”Zoe asked.

“We’re still more than an hour away by vehicle,” he replied.

“So, it’ll take a few hours of walking before we’ll be within his range,” she calculated.

Amaros saw an open, empty garage and halted.He reversed the truck inside, then turned off the engine.“You two wait here,” he said.“I’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

“What if something happens to you?”Grace asked, unhappy with his plan.“How long should we wait for you to return?”

“We’ll be back within five hours,” he replied.

“There’s no way that’s going to happen,” Zoe said skeptically, taking the keys when he held them out to her.

“Knights of Order can move very fast when we need to,” he reminded her.“I’ll close the garage door.Use your guns if anyone tries to attack you.”