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Shatter Zone
James Axler
Scattered remains have been salvaged from the abandoned cities that withstood the atomic onslaught at the dawn of the twenty-fi rst century, but the secrets of pre-Dark tech buried in the mass grave of civilization are known to only a few.Possessing understanding and the unshakable will to survive, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists face each day armed and ready for the enemy called Deathlands, whose formidable power has yet to claim victory over the human spirit….In this raw, brutal world ruled by the strongest and the most vicious, an unseen player is manipulating Ryan and his band, luring him across an unseen battle line drawn in the dust outside Tucson, Arizona. Here a local barony becomes the staging ground for a battle unlike any other, against a foe whose ties to pre-Dark society present a new and incalculable threat to a fragile world. Ryan Cawdor is the only man living who stands between this adversary's glory… and the prize he seeks. In the Deathlands, the future lies somewhere between hope…and hell.
The last mutie raised its head and crooned at the sky
It was a new and different kind of hoot that none of the companions had ever heard before. Almost immediately, a distant hoot answered.
“Dark night, it’s calling for help!” J.B. gasped, dropping a spent clip and slapping in a spare. “What is going on here?”
Even as she frantically reloaded, Mildred considered the matter, and knew that she had no possible answer. Nobody knew for sure where the stickies came from in the first place, whether they were accidents of Nature caused by the nuclear holocaust, devolved humans, escaped genetic experiments, bioweps or what. But there was one singular, unarguable factor about the mutants. They lived, and anything alive always tried to improve itself, to make the next generation stronger.
Mildred shivered at the idea. Stickies with weapons. Oh, dear God in Heaven, protect our mortal souls….
Other titles in the Deathlands saga:
Red Equinox
Northstar Rising
Time Nomads
Latitude Zero
Seedling
Dark Carnival
Chill Factor
Moon Fate
Fury’s Pilgrims
Shockscape
Deep Empire
Cold Asylum
Twilight Children
Rider, Reaper
Road Wars
Trader Redux
Genesis Echo
Shadowfall
Ground Zero
Emerald Fire
Bloodlines
Crossways
Keepers of the Sun
Circle Thrice
Eclipse at Noon
Stoneface
Bitter Fruit
Skydark
Demons of Eden
The Mars Arena
Watersleep
Nightmare Passage
Freedom Lost
Way of the Wolf
Dark Emblem
Crucible of Time
Starfall
Encounter: Collector’s Edition
Gemini Rising
Gaia’s Demise
Dark Reckoning
Shadow World
Pandora’s Redoubt
Rat King
Zero City
Savage Armada
Judas Strike
Shadow Fortress
Sunchild
Breakthrough
Salvation Road
Amazon Gate
Destiny’s Truth
Skydark Spawn
Damnation Road Show
Devil Riders
Bloodfire
Hellbenders
Separation
Death Hunt
Shaking Earth
Black Harvest
Vengeance Trail
Ritual Chill
Atlantis Reprise
Labyrinth
Strontium Swamp
Shatter Zone
DEATH LANDS ®
James Axler
To my parents
For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
—Ecclesiastes 9:11–12
THE DEATHLANDS SAGA
This world is their legacy, a world born in the violent nuclear spasm of 2001 that was the bitter outcome of a struggle for global dominance.
There is no real escape from this shockscape where life always hangs in the balance, vulnerable to newly demonic nature, barbarism, lawlessness.
But they are the warrior survivalists, and they endure—in the way of the lion, the hawk and the tiger, true to nature’s heart despite its ruination.
Ryan Cawdor: The privileged son of an East Coast baron. Acquainted with betrayal from a tender age, he is a master of the hard realities.
Krysty Wroth: Harmony ville’s own Titian-haired beauty, a woman with the strength of tempered steel. Her premonitions and Gaia powers have been fostered by her Mother Sonja.
J. B. Dix, the Armorer: Weapons master and Ryan’s close ally, he, too, honed his skills traversing the Deathlands with the legendary Trader.
Doctor Theophilus Tanner: Torn from his family and a gentler life in 1896, Doc has been thrown into a future he couldn’t have imagined.
Dr. Mildred Wyeth: Her father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, but her fate is not much lighter. Restored from predark cryogenic suspension, she brings twentieth-century healing skills to a nightmare.
Jak Lauren: A true child of the wastelands, reared on adversity, loss and danger, the albino teenager is a fierce fighter and loyal friend.
Dean Cawdor: Ryan’s young son by Sharona accepts the only world he knows, and yet he is the seedling bearing the promise of tomorrow.
In a world where all was lost, they are humanity’s last hope….
Contents
Chapter One (#uc7b9722e-0986-5811-b911-aeeabbb85d91)
Chapter Two (#ufb98a36b-5092-538e-a752-a63778bfefbd)
Chapter Three (#u25fb7c30-7ee6-504c-94e2-c32e570e994b)
Chapter Four (#u8eb38c75-3f18-5e9e-bcb2-47fdc82a729d)
Chapter Five (#u5aea9c88-12f1-58dc-b35b-7d4e6a843b50)
Chapter Six (#ue0887b75-fbb5-58eb-a34f-99bdf13725bb)
