Road Warriors: A Levi Walsh Adventure, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental. September 2025. Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Kindle Direct Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. No portion of this book was created using AI. Jack Hance is a pen name created by the author for Post-Apocalyptic projects.
Hance, Jack. Road Warriors: A Levi Walsh Adventure. Kindle Edition.
Books By Jack Hance
EMP Survival in a Dying World Series:
School’s Out
Survival School
Back to School
Graduation Day
Enduring in a Cruel and Darkened World Series:
No Way Home
Homecoming
Homestead
Defending Home
Lost in an Infected and Dying World Series:
At Sea Day
Port in a Storm
Short Excursion
Home From Sea
Surviving on a Flooded and Ruined Planet Series:
Ice Breaker
Levi Walsh Adventures:
Protect Your Own
Road Warriors
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
-Albert Einstein
Courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the assessment that
something is more important than fear.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
Road Warriors: A Levi Walsh Adventure
Jack Hance
Original Cover Art By
Suzanne Gentry
Chapter One
Near Union Springs, Alabama
Thursday, May 8, 1:45PM
Becca Walsh eased to one knee and raised her rifle. She watched a small flock of wild turkeys, and through her scope centered on a large tom, or male bird. It was breeding season, and the hens might have offspring to care for nearby. She fired and the bird dropped to the ground as the rest of the flock scattered.
“Okay, Titan,” she said. “Go get it.”
The eighty-pound Siberian Husky took off, bounding over the undergrowth. Becca had been working with Titan on retrieval, and while she still didn’t trust the dog with a rabbit or squirrel, he was doing well with feathered animals. A minute later he returned, struggling with the weight of the fifteen-pound turkey, which he dropped at her feet, then looked up in expectation.
“Good job, boy,” Becca said, then pulled some jerky from a pocket and fed it to the dog. “I think that’ll do it for today. Time to go home.”
Becca carefully replaced the lens covers on her scope and shouldered the rifle. The gun was an inexpensive Ruger bolt action, but it was fitted with an outstanding Swarkovski scope. It was better for small game than the Savage Impulse she used for hunting before the EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, attack on the United States. That gun was chambered in .308 Winchester, which was ammunition they needed to conserve, where the Ruger fired the same .223 Remington rounds they could use in their M4A1 military rifles, and had in abundance.
She picked up the new bird, tied a cord around its feet, then hung it over a shoulder with the other turkey she shot earlier that afternoon. Her father would be pleased, combined the two fowl would dress out at over twenty pounds. Titan sniffed at the carcasses, as though regretting he gave them up. Becca grinned and threw him another stick of jerky.
“You’ll get your share, Titan,” she said. “But first we gotta get home.”
The home she referred to was a previously abandoned farm, chosen because it was so isolated, located over two miles from the nearest paved road and eight from the closest populated area. Union Springs, Alabama, lay to the west, a tiny town that held less than four thousand residents before the EMP event. Becca and her father, Levi, had been at the farm for nearly three weeks, after a careful and at times violent trip north from their old home in Hudson, Florida. That area had proven too dangerous, with marauding gangs of attackers and too many increasingly desperate survivors, so the father and daughter, with their dog, set out in a two-vehicle caravan migrating north and west. The intent was to eventually reach the Mississippi River and the western states Levi believed had been less affected by the attack that shut down the eastern half of the country, taking out the electric grid, communications and nearly all transportation. Levi thought that the EMP had been caused by at least one nuclear blast set off high in the atmosphere, but by whom or why they might never know.
Becca was seventeen but felt like she’d aged ten years in the last two months. Her old life had been far from perfect, but now the daily grind of high school, sports, friends, and a part-time job, broken by too-infrequent visits from her absentee father, seemed almost idyllic. Levi had been a major in the Army, stationed three hours north of Hudson at Camp Blanding, a training facility near Jacksonville.
Becca and Titan worked their way through forested areas, skirting apparently deserted farms, constantly on the lookout for unwanted surveillance from threats, which included anyone who might try to follow her. Many survivors were good people, but they’d been conditioned by the violent environment and nearly two months with scarce food, bad water and no outside help, and most were beyond desperate. Finally, the girl and her dog crossed a broad meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers that led to a two-story frame house and small barn at the top of a hill, nestled in a cluster of laurel oak trees. By the time they reached the farm yard, Becca was tired of carrying the dead turkeys.
Titan found Levi first, drawn by the sound of an axe splitting firewood.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t find you relaxing,” Becca said, eyeing the pile of split wood, most of it kindling sized. “What with us out putting food on the table.”
She held up the two turkeys, then did a little victory dance.
“Those are two nice toms,” Levi said, wiping his brow. “Good work.”
“Is that wood for the smokehouse?” Becca asked, and Levi nodded.
“This is all oak,” he said. “The hickory we found would be better, but it’s still too green.”
“Does the kind of wood you use matter?” Becca said. “I mean, as long as it burns?” Levi raised an eyebrow.
“You’re lucky we aren’t in Texas, princess,” he said. “People get strung up for heresy like that down there. But seriously, oak is fine.”
Levi had been excited to see a nice smokehouse behind the barn when they arrived, and it had been operating nearly non-stop since. It was currently filled with filets from catfish and largemouth bass they caught in Sehoy Lake, a four hundred fifty acre body of water that was only three miles from the farm.
“Are we going to smoke these turkeys?” Becca asked. Levi frowned.
“Let’s do one of them,” he said. “We’ll need the smoked meat come winter, but some fresh meat sounds awful good right now. Let’s grill the other one.” Becca grinned and hugged her father.
“Yes! I’ll go clean these birds and get the fire pit going,” she said. “You finish chopping up this crappy oak wood, Tex.”
Later, Levi and Becca were sitting next to the fire pit, eating an early dinner of grilled turkey that also included beans with rice. Becca carved a thick strip of breast meat with her tactical knife, then took a bite.
“Man, that’s good,” she said, then studied the rear of the two-story farmhouse. “You think we’ll still be here when that hickory wood is cured? We’ve already been here a while.” Her father thought about it.
“We’re not on a schedule, Bec,” he finally said. “This place is isolated, with good lines of sight in all directions. The fishing and hunting are good, and we’ve got the smokehouse, and the barn for our vehicles.”
“I’m not saying we should leave,” Becca said. “I like it here. I was just wondering.”
“You didn’t see anyone today, did you?”
“No, but we went north,” Becca replied. “There isn’t anything that way.”
She took another bite of her turkey slice, then threw the rest to Titan. When Levi raised an eyebrow, she shrugged.
“Hey, he helped catch it,” she said.
Becca pulled her knees under her chin and hugged her own legs. The sun was now low in the sky, and the temperature was dropping. Levi waited for a minute; he was learning his daughter’s moods and could tell she had something on her mind. Because of his Army duties, Levi had been gone far too much when Becca was growing up, a fact that weighed on him heavily. Levi’s father, Ray, had raised the girl, and the two had shared a close bond that Levi envied. Ray had been killed in the violence that followed the EMP attack, but his influence remained. The supplies he stockpiled for just such a disaster had set them apart from the desperate survivors who were struggling and dying everywhere they’d been. Finally, Levi gave in and asked.
“Is there something bothering you?”
“Not really,” she said. “But… well, when we set out, part of what we wanted to do was explore how people in other areas were doing. We haven’t done that here.”
“Becca, we’ve been safe here,” Levi said. “You want to go out looking for trouble?” Becca made a snorting noise.
“Jeez, Dad, I’m not saying we stroll into Union Springs and yell ‘Ollie, Ollie oxen free!’” she said. “We could go in, see what’s what, and get out with nobody the wiser.”
“What exactly are we hoping to see?” Levi asked. “We haven’t come that far, things here will be like in Florida.” Becca gave him a stern look.
“You can’t know that, Dad,” she said. “That’s the whole point of looking.”
Becca carved another dripping slice of breast meat from the turkey, tore it in half and tossed the larger piece to Titan, who snatched it neatly from the air. She then sat nibbling the other piece slowly, pretending to ignore her father. Finally, the silence grew too uncomfortable, and Levi sighed.
“Well, we are running short of a few things, like seasonings for the smokehouse,” he said. “We could go tomorrow, but you would have to follow my operating plan, my rules. No going rogue!” Becca grinned.
“Why, father,” she said. “When have I ever done that?”
Levi rolled his eyes.
“I’ll ignore that,” he said. “The best time to go is an hour or two before dawn, O-dark-thirty. That gives us time, so get some sleep.”
Becca snapped off a smart salute, then gathered the rest of the grilled turkey from the fire pit. They never wasted good protein, and this would be sliced for sandwiches or dried in the smokehouse.
At three-thirty AM the alarm on Becca’s analog watch started beeping. She shut it off and then lay quietly for a moment. She could hear her father moving about in the next room so she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She’d slept in her tactical clothes, so all she needed to do was lace up her well-worn hiking boots and buckle on her utility belt, with its holstered Beretta handgun and sheathed KA-BAR fighting knife.
She found Levi in the kitchen, closing up a small backpack. He then opened a can of black shoe polish and started smearing it in streaks across his face and neck. He held up the can.
“You want me to do you?” he said. She scoffed.
“No way,” she said. “You put it on too thick and that stuff is hell to get off. I’ll do it myself.”
She opened the backpack and studied the contents. Apart from some spare pistol and rifle magazines, it held half a dozen small bundles wrapped in waxed paper. She checked one of them, finding a cold biscuit slathered in the center with peanut butter.
“Are these all the same?” Becca asked.
“Half of them are turkey from last night,” Levi said. “Your choice, princess.”
She closed the backpack and threw the strap over one shoulder. Then she lightly dotted her face and neck with shoe polish and smeared it in carefully.
“What’s the plan?”
“I figure we’ll take Ray’s pickup truck,” Levi said. “Drive to within a mile or so and then hoof it the rest of the way.”
Chapter Two
Union Springs, Alabama
Friday, May 9, 4:15AM
They left the pickup in a dilapidated barn less than a mile from the outskirts of Union Springs. Levi had a map, but it showed little detail. The town was clustered around two small highways that intersected there, U.S. 82 and U.S. 29, and they assumed, correctly, that most of the commercial areas were near the larger one, U.S. 82. Levi and Becca approached from the east, and found scattered side streets with widely spaced homes, most of them manufactured housing. A few appeared to be inhabited, but most were abandoned, with doors hanging open and broken windows.
“We haven’t seen any that were burned,” Becca said. “That’s different.”
“No gas lines,” Levi said. “And none of these houses had fireplaces.”
As they moved further into the town, they found some small neighborhoods of more substantial homes, two-story Victorian structures that had probably been impressive in the early twentieth century. Now they just looked shabby and worn. Most had clearly been looted, with trash and broken furniture spilling out of open front doors. Levi and Becca entered one, and apart from what was rotting in the refrigerator, there was no food. But on a pantry shelf Levi found a trove of partial containers of spices and seasonings.
“Jackpot!” he said, holding up nearly full jars of paprika, ground mustard and bay leaves. Becca smiled.
“Is that what you need to make that Old Bay seasoning for the smokehouse?” she asked.
“Most of it,” he said. “We can improvise.” He scooped all of the spices into a bag and tied it to his belt.
Becca motioned toward the wide staircase that led to the second floor.
“You want to search up there?”
“I’ll pass,” Levi said. “It doesn’t smell great down here, and something tells me upstairs is worse.”
As they walked outside, Becca took a breath of fresh air.
“Pretty lucky finding those spices,” she said.
“Not really,” Levi said. “I figured most looters wouldn’t be interested. The luck was finding a house where someone used to do actual cooking.”
Levi and Becca grew more careful as they approached the center of town. Union Springs had an old-fashioned downtown area, mostly two-story brick and frame structures with false fronts to make them look taller. Well over half of them were boarded up, which seemed strange. None had been burned and there was almost no graffiti, apart from scrawled warnings against looters and ‘drifters.’
“What the heck is a drifter?” Becca said. Levi shrugged.
“It used to sort of mean hobos,” he said. “It’s always been a loaded term, but now, heck, it could be pretty much anyone.”
They stayed in the shadows, moving from building to building constantly scanning for movement. Ahead, they saw an impressive, three-story brick structure that could only be a county courthouse. It was an elaborate, Second Empire building, with a central pediment and columns, and taller wings on each side topped by gray Mansard roofs. There were ornate, carved stone lintels above the windows and cornices along the roof lines. It was visible in the darkness because an oil lantern had been hung on a post in the large, paved courtyard in front of the building.
“Man, that place sort of stands out in this town,” Levi said.
“Gramps used to say like a turd in a punchbowl,” Becca said. “Except here it’s the town that’s shitty.”
The courtyard was screened by a large oak tree on their side, but the edge of a platform made of untreated pine boards was in sight in the center of the area.
“They’ve got some temporary structure in the square there,” Levi said. “We’ll have to go around.”
The light from the lantern made continuing down the sidewalk across from the courthouse too dangerous. Levi led the way along the side of a former retail shop to the rear alley, then to the other side, where they could again approach the main street. They used piles of bagged trash and broken furniture as cover, stopping at the edge of the raised sidewalk, both of them prone on the unsavory pavement of the alley. They could now see the front of the courthouse clearly, including the temporary structure in the center of the courtyard.
“Holy shit,” Becca said. “Is that a… gallows? And an effing body?”
The base of the gallows was raised four feet, with the upper crossbar ten feet above its rough surface. Rather than have a trapdoor to drop the condemned prisoner, a four-foot wooden stepladder lay on its side and above that, the feet of a young man dangled. The body was turning slowly, pushed by a steady breeze.
“I’m afraid so,” Levi said. “From the body, I’d say he’s been there a day or two.”
“Why doesn’t someone take him down?”
“I guess as a warning to others,” Levi said. “Can you read the sign on his chest?”
Becca raised her head a little and squinted.
“Jesus,” she moaned. “It says, ‘Drifter.’ But that guy isn’t a hobo, he’s maybe twenty-five, and he’s wearing Ralph Lauren jeans and Vans sneakers.”
