by Lindy Ryan
She squeezed the trigger again, and this time a shot rang out, the sound loud and clear—and not from her gun. Rachel blinked as she saw the rifleman’s midsection tear open, watched as he was thrown backward. He smashed onto the ground. Motionless. Dead.
What just happened?
The man in black blinked in surprise, and his voice came out panicked. “What the fuck!”
Rachel stepped backward, her empty gun still trained on the other man as he bent down and retrieved his gun. She couldn’t think, couldn’t react—
Crack!
Before the man could straighten, his body was thrust backward, his chest cavity blasted apart. He hit the ground hard, and his neck snapped, head bent at an unnatural angle.
“Go!” The word belted through Rachel’s lips as her body swung into motion, Lucy on her heels. Her body jolted, tripped, and she fell, new pain ricocheted up her shoulder as she slammed against the ground.
“She’s over here!” A female voice. Familiar. The same woman she’d told to run.
Rachel lifted her body and began crawling toward the closest man, his body flat in a shallow pool of his own blood. His pistol lay just outside of the spread, and she stumbled to her feet. Dove toward it. Grabbed it, swung around, and aimed. The man and woman stood in front of her, and beside them, the same man she had seen in the Humvee—the one she had locked eyes with, and now he was holding a long-range assault rifle.
Caucasian male. Short black hair parted down the middle. Dark blue jacket.
Cold eyes, she remembered.
But this time his eyes weren’t cold. They were warm. Kind.
“You won’t be needing that,” he said.
The calm in his voice made the space behind Rachel’s knees melt despite the gun in his grip, and his pleasant smile numbed the ache in her shoulder. The couple at his side smiled, shaking their heads in agreement.
Listen, and be ready.
Rachel readjusted her footing and kept her voice tough. “Why won’t I need it?”
A bark. Lucy.
The dog darted from behind her, racing past her legs toward a line of trees in the distance. Then, another noise.
No, Rachel realized. Another bark.
Two dogs barking.
Heat flooded Rachel’s chest and her vision clouded as a golden blur emerged from the green, running full speed toward her.
“Cowboy?”
The two dogs ran circles around each other. Jumping. Licking. The gun slipped from Rachel’s hand.
“Rachel!” An older woman came through the tree line. Short. Dark hair pulled back in a bun. A man followed behind her, thin and lanky with large spectacles and hair like spun glass.
Rachel’s heart stopped. Restarted. She half expected to see a woman with blazing red hair and olive skin to appear next, but this wasn’t Heaven. It was Alaska. Rachel’s wife was dead, but her parents were still alive.
“Mom! Dad!”
Darla Mason dropped to her knees when she neared her daughter. She wrapped her arms around Rachel’s waist. Squeezed.
“Oh, baby. You made it.”
Her father clapped his hands on their shoulders, tugged down on one of Rachel’s curls. “Well done, girl,” he said. “You found us.”
She had found them, hadn’t she? But how?
The man from the Humvee stepped toward them and crossed his arms. “You were right, James. Your daughter is a fighter,” he said. He spread his arms, tipped his head in greeting. “Welcome, Rachel—to the end of the world.”
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Where are we? What’s happened?”
The man looked behind her, seemed to consider the question for a moment, and then said, “Come, we need to get you and the others out of here. There’s another drop coming soon, and we need to get to shelter. There will be time for answers later.”
Rachel looked to him. “Who are you?”
The man paused. Shrugged. “My name is Timothy, but my friends call me Crow.”
Operation Black Mariah
Wave One
All over the world, from small rural towns to big cities, from Alaska to South Africa, something is happening. Though events differ from place to place, all point to the same chilling outcome: the implementation of a New World Order by the global elite. Their goal—to centralize the world’s power and wealth into their own hands, and to control humanity. But first they need to cull the human population to sustainable levels, and their plans have begun.
Welcome to the world of Marie D. Jones Presents Black Mariah, a harrowing near-future ripped from today’s headlines that dares to look at what might come next. This is a world of conspiracies and cover-ups, of lies and deception, of chaos and confusion, and of small groups of people who realize the only way to survive is to harness the power of the human spirit. To defy and persist. In the wake of the quest for survival, a revolution called “Defiance” is born.
This is a stand-alone story in the Black Mariah Shared World, a collaborative effort by authors from all across the globe whose characters react and respond to the same events, but in their own unique ways. Each story takes the reader on a journey of one of these characters, allowing for multiple perspectives to unfold. The only thing these characters have in common is that they survived Wave One. But will they survive what’s to come?
Experience Season One
Morris, Indiana by Marie D. Jones
El Desaguadero River, Nicaragua by Burke Bryant
Juneau, Alaska by Lindy Ryan
Hanau, Germany by Dorothy Dreyer
Las Vegas by Mercedes M. Yardley
Tandragee, North Ireland by Julieanne Lynch
San Antonio, Texas by Eva Pohler
Victoria West, Northern Cape, South Africa by Monique Snyman
Changi, Singapore by Pearry Teo & Lindy Ryan
Jasper, Indiana by Marie D. Jones
Immerse yourself in the world of Black Mariah and stay up to date on news and announcements at BlackMariahSeries.com.
Acknowledgments
To Marie D. Jones, for creating such an exciting, engaging, and complex world, and for allowing me to be a part of it.
To Burke Bryant, for bringing this story to life and always being there for rants, ramblings, and ravings, no matter the time, day, or place.
To Italia Gandolfo, for always bringing the most exciting projects to my table.
To Monique Snyman and Laura Clark, for your keep editorial insights, and sharp red pens.
To all the survivors, who fight—who persist.
About the Author
Lindy Ryan is an award-winning editor and author. Several of her titles have been adapted to film. Currently, she is collaborating as the lead author on a horror franchise project with a top veteran Hollywood director and an award-winning screenwriter. She is represented by Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management. She also writes clean, seasonal romance under the name Lindy Miller. Ryan currently resides in Juneau, Alaska. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association, serves on the IBPA Board of Directors, and was a 2020 Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree.
Keep Reading
Season 1, Episode 4
Hanau, Germany by Dorothy Dreyer
When low-flying planes shower Lina Schuster’s hometown of Hanau, Germany, with a strange, white mist, she has no choice but to believe her conspiracy-minded friend Sofie’s theories of a Great Reset.
It’s been a year since Lina Schuster lost her mother—just another in the long line of casualties of the ongoing pandemic. After helping her father cope, as well as battling her own depression and bouts of panic attacks, Lina is finally ready to get back on her feet. When she starts a new job at a small electronics store, Lina meets Sofie, a conspiracy-driven coworker, who seems convinced a secret global government is out to control the population by striking down the poor, the weak, and anyone who resists their ways.
Lina thinks Sofie is simply delusional… until low-flying planes appear and shower her town with a strange, whi
te mist. When the aftermath of the event reveals Sofie’s theory could be right, Lina finds herself leading a group of survivors to a supposed sanctuary in hopes to keep them from being culled into nonexistence.
Read the next episode on Amazon.