ELE Series | Book 5 | Escape

by Jones, K. J.

  Extinction Level Event

  Book Five, Escape

  K.J. Jones

  Copyright © 2021 Katherine J. Guarino

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Foreword

  For readers who started reading the series in January 2020, COVID-19 is mentioned in this book. It was brought in during the rewrites of the earlier books after initial publication. The pandemic of 2020-21 would certainly have an impact for a long time to come and therefore it should be in the relatively recent memory of the characters and society. We still remember the 1918 “Spanish” flu, after all.

  Real-life is stranger than fiction. There were plenty of things that occurred during the pandemic that a writer could never have come up with – toilet paper hoarding being at the top of the list. No way any of us apocalypse novelists would have foreseen that one! So, TP missing from shelves during Book Two loots came in during the rewrite.

  We’d also not predict people getting on the streets for protests and riots during a pandemic. Logic would dictate people would isolate in their homes. Businesses entirely shutting down for weeks, again, not something that had precedence. However, our real-life experience gave boatloads of material for an apocalypse writer!

  In Book Four, Rescue, the shocker of the radio conversation with family occurred, showing what the group had been experiencing was not national. In Book Five, Escape, the bird’s eye grows. There’s even a glimpse of the British Isles and Canada. Unfortunately, just a glimpse. I want to explore other countries, but the plot doesn’t lend to this.

  Book Five was absolutely the hardest to write. I even had to draw in friend-fans to help me out. So much goes on, it blew my mind. And so much research involved on things I hadn’t a clue about. Then I was hit with mild symptoms COVID, which takes a while to recover from. I apologize for how long it took to get Book Five out.

  This is the longest of the ELE Series books. Again, a lot goes on. You will find out where R140 comes from, and why this series is entitled extinction-level event – another mass extinction problem rises.

  Reviews

  For those who complain in reviews about skimming dialogue, there are scenes within this, specifically in a lecture, which are alright to skim. They are intentional info dumps. The characters react to these with boredom and looking around and all the things we do. The info dumps of the lecture are written in blocks and important information in smaller paragraphs to signal when to stop skimming and read these bits. The information is interesting, but not vital. Where R140 comes from is within this lecture. My blog has the background information on it. Another scary thing I did not make up.

  I had to do a lot of balancing acts between what is the familiarity now and how things would change in the catastrophe, such as how the military would make changes, both officially and unofficially, and the precedence for this. Aware that some reviewer somewhere will pick up on one trivial thing and go crazy in a review, I had to do a lot of CYA so I and/or the book would not be attacked. I’ve now been hit by an actual liar on an Amazon reviewer who worked for his own agenda. Wow! That topped everything.

  I have an exclusivity contract with Amazon KDP, meaning the ELE Series eBooks can only be sold on Amazon. This is my career and how I pay my rent. For people to do their craziness in the only place the books are sold is cruel. They aren’t doing negative book reviews. They aren’t book reviews at all but nitpicking rants as if Amazon and Good Reads are their own personal Facebook page. Very cruel stuff. I am trying to nip that in the bud in this book before they can get started with their attacks. But I probably overlooked something somewhere.

  When an expert in something or another presents him- or herself to me and informs me something is technically incorrect, I go back, rewrite the scene, and republish. The benefit of indie publishing is the books aren’t written in stone, unlike traditional publishing. I have to know ridiculous amounts of information for each book and funnel it into a story! Without experts in the individual fields beta reading the book, mistakes aren’t found by others. I try to make box collections for the rewrites so those who have read the originals can download the new version.

  Enough about that, onward and upward.

  A note on who dies – if my imagination does not produce a character transitioning into the next book, the character must then die. I fought for one character to survive Book Five, but nothing manifested. Yet, another character I thought would die manifested into visions for Book Six. That’s how it works. I’m a pantser writer, letting the characters and story tell me what happens, and I am left with filling in the details. In many ways, I’m along for the ride, too.

  ~ K.J.

  April 26th, 2021

  Day 1

  Chapter One

  Fort Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina

  1.

  A tall wall ran for miles, fully encompassing the US Army base and part of the ruined state capital city surrounding it. Peter spotted a plane airstrip made from an interstate highway. He tried to memorize everything and form a map in his mind. The helicopter descended too low for his aerial view.

  Phebe grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. She laid her head back and closed her eyes.

  He wished he could say it would all be alright. She was too smart for such comforting lies. The thirteen-year-old boy next to her was too. Tyler stared ahead with no emotion on his face.

  Peter looked over at Emily and Brandon. She had her eyes closed and squeezed her boyfriend’s hand until it turned stark white. Brandon’s gaze was on him as if asking “How bad is it, Sully?”

  Rotor blade beats and mechanical noises of the helicopter joined with other sounds. A PA loudspeaker made base announcements. For a moment, Peter could hear the zoms. A chorus of their shrieks. But the Chinook helicopter descended too far within the wall, buffering the exterior noises.

  His stomach tightened. His shoulders high and tense. A flash of the last time he dreaded something so bad. A line of cars followed a hearse through a cemetery.

  Remember the map, he told himself.

  The Chinook bumped its passengers as it landed. The engine cut off. Rotors wound down with a whine he had heard a thousand times in his career.

  “Stay close to me,” Phebe told Tyler. She leaned forward and said to the Jackson kids, “Stay close to us. Hold hands. You understand?”

  Chris said, “Get in the middle of us. Stay ahead of me. I’ll take the six.” He was unarmed, except for his height and width and his attitude.

  Jayce and Nia nodded. Their hands clutched. Ten years dropped off their ages from the fear in their eyes. Little children holding hands before entering a new elementary school.

  Mullen and Karen held hands, too. He had achieved looking tough and unbothered. It had taken a dog’s age, but Mullen managed to finally do it. Maybe it was due to Karen. Gotta look tough in front of a girl.

  The side door rolled open, blinding them with sunlight. A soldier wearing a face mask like the COVID days yelled orders. “Everyone out!”

  Peter was the first one, taking point. He stepped down on his good leg and remembered to use his cane for his bad leg and limp. Time for the show to begin. He pulled Phebe to him once she was out. But she moved Tyler between them. Maybe her grizzly mama's maternal instinct kicking into high gear.

  Yet the kid looked hard as hell. More like a short pre-pubescent man
entering a maximum-security prison than a scared child entering the surreal.

  A scan of his group to check on everyone, Peter saw they were all eyes. Brandon pointed out things to Emily, Karen, Mullen, and the Jackson kids. He was telling them to memorize everything. Good.

  Mazy and Ben gave one last squeeze to each other and stepped apart as if they were nothing more than platonic friends. Smart, Peter reflected. They may be back to officer and NCO and fraternizing across the line was not permitted. Ben’s face was habitually hard to read, his resting Native face a scowl. Ben once shared, “This is the Native at rest face. We all have it.” But this was not such a face he held now. The muscles under his skin were taught like rope.

  Chris, on the other hand, had on a face as bad as Tyler’s but with more experience in glaring and frowning. He looked through his brow ridge, his scowl was so severe. His broad shoulders wide.

  Where their bags were, who knew. A scan around at the other Chinooks showed no luggage coming out but instead, it was the unloading of the white supremacist tribe who had been loaded up at the park. A couple of them were big guys. Muscular. Carried themselves as if they could handle themselves. Peter noted those guys. He had seen some of them before during recon of their tribal territory.

  Unlike at the park where they and Chris yelled at each other and wanted to fight, this time the supremacists paid them no attention. One guy—an over six-footer with broad shoulders and the walk as if he could handle himself—looked around almost as angry as Chris. He wore a checkered flannel shirt, unbuttoned and showing a gray t-shirt beneath. They corralled the enemy tribe right behind Chris.

  Compared to the clean-cut soldiers, everyone looked like feral mountain people coming in from the wild. The soldiers smelled of shampoo and deodorant – something Peter had never particularly noticed until now, except when from a girl, strawberry-scented shampoo and all that. The tribes presented an array of body odors. His olfactory had gotten used to o’natural eau de human. A nose itch threatened a sneeze from the fragrances. The soldiers wreaked of it, though they probably wore no more than usual and the same amount most of the tribes used to wear.

  “Oh, God,” said Phebe. “Did they drawn themselves in perfumes?” Her hand covered her nose.

  Emily shot a look to her, commiserating with a nod. Peter heard pregnant white supremacist women complaining, too.

  The Chinooks stood on a landing pad surrounded by buildings that seemed administrative. Lines on the black asphalt told this had been a parking lot. Soldiers badgered the tribes into a single-file line heading for the buildings. The PA announced things as if it was a normal base on a normal day – things coming up for the day, so-and-so Important Officer Soldier needed somewhere. Human and machine activity sounds from beyond the buildings. The entirety of it, so long away from such things, overwhelming.

  “Where’s Mama?” Nia asked.

  “I don’t see her,” Jayce responded.

  “Straight ahead,” a soldier barked at the two paused teens. “Keep moving.”

  Their battle dress uniforms had changed, Peter noticed. Not only had the digital camouflage pattern changed for the new at-home war, but a layer of thick canvas padding had been added. It was color-coordinated with the camo digital colors. The canvas patches ran on their shoulders, down the exterior of their arms, and the outside of their legs with large areas still exposed. The Pentagon had made ZBDUs, though, woefully insufficient for what they needed to be.

  “Inside here,” a female soldier directed.

  They entered doors and through security metal detectors. Belt buckles sounded binging alerts.

  “This has metal in it?” A security soldier held out Peter’s cane.

  “A metal tube to keep its structure sound since it’s wood. I’m disabled.” Peter pointed to his bad leg.

  The soldier fiddled with it to see if the handle could be removed from the base. Failing this, he handed it back to Peter. “They’ll check if you medically require this.”

  Pat downs with arms outstretched while other armed soldiers aimed weapons at them, which made the process worse than airport TSA security, something Peter hadn’t thought possible. They at least didn’t have to take off their shoes, which was nice of them. Digital non-contact thermometers flashed across their heads. Soldiers handling them checked the displays before moving on to the next person.

  Passing this checkpoint, onto a large lobby set up like the DMV, minus any seats. Lines on the floor, leading to a person with a computer, who was separated from their coworkers by short partitions. Each station had a camera like a driver’s license application station. Except there was no taking a numbered ticket and sit down to wait to be called. Soldiers split the tribes into lines.

  “Soft eyes,” Mazy whispered to Ben.

  “Huh?”

  “They all have soft eyes.”

  “Crap.” Ben shook his head.

  That was Mazy’s reference to people who hadn’t faced real-world situations of the infected.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped.

  Ben followed her gaze.

  Soldiers patrolled them. Their fingers on their M4s. A nasty look on their faces. The unit patches on their arms were jet black and small circle-shaped.

  Ben cleared his throat to get the attention of Chris in the next line. He motioned his lips to the unit patches.

  The checkered flannel shirt supremacist behind Chris turned too. Both men scowled further and watched the nearest soldier walk past them. The two were a duo of obvious.

  “Never saw that before,” said checkered-shirt supremacist guy. He stood at near the same height as Chris, but less width at the shoulders.

  “You Army?” Chris asked him.

  “Was,” the guy emphasized for past tense.

  Ben cleared his throat. His eyes widened to implore for an answer.

  Chris shook his head; he didn’t know what the black patches were.

  Chris asked, “Sul?”

  Peter watched another soldier with one of those patches.

  “What is that?” Tyler asked Peter.

  “Don’t know, kid. Never seen it before. But betting it ain’t good.”

  All the black patches were young. Twenty-five appeared to be an elder among them. They had an unnerving look – butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. None had name tape on their uniforms. They had numbers where their surnames should have been. Dehumanizing. Disassociation as human beings. This did not bode well.

  Peter observed the other soldiers, who had normal patches and Velcroed name tape. They gave the black patches a wide berth. The black patches did not interact with anyone, including each other. They patrolled their area, watching everything the lined-up tribes did.

  The admin people, all of the specialist rank, sat in a row at their chunky DoD laptops. Their eyes darted around nervously, and their gazes avoided the black patches. They were civilians, Peter suspected. Or had been up to very recently.

  The first admin person got herself situated and called on her line. It was people from the white supremacist group. She was African American. Peter smirked – how was this going to go down?

  Phebe whispered, “I should have kept my papers. Damn it. Stupid.”

  Peter rubbed her back for comfort, but his gaze remained on everything surrounding them. He raised a brow at observing Chris and checkered-shirt supremacist guy chatting like they were buddies.

  Emily looked like she was going to have an accident in her pants any second. Brandon was not permitted to go two inches away from her. She had a clamp on his hand.

  Karen and the Jackson kids kept watch of every civilian. Their gazes went to the entrance doors every time they opened. Ever hopeful to see their parents.

  “You will be required to remove those,” the specialist said to the white supremacist regarding his non-metallic Nazi jewelry. She was most likely totally thrilled to see swastikas in the middle of all this other crap.

  Checkered Shirt Guy chuckled. He wore no jewelry and no visible tattoos c
ommunicating his beliefs. What he found humorous, Peter suspected was not the same things he himself found humorous. Peter wanted to make a sneering face and bask in his self-righteousness of being on the good guy side. But he had other things to focus on and would have to save it for later.

  The doors opened. Civilians entered.

  “Aw, fuck,” Checkered Shirt Guy said aloud and everyone heard it. His accent: South Carolina redneckish. Not as severe as Chris’s North Carolina redneck accent, but Chris was a special guy. No wonder there was bonding between them. Perhaps they were talking about pickup trucks.

  In came the meth heads from the hospital area. Hairstyles looking as if they had escaped the 1980s punk era only with less finesse. A multitude of piercings and ear gages made metal detecting difficult. They argued to retain them, but it became clear they would not go any further if they did not remove it all. Soldiers held up plastic bowls to receive. Homemade weapons and contraband was taken off of them. Their original pat-down didn’t find everything. Soldiers held up shiv knives to each other and shook their heads, body language showing heavy disapproval.

  Some meth heads were already twitchy and sweaty. None looked calm.

  “What kind of bone is this?” a security soldier demanded. He held up a bone sharpened into a spike.

  The guy he spoke to smiled and gave a creepy laugh.

  “It is human,” Checkered Shirt Guy yelled over. “They are cannibals.” When a Southern redneck said every word that was supposed to be in a sentence and annunciated properly, this meant the dude was way serious.

  The security soldiers backed away, showing repulsion of the new intakes. Black patches moved closer to the meth heads – they may have some live ones here.

  This slowed down the admin specialists, who seemed to freeze at the mention of cannibals, as if they were thinking, “I fucking knew there would be cannibals in this fucking place.”