by Schow, Ryan
The Complete Last War Series
Ryan Schow
River City Publishing
Copyright
The eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy so that you may read it with a clear conscience and not one day end up in hell over a shitty technicality. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
THE COMPLETE LAST WAR SERIES
Copyright © 2017, 2018 Ryan Schow. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, cloned, stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this eBook via the Internet or via any other means without the express written permission of the author or publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents—and their usage for storytelling purposes—are crafted for the singular purpose of fictional entertainment and no absolute truths shall be derived from the information contained within. Locales, businesses, events, government institutions and private institutions are used for atmospheric, entertainment and fictional purposes only. Furthermore, any resemblance or reference to an actual living person is used solely for atmospheric, entertainment and fictional purposes.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Cover Design by Milo at Deranged Doctor Design
Visit the Author’s Website: www.RyanSchow.com
Contents
Also by Ryan Schow
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153
Chapter 154
Chapter 155
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159
Chapter 160
Chapter 161
Chapter 162
Chapter 163
Chapter 164
Chapter 165
Chapter 166
Chapter 167
Chapter 168
Epilogue
A Word of Thanks…
Sneak Peek
Your Voice Matters…
Also by Ryan Schow
THE AGE OF EMBERS SERIES:
THE AGE OF EMBERS
THE AGE OF HYSTERIA
THE COMPLETE LAST WAR SERIES:
THE LAST WAR
THE ZERO HOUR
THE OPHIDIAN HORDE
THE INFERNAL REGIONS
THE KILLING FIELDS
THE BARBAROUS ROAD
THE TERMINAL RUN
THE COMPLETE SWANN SERIES:
VANNIE (PREQUEL)
SWANN
MONARCH
CLONE
MASOCHIST
WEAPON
RAVEN
ABOMINATION
ENIGMA
CRUCIFIED
Foreword
I was never a Pinterest person, but my wife is and she was on it enough for me to grow curious. When I got my own Pinterest page, I found a crazy amount of inspiration for both the stories and the characters within them. Now I h
ave a Pinterest board for every book in this series. Each board contains character photos, the cars from the series and even places where my characters reside. If you’re signed up for Pinterest (which is easy and free!) then stop by and take a look around by clicking or tapping HERE (The Last War), HERE (The Zero Hour), HERE (The Ophidian Horde), HERE (The Infernal Regions), HERE (The Killing Fields), HERE (The Barbarous Road) and HERE (The Terminal Run). Also, if you haven’t joined The Last War’s Private Facebook Fan Group, please click over there now as I love to chat with readers regularly as well as post cool inspirational pictures, some of the real life stories that inspired this series, cover reveals for the new books and sample chapters of books before they come out. You can request to join this private group HERE.
Chapter One
Forget who you were. What you did for a living. That fancy title on your business cards. Forget your paycheck, your overpriced car, the upscale neighborhood you lived in because there’s no such thing as upscale anymore. Or society. Or even civility for that matter.
Oh, and if you’re looking for a sense of community? Honestly, don’t hold your breath. This is San Francisco, 2019.
Welcome to hell.
To survive in this post-apocalyptic cesspool, you have to un-know yourself. You have to strip away that which makes you human: your empathy, your enormous heart, all the ways you used to be and feel so special. How things are now—the big cities being stamped into ruin, relentless bombing runs, the onset of hunger and the spike in crime—you need to understand your life in this city is a death sentence.
The circumstances being what they are, doing unforgivable things, unspeakable things, is the norm. It’s what you do to stay breathing. Not to belabor the point, but if you don’t subscribe to the philosophy that if you’re weak, you’re a corpse, then honest to God, the window between right now and your demise is probably already closed, you just don’t know it yet.
My husband, Stanton, recently told our fifteen year old daughter, Macy, “If someone’s in your face and you don’t feel right about them, if something feels off, just shoot them. Don’t even think about it. Just do it.”
Two weeks ago this would have been the most irrational statement in the world, but the way Stanton says it, you can almost believe that he believes he sounds completely rational. To think he was once the voice of reason in our little family of three...
Oh and me? I’m an ER nurse. Well I was, past tense. My name is Cincinnati McNamara and I spent my career at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. I used to save lives, not take them, so hearing my husband so brazenly speak of murder is a pretty big pill for me to swallow.
We’ve killed though. We didn’t mean to and we certainly didn’t want to, but if we weren’t wanting or trying to kill people and we did so anyway, what does that say about the times?
It says plenty.
Speaking of matters of life and death, before the collapse, every life had value. Even the junkies, the criminals and the homeless. Now the only lives with any value are mine, Stanton’s, my daughter Macy’s and my younger brother Rex’s. I don’t like thinking like this, but we really are in a survival-of-the-fittest type of world here.
I suppose we could lament our situation, this sour turn of events, but we try not to. We can’t afford the mental breakdown. Even though it’s coming. We tell ourselves we’re not those kinds of people, the kind who just lay down and die when things get tough. We tell ourselves we’re survivors, fighters.
Perhaps this is true. It could be a lie.
Either way, we are our own cheerleaders as we slog through what will surely become some urban wasteland if someone doesn’t stop the brutal war being waged on mankind. Can it even be stopped? Are we the ones to do it?
Probably not.
So we navigate the streets of San Francisco, squatting where we can, eating what’s available, and we try not to comprehend this city’s monumental fall from grace. Instead, we dig our heels in as we grapple the impossible odds and grind against the gears of our sometimes frail and overworked minds. We do this while hiding from enemies who have taken to the streets and who kill from the air, and we do our best to ignore the voices in our heads telling us to go ahead and give up, just quit, end it once and for all and just eat that bullet.
You may be wondering, why press on when things seem so dismal? I’ve asked myself that same question a hundred times now. Maybe more. I have an answer, but it’s flimsy, propped up on faith and desperation alone. We’re praying that when the smoke clears and all the bodies have been stacked and properly burned, there will be something left to hang on to, some semblance of hope for a new life, a new future, a brand new world.
If you could see what I see, how this city turned upside down in a single afternoon, how devastation has now spread to every corner before me, perhaps you’d understand these things I’m telling you. Perhaps you’d know what I mean when I say faith and desperation.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Putting the cart before the horse if you will.
Let me start at the beginning…
Chapter Two
Four twelves in the ER and no one died. Hallelujah. The work week is officially over and I’m Jonesing for ten hours of uninterrupted sleep. To my SUV, I say, “Beethoven’s Symphony Number 9.” It’s perfect music for almost going home. Almost. From near silence to sound, one of Beethoven’s most energizing symphonies begins.
Did I tell you I’m exhausted?
Yeah, I’m depleted.
Everyone at work was like, “What are you going to do on your three days, Cincinnati?” and I was like, “Sleep, sleep, and then sleep.”
First, however, I need groceries. Specifically coffee. Not for now, but for later, when I try to wake up.
Macy—our fifteen year old—she’s taken to telling her friends her mother is a zombie. I have to be honest here, forty-eight hours in the ER is like sixty or seventy hours working a regular job, so yep, I absolutely feel like a zombie.
I feel like the entire cast of The Walking Dead.
It’s noon, Macy’s still in school, Stanton is halfway through work, maybe more. And me? It’s all about shopping, sleeping, cooking. Yawning deep, trudging through another afternoon in the slurry of San Francisco traffic, I creep up Bush Street looking for a place to park. Twice I pass the Market Mayflower & Deli (my destination!) and twice I fail to find a spot (C’mon already!).
This is why I put on Beethoven.
To renew me.
The symphony is getting into my bones now, seeping delightfully into my soul. This is the kind of nourishment nothing else on earth can provide. Closing my eyes for a second, I relax my shoulders, focus on my heart rate. Drawing deep stabilizing breaths seems to help, but only if I allow myself to unwind completely. Can I do that? Is that even possible anymore? I roll my neck, popping two vertebrae, then open my eyes and make fists of my fingers, cracking a few tight knuckles as well.
Just let go of the day, I tell myself.
As Symphony Number 9 unfolds on the Land Rover’s sound system, I feel most of the tension leaving me. I open my sunroof and though it’s not exactly fresh air outside, it’s more outdoor air than I get at work. Which is none.
The Land Rover’s open sunroof lets in the sounds of the city, sounds I can’t exactly hear over the music, unless you’re talking about a honked horn, or the beep-beep-beeping of a delivery truck backing up to unload its contents street-side.
The sound system instantly compensates for the change in environment, making the sounds of Beethoven deeper, fuller, richer. The lost peaks and valleys of the symphony are found once more. Smiling for the first time in well over a day, I find myself looking forward to my time off.