The Next World Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Olah, Jeff

  Owen remembered the name and with it, everything from the last several hours. The footrace through the parking garage. The initial gunfire as the tall young man introduced himself. Kevin firing from the wall and blowing apart that man’s head, and finally the showdown not more than twenty minutes before.

  He also remembered the round that tore into his armpit and the one right behind it that branded the left side of his head. And as the pain came rushing back, the bearded man in the dark hoodie who appeared out of nowhere.

  “Yes.” Devin Fletcher stepped away from the rear passenger door and looked down at Owen.

  “I don’t understand,” Gentry said. “How are you here, I mean how did you know where to …”

  “It’s a long story.” Devin motioned toward Owen. “And it doesn’t look like you have the time to hear it right now.”

  Gentry looked like he’d just woken from a dream. Like he was hypnotized and was just given the wake word. “Yeah, we have to get him back to—”

  “No.” Devin spat the word. “You can’t go back there.”

  “We have to.” Gentry moved back around to dab at the wound on the left side of Owen’s head. “There isn’t time for anything else.”

  “No,” Devin said again. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You can’t go back there, not now and not ever.”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  Devin looked from Travis, to Natalie, and then back to Gentry. “You have to come with me.”

  Natalie looked like she was trying to form a question, but then just stared at the bearded young man.

  “There’s a place, it’s not far and it’s safe. We can be there in less than an hour.” Now Devin was looking only at Gentry, his eyes wide and his voice starting to shake as he repeated himself. “You have to come with me; it’s the only way to fix all of this.”

  111

  The road was narrow and the light from the day had long since dropped away. There was a soft rain that patted the windshield and tiny rivers that ran down the window near his left shoulder. The interior of the truck was cool, but not cold. It felt good, like stepping out of the shower in the fall.

  Kevin leaned in toward his lap and grinned. “Hey boy, how ya doing?”

  Zeus perked his ears and licked at the air. It wasn’t what he was used to, but it was something, more than an hour ago.

  Kevin sat in the backseat with Zeus, running his hand over his best friend’s back and watching the trees pulling in closer to the road. He had lost track of time, as well as where they were, but he was starting to think he knew where they were headed.

  “When did you leave?” Travis’s hands gripped tight to the wheel as he sat up straight, only briefly turning to Devin in the passenger seat.

  Devin pulled the hood off his head and rubbed at the growth on his chin. “Like ten days ago, maybe more. I stopped counting.”

  “How much further?”

  “It’s about a mile, up on the left. We’re gonna come in through the back. Don’t want to set off any alarms.”

  “Alarms?”

  “Figure of speech.”

  Kevin turned his head to the right, looked past Thomas, and squinted as he peered through the rear passenger window, the reflection from the dash messing with the optics. “You knew Gentry from before all of this?”

  Devin looked back over his shoulder and then shook his head. “Not really, just who he was and that he worked for BXF. I knew his name and heard that he’d left, heard that he basically told Marcus Goodwin to go screw himself and then just walked out the front doors.”

  “That doesn’t sound like—”

  “Oh yeah,” Devin interrupted, pushing his index finger into his temple. “We did meet, once. We had this really random conversation on a plane a few weeks before all this went down. He gave me his business card, said that this thing was going to be big, that I needed to be worried or something. It was the day of my grandmother’s funeral and super creepy, like he was following me or something.”

  That didn’t sound right to him. Like something was left out. “So,” Kevin said, “you’ve only met him once and it was so arbitrary that you’d nearly forgotten about it, but you decided to come out here and find a man you barely remember?”

  “No.”

  Kevin’s BS meter was pegged. “No, to which part?”

  “No, I had a reason for coming out here, for trying to find Dr. Gentry, but it had nothing to do with my uncle or running into him on that plane.”

  “Your uncle?”

  Devin stared through the windshield. “Marcus Goodwin.”

  Kevin slid his hand from Zeus to the pistol near his right hip. “Wait, you’re Marcus Goodwin’s nephew? I think you need to explain a few things.”

  “Again, my past life has nothing to do with why I’m out here.”

  Kevin gripped the pistol and set it on the edge of the seat. “You’re going to need to tell us where we’re headed, who’s there, and why. No more running around in circles. We either get some answers or you get out. I’m giving you thirty seconds.”

  Devin glanced back at the weapon. “Listen man, I haven’t eaten hardly anything in the last three days, and only water for the last twenty four hours. My head feels like it’s going to explode, and I was still able to get you and your friends out of that mess. The only reason you’re still here, your dog is still here, is because I left my home to go out and find Dr. Gentry. You would think that alone would afford me at least a bit of your trust.”

  “I can see where you would think that, but that’s not the way things work. Not anymore, and especially not today. So either explain why you were out there and how you found us, or I’m going to have to ask you to get out.”

  Devin again shook his head. He looked tired, annoyed. “Okay, again it doesn’t have anything to do with my past, nothing from before connects to anything now … well except for Gentry.”

  “Okay?”

  “I left the city when everyone else did, but went east, away from the crowds. I spent the first few days just trying to hide. But then on like the tenth or eleventh day, while I was out looking for something to eat, I ran across a small group of survivors. They seemed to know what they were doing. They seemed to have things figured out.”

  Travis turned in the driver’s seat. “Figured out?”

  “I don’t know, they said they were headed somewhere specific, not like everyone else, just running from one place to the next. They asked me if I wanted to come, so I did.”

  Kevin arched his back, rolled the stiffness from his shoulders. “Let’s move this forward a bit, get to the point.”

  “These people had a place. They said it was secure, even back before the outbreak. There were already ten or fifteen survivors when we got there and one of the women said she knew how to stop all of this, that there was someone who had a cure. But there was a problem.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The man’s name is Eugene Lockwood, his wife was one of the survivors.”

  Kevin sat forward, his mind racing through everything from his former life. “Dr. Eugene Lockwood?”

  “Yes.”

  Travis looked into the mirror, eyed Kevin for a brief second. “You know what he’s talking about?”

  Kevin ignored Travis’s question and tapped the back of the passenger’s seat. “Finish.”

  “A few of us went out every day looking for him, places she thought he might be, his house, his old office, everywhere. And then a few weeks ago, I decided I was going to try to get to the old BXF headquarters in the city.”

  “And?”

  “And, a few blocks from the building, I ran across one of Jerome Declan’s men. He was hurt. He was trying to get out, trying to get away from that monster. He told me that Lockwood was dead, but that there was someone else that could fix all of this.”

  Kevin pulled his hand back and again laid the pistol near his opposite hip. “Gentry?”


  “Yes, and he knew where to find him, kind of.”

  “So how did you—”

  Devin anticipated the question, seemed like he needed to get the rest of it out. “I tracked Declan’s men at first, but obviously didn’t have any luck. It was days before Declan showed his face outside the building. I knew something must be up and followed them to your location.”

  Kevin rubbed his eyes. “Alright …”

  “Alright?” Devin’s voice ticked up a notch. “That’s it?”

  “Before I wasn’t sure we could trust you, now I’m not completely sure I believe you. Although, I can’t imagine a story like that being made up.”

  “So,” Devin said, “I’ve told you everything, what else do you want?”

  “Just one question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why is it that you decided—” There was something out there, something new, something that wasn’t there as they turned onto this road a few miles back. He took a quick pull in through his nose and then a second.

  It smelled like smoke, it was faint but it was there, right outside the pickup. Kevin reached for the two-way radio and keyed the mic. “Lucas, you guys getting this?”

  There was a short squawk from the walkie and then Lucas’s voice. “Getting what?”

  In the seat next to him, Thomas turned his long body and stared at him, confusion riding across his face. “Huh?”

  Into the radio Kevin said, “Smells like smoke, like it’s right here.”

  Almost before Kevin finished, Lucas was back. “I don’t smell anything, but we’d better be close because Owen’s not doing too …”

  As Lucas’s voice dropped away, Kevin saw what he figured had redirected the teen’s attention. “Sit tight buddy, we’ll see what this is.”

  From the driver’s seat, Travis slowed the pickup and turned to Devin. “Did you do this, is this you?”

  Thirty feet ahead, two men stood in the center of the road, barely visible through the light rain. They had automatic rifles pulled into their shoulders, and were shouting something not quite audible.

  112

  Kevin held tight to Zeus’s collar and again leaned in close. “Stay,” he said, “That’s a good boy.”

  Travis quickly looked into the mirror reached behind his seat, gripping the stock of his rifle. “What are we doing here?”

  “Hold on a second,” Kevin said as he lowered his window.

  The man on the left, thirty yards away, continued to shout. “Shut off the engine and get the hell out of the truck.”

  “Devin?”

  The younger man was stiff in his seat. He sat forward and narrowed his eyes as he peered through the windshield. His hands were shaking and he looked like he was having trouble breathing. “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  The man in the center of the road raised his voice. “SHUT OFF THE ENGINE. GET OUT OF THE TRUCK”

  Travis slipped the rifle into the front seat and placed it between his legs. “Kevin, what are we doing here?”

  And before Kevin could answer, the passenger door opened and the interior was flooded with light. Devin stepped out into the intensifying rain, closed the door, and put his hands in the air. He kept his head straight, staring at the two men before finally dropping his arms and starting forward. “Alex … Bryce?”

  Travis pulled the rifle up with his right hand and reached for the door handle with his left. “I knew it, that son of a—”

  “Wait,” Kevin said. “I think we might be okay.”

  “Whatta ya mean?”

  From the rear passenger seat, Thomas leaned into the cab and pointed. “Look … it’s … they …”

  The two men ran to Devin. They lowered their weapons and sandwiched him in an embrace. When they pulled back, Devin wiped the rain away from his face, spoke quickly to the men and then turned toward the pickup.

  “You’re good with this?” Travis had flipped the weapon, his left hand still on the door, and his eyes darting from the street to the rearview mirror. “I don’t like this man, not one bit.”

  The men in the street were now pointing back in the opposite direction, the one on the left looking like he wanted to run. Devin again motioned back toward the pickup as the two men both began to shake their heads.

  Kevin began to slide Zeus to his right. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Travis opened his door and had slipped out before Kevin could respond. He stayed to the left of the hood and raised his rifle.

  The men beside Devin matched his stance, the one on the left stepping forward. “Put it down man, you don’t want to do this.”

  “I need you to stay here,” Kevin said to Thomas as he slid Zeus onto the seat between them. “Stay down and make sure he does too. Got it?”

  Thomas was shaking as he nodded his head. He appeared to be just as frightened of Zeus as he was of what was outside the pickup. “Okay … yes.”

  Kevin ran his hand over the German Shepherd’s head and stepped out into the rain. He was at his end. For the last several weeks he’d had trouble keeping down the food he ate, hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a time, and now the pain at the back of his head was starting to play with his vision.

  He knew what this was, but was having a hard time admitting that it was back. And without Dr. Roush and his meds, things were probably going to get a whole lot worse. He wasn’t afraid of the end, not in the slightest. He just wanted to get his friends somewhere safe before he finally called it quits.

  The man on the left of Devin continued to plead with Travis. “Come on man, we aren’t here to hurt you.”

  “Then you drop yours.”

  Kevin stepped around Travis and motioned for him to lower the rifle. “Let me do this.”

  The rain was again coming down harder. It soaked through his jacket and sent a chill down his back. He was only twenty feet away, but would need to get much closer for any real back and forth to happen.

  “Listen,” Kevin spoke as he walked. “We have one that’s hurt pretty badly and we need to get him some help. There is someone with us that can help, but we need to get inside. And sooner rather than later.”

  The man on the right began to slowly lower his rifle and now looked from Kevin to the truck and then back. “Dr. Gentry … are you serious?”

  Kevin made a show of slipping the pistol into his waistband as he continued to within ten feet of Devin and the two men. “Yes, Dr. Gentry is with us. But nothing happens until the two of you put those rifles away.”

  The man on the right slipped his weapon back over his shoulder, looked past Devin, and motioned for his friend to do the same. “We need to get moving.”

  The second man shot Kevin a look that said he wasn’t completely convinced, but then quickly complied. He looked to the vehicles, and then to Devin. “We can get them inside, but we’re gonna have to split up.”

  Travis had grown curious and now stood alongside Kevin. “Split up?”

  The man to the right, the one Devin had referred to as Alex, nodded. He looked back over his shoulder, blew out a long slow breath, and seemed to lose an inch or two. “It was Declan. His men rolled through here an hour ago. Davis confirmed it was them. They torched two vehicles and ran them through the front gate.”

  Kevin was still stuck on split up. And at the moment he had only one priority. He looked to Travis and then back at the men. “We’re willing to pitch in however we can, but right now we need to get our friend somewhere safe … so Gentry can help him.”

  Alex again nodded, turning to Devin. “Okay, you take them around back.” He handed over a two-way radio. “Let Davis know you’re coming, and tell him we’re gonna go check the gate, come at it from the highway, see if we can get it secured. We’ll go on foot, and it might take us a few hours, but we’ll be back before lockdown.”

  And then to Kevin, Alex said, “You want to help?”

  “Sure,” he said, motioning to his left. “I’ll help you, but my friend Travis here, he goes in with the others.”

&nb
sp; 113

  Owen opened his eyes. He felt worse. The pain wasn’t so bad, but he was tired. More than tired. It was like the day after a heavy workout, although it was everywhere. Liked he’d worked every single muscle to complete exhaustion. Like he hadn’t eaten and was running on no sleep. The only thing that didn’t hurt were the injuries to the left side of his head and his arm.

  And at the moment that scared the hell out of him.

  He tried to speak, but it came out as a cough. There were lights and then they were gone. He sat in the rear seat, reclined and staring up at the tattered roof of the SUV. They slowed and started multiple times. He could hear his son and his daughter, had the sense that they were behind him. They kept their voices low and spoke in short, quick sentences.

  It sounded like Lucas was behind the wheel and he could smell Natalie to his right. Although he tasted blood and his nose felt like it was packed with cotton, the sweet citrus of her perfume somehow drifted through.

  In his ears, or maybe inside his head, he could hear what he imagined to be his heartbeat. It sounded deep and slow. He wondered if that was because he had been immobile for … how long, he couldn’t remember. Or if he was just slowly dying.

  He didn’t have a frame of reference, never really had much of an interest in the exact process related to leaving this world. He always figured it would happen quickly, in the blink of an eye. He always thought he’d die heroically, like being shot protecting a complete stranger or defending those he loved.

  Not like this, not in the back seat of a dusty fifteen-year-old sport utility vehicle. Not due to a bloody ear or an injury to his arm, no bigger than his pinky. And especially not with the world the way it was now. No, he couldn’t just drift off quietly as he sat beside the only woman he ever loved. That wasn’t him.

  Or was it?

  “Owen?” It was Harper. She sat on the opposite side of the seat. She leaned over Natalie and smiled at him. “How are you?” Her face told him she regretted the question even as it was leaving her mouth.