The Next World Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Olah, Jeff

  Biting into the side of his mouth and forcing down the urge to shout, Owen pulled his sleeve up to his hand and placed it over the side of his face. The pain started slow, but quickly ramped. He felt the warmth of his blood starting to creep through the thin fabric, and a deep throbbing that ran from his ear to his jaw.

  Back to his feet, he turned away from the fence and checked the crowd. They seemed—for the moment—to have lost his scent. But as he started into the trees, something caught his eye, a quick flash of blue and grey, from back by the docks.

  A tall slender man with dark hair and baggy jeans.

  The man had climbed down from the loading dock and was now jogging awkwardly in his direction. It wasn’t until the man was within fifty yards that Owen began to put the pieces together.

  He was different than even a few hours before, maybe. Owen hadn’t been focused on anything but his wife, his children and their immediate safety. And even now it was hard to concentrate on what his friend was doing, putting aside the fact that Kevin looked to have aged twenty years in the last few weeks.

  As his friend approached the fence, Owen glanced one last time at the crowd, shook his head, and again wiped his cheek. The blood was now darker and thicker, more than he’d expected. He was sure there were at least a few stitches in his future, and a scar that would be a constant reminder of this day.

  But he didn’t mind.

  Owen kept his voice low, leaning into the fence. “What are you doing?”

  Kevin increased his pace over the last twenty-five yards, and then rested for a beat as he took a handful of chain link. “Making sure your wife and kids get to see you again.”

  Owen stared back at his friend, his initial observation spot on. Kevin’s skin looked grey, like a pale napkin, void of all moisture. His eyes seemed to fall back into his head, the sockets brown and dry. His shoulders were slung forward and his arms looked like they were half their original size, but longer than before.

  “I don’t think you should—”

  Kevin interrupted as he started up the fence. He was beginning to smile. “And … I drew the short straw.”

  Owen stepped back, waiting as Kevin slowly climbed down. “You don’t need to do this.”

  Kevin straightened, maintaining the pained smile as he pulled a pistol from his pants. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Do you even know why I’m out here, what I’m doing, what this means?”

  “Yeah, but I’m having trouble understanding why your memory is so bad.”

  Owen turned and started walking through the trees. There was a slight incline and he didn’t like the idea of having to slow his pace. “My memory?”

  Kevin was already breathing hard. “We went through this more than a few times, but you’re not getting it. Those people back there, your wife, your kids, your friends, they need you. They need you alive.”

  “Yeah,” Owen said, “I’m working on it.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Kevin’s voice turned sour. “Looks like something else, something selfish.”

  The trees were thicker here, spaced only a few feet apart in some areas. The incline was also now more aggressive, nearly vertical, they’d have to climb to the road above on their hands and knees.

  “Selfish?”

  “You got a better explanation?”

  “I’m out here to finish this, today, now. That man should be dead, should have never been able to hurt another human. But he’s not, and it’s my fault. I’m going to put a bullet in his head and I’m not walking away until I see him take his last breath.”

  Kevin got down on his hands and knees and started up the harsh embankment. “No Owen, it’s not your fault, and it’s not your job. Those people back there, the ones who took us in, they know what they’re doing. They’ve seen things that you and I couldn’t even imagine. And they don’t need you out here trying to play hero.”

  “Hero, really? Are you trying to piss me off, or is that what you seriously think is happening out here?”

  “You know what I think, Owen. I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t believe in what you’re trying to do. But this isn’t the way.”

  At the crest, thirty feet from the side of the road, the sound of the diesel engines were replaced by the softer, more monotone motors of a compact SUV and a pickup truck, as well as multiple male voices. They appeared to be laughing and debating the terms of a wager, one man shouting above the others that he “Would give two-to-one odds on the skinny brunette.”

  Owen got to his feet, licked the blood from his lips, and spat it out onto the ground. He turned to offer his friend a hand, peering off toward the vehicles fifty feet away. “Yeah, okay. But it still doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What doesn’t make any sense?”

  “Why you’re out here.” Owen looked him over. “You look like you’ve lost like fifteen, maybe twenty pounds. I mean you look like you’re sick as a dog my friend. I think you need to—”

  Kevin stepped to him and wrapped him in a hug, putting his face a few inches from Owen’s right ear. “Go take care of your family, they deserve to have you around. They need you.” And as Kevin stepped back, he placed his foot against the exposed root of a massive pine and shoved Owen in the chest.

  There was a moment where Owen was weightless, where he seemed to float above the edge of the steep decline, everything around him instantly crystalizing. He could only watch as Kevin gripped the weapon in his right hand, and turned back toward the street.

  He drifted backward, the heels of his boots catching first. He cartwheeled onto his left side, the anticipation of what was to come running a close second to the confusion of what his friend had just done.

  Owen shouted, but again his voice was contained to his own head. NOOOOOOOO!

  As he struck the ground, he pulled his legs in and tried to roll to his right. Extending his arm, Owen was able to catch himself on the base of a three foot shrub and slow his momentum, finally coming to a stop a few feet from where he had started his ascent only minutes before.

  There was a moment where nothing felt real, where he laid on his back blinking through the spots in his vision. He laid still, attempting to catalog any new injuries, when his friend’s voice pulled him back to the present.

  “DECLAN!” Kevin shouted. “LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH!”

  Amid a flurry of unfamiliar voices coming from the roadway above, one on top of the other, Owen got to his hands and knees. He bit through the pain in his left arm and wiped the side of his face on his sleeve. He dug into the soft hillside, moving quickly between the trees, but with each second that ticked away, he felt himself falling further into the nightmare.

  And now the voices were back.

  They were right there waiting for him to fail, begging him to quit. Telling him that he could simply turn around and save what was left of his own miserable life, that he wasn’t responsible for this and that his friend had made the decision on his own. They told him he wasn’t to blame, and that he only needed to tell himself that it was okay.

  Only it wasn’t.

  “Hold on buddy, I’m on my way.”

  Owen reached the roadside and saw his friend standing opposite the man he was out here to kill. Kevin’s weapon was drawn, although there were four other men, one standing directly in front of Declan.

  Kevin had his gun pointed at that man, motioning the barrel to the right. “You either move aside or the first one is going through your forehead, makes no difference to me.”

  Declan looked around the man and eyed Kevin. He was laughing as he turned to the others and said, “Kill him.”

  Kevin fired first, but not by much more than a second. He was able to squeeze off four rounds and had adjusted his target. The two men on the left dropped before they could even line up a shot. The third, the man standing in front of Declan, was hit in the abdomen just as he fired back, striking Kevin once in the chest and once in the head.

  His friend’s body went limp as he pulled the trigger a fif
th time. The round clipped Declan’s left shoulder, sending him to the ground and pulling the attention of the horde away from the gates.

  Owen ran to Kevin’s side. He dropped to one knee, avoided glancing at the wound, and closed his friend’s eyes. “I’m sorry … you didn’t deserve this, any of this.” Owen took in a breath, and slowly exhaled. “Rest in peace my friend.”

  There was movement ahead. The man on the opposite side of the road was flat on his back and had his face turned to the side. It was the man that Owen had failed to defeat more than once. The man who threatened his family, shot his best friend, and ordered him dead.

  It was the man he was here to kill.

  Owen stood and watched for a moment as the crowd finally lost all interest in the abandoned shopping mall and began stumbling back out into the roadway.

  He turned and walked to Declan, the anticipation growing with each step. His heart raced and his head pounded as a surge of adrenaline coursed through his wrecked body. He was shaking as he increased his pace, a mild wave of nausea twisting in his stomach.

  There was a moment where the world went grey and the only sound was the light rain on the trees and the cool wind blowing across the bloodstained asphalt. And now standing over the monster he came to rid the world of, Owen felt an unusual sense of calm. The anger drifted, the anxiousness of the moment blurred, and the voices in his head were now only a whisper.

  “Where are the others?” Owen stepped over one of the dead men and pointed the Sig at Declan’s face. “The rest of your people?”

  Declan coughed, shaking his head. He looked better than Owen remembered, had more color in his disgusting face, and also looked like he may have gained a few pounds. His clothes seemed like they fit better and although the pain was evident, his eyes again resembled something close to human.

  But not for long.

  “You …” Declan paused. It appeared as though he was contemplating a response, or maybe he was just trying to gauge Owen’s intent. “You and your family won’t live long enough to—”

  “Enough.” Owen raised his right leg and stepped down on Jerome Declan’s chest. There was a look in Declan’s eyes that told him he may have finally gotten through. Not completely, but just enough to put a grin on his face. “You know, it doesn’t really matter where they went.”

  Declan turned his head back to the side and coughed. He opened his mouth like he was going to respond, but Owen pressed down on his sternum.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to find them. Every single person that ever helped you … and then I’m going to kill them, all of them.”

  “Wha—”

  Owen lined up the Sig and fired a single shot. It tore a hole through the center of Declan’s face, bouncing his head off the street and sending bone fragments, flesh, and a pinkish-red spray out across the side of the road.

  With a slow breath out, Owen turned and started back toward his friend. And as he dabbed at the corner of his mouth, wincing at the pain, the treeline he had walked out of only minutes before came to life.

  Travis stepped out into the street and tucked away his weapon. He narrowed his eyes and pressed his finger into his temple as he took a moment to look from the dead men littering the street, to Kevin, and finally back to Owen. “I’m sorry.”

  Owen motioned toward Kevin. “Yeah … me too.” He paused for a beat, then looking back through the trees, finally cleared his throat. “Let’s take him home.”

  124

  Day one hundred...

  Owen slid his chair away from the table and reached for her hand. “When did he know?”

  Natalie looked around the lower level. And because they were mostly hidden in the shadows afforded by the second and third floors, she took his hand, but stared out toward the motionless escalator. “He had been in treatment for a few years, but said that it returned a couple of months before the outbreak. He wasn’t well before, and was declining pretty fast over the last thirty days.”

  “Why didn’t he tell anyone, I mean until …”

  She stared past him, but continued to hold his hand. Now both of hers were sandwiching his. “He did, he just didn’t tell you, or Travis. Maybe because he thought you might feel bad for him, or maybe because he just didn’t want you treating him any differently. He told me that he never had any siblings, that he thought of you like a brother. And he knew that he was hard on you, but I think you know why.”

  Owen felt a throb in the back of his throat. For a moment, the pain radiating from the black thread in his cheek faded. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, forcing back the tears that had already started to come. “When did you know?”

  Natalie nodded. “Shortly after we got to the Foundry. He was working with Dominic, but they weren’t making any progress. They talked about a new procedure using stem cells, but it didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Wait.” There was a flash from the day he collapsed out on that street. From the day he last came face to face with Jerome Declan. “Stem cells, from where?”

  Natalie let her hands slide back into her lap. “You should probably talk to Gentry about it, he can explain it better than I ever could.”

  “Talk to Gentry about what exactly?”

  “He wasn’t able to help Kevin, but he thinks he’s found a way to end all of this.”

  Owen cocked his head to the side and winced as a reminder of the last few days shot from his shoulder into his hand. “Yeah?”

  “Owen, I’m serious.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Owen paused for a beat. “What else did he tell you, and what does any of this have to do with our son?”

  The look on Natalie’s face changed. It was a mixture of disgust and confusion. “What exactly are you asking me, where is this coming from?”

  Maybe he was headed down the wrong path. Maybe he took the bait from a man he knew he could never trust. And just maybe this is exactly what that monster had planned. Owen instantly felt a wave of regret, and now needed to figure out a way to walk it back. “I don’t know anymore. I mean, I can’t think. There are just too many questions.” Owen again reached for her hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Natalie locked her fingers with his, but stared into her lap. “It wasn’t him and this whole thing has nothing to do with Noah. The people here are talking, but … you should just talk to Dominic.”

  “About what?”

  “Dominic thinks he’s found a way to end this, but it’s not ready. He and a few others were working on something months ago, before he left BXF. It would have prevented all of this, but Goodwin put a stop to it, he didn’t want anything to slow down the project.”

  “And now?”

  “There were some things he discovered once we arrived here, a few new details that opened a door we didn’t know existed. That woman, Ethan’s sister, she worked with him in the past and has helped him put the last couple of pieces together.”

  Voices came from the second floor. Owen turned at the sound of them. “What does that mean for us, for this place?”

  Natalie chewed her lower lip. She gave a look that said she was confused, but he knew better. She was just trying to find the right words, it was something he’d seen too many times. She was good at many things, but hiding something from him wasn’t one of them. “There’s no way I could even attempt to explain it, you’ll have to get it straight from Dominic and that woman, Ms. Runner.”

  Owen felt something new. It was only a flash, and something he wasn’t used to, not for a long, long time. There was a warmth, a familiarity, a hope. He wasn’t exactly sure of the why or the how, but it was there. And it felt close.

  He brushed her hair away from her face, pushed it behind her ear, and made sure to look into her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “For …” Her voice faded into a whisper as she looked away.

  Owen again turned. The voices had grown in volume and intensity. Like a crowd leaving a ball game, the thirty-six residents of Harbor Crest made their way to the motionless escalator
and quickly descended to the first floor.

  They were led by the man who saved his life.

  “So,” Owen said, “it looks like we’re about to get some answers.”

  125

  Owen leaned to his right and rested his chin on Natalie’s shoulder. He watched as the others began filtering in and taking seats, forming a wide arc around Ethan Runner, his sister Emma, and Dr. Dominic Gentry.

  “This a regular thing?”

  Natalie shrugged. She turned her face toward his and smiled. “Happened the day after we got here, but not since then.”

  “Where are the kids?”

  Natalie motioned toward the third level. “Look.”

  Three sofas and two end tables sat on the opposite side of the railing, with six heads appearing to hover just above the tan fabric. He instantly spotted Ava and then straightening in his seat, picked out Noah. “What are they doing?”

  “What do you think?”

  “There’s no way those phones are still taking a charge.”

  “Shhh …” Natalie also sat up in her chair, now holding her index finger over her mouth and nodding toward the trio at the center of the room.

  Ethan Runner hugged his sister with one arm and then turned to face the others. He wore a charcoal grey t-shirt, light colored denim, and a pair of leather boots that looked like they’d walked through hell and back. He glanced around the room and began to smile. “Good morning.”

  There were a few half-hearted responses, but mostly the group just sat and waited for whatever this was to begin.

  “So,” Ethan continued, “I guess some of you are still sleeping, but that’s okay. Those of you who aren’t can fill the others in later.”

  There was a short wave of nervous laughter that abruptly ended when Gentry moved to Ethan’s side. He stood with his hands behind his back, looking like he had no idea why he was there.