The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 1: Books 1 - 3 (Sick, Exit 9, & Pale Horse)

by Brett Battles

  This time he had no problem reaching the piece of wood. He pulled it down as hard as he could. There was a groan and a pop, then the door moved upward an inch or so.

  Relieved, he jumped down and raced to the exit. Putting his hands underneath the door, he was able to easily raise it enough to get out. The noise was loud, but probably less than it would have been with the motor.

  He pushed his bag outside, snaked through the opening, and stood up.

  Keep moving. Get to the woods!

  He picked up his pack and started to pull it on.

  “You’re pretty smart for a kid.”

  The voice belonged to a woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away. Brandon turned slowly toward her, but all he could see was a shadow where she stood.

  “Find everything in there you wanted?”

  “What?” Brandon said. “I didn’t take anything. I was just—”

  “Right. You left everything there.”

  “Check for yourself. The only things I have are what I came with. I just wanted someplace where I could get out of the cold and sleep.”

  “Then why didn’t you just knock on our door?”

  “Because it was late,” he said quickly. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Because you wanted to see what was in the garage.”

  “No! I told you. I just wanted to sleep.”

  The flashlight beam swayed just enough to the side that he could see the barrel of a rifle.

  “Please,” he said. “I’m just trying to get to the highway, that’s all. I didn’t take anything from you. Please, just let me go, okay?”

  “Not okay,” she said. “Before we let you do anything, we need to make sure we get all our stuff back.”

  Brandon took the pack off and held it out toward her. “You want to check? Okay, check. There’s nothing there.”

  “Oh, we’ll check. But first we need to do something about you.”

  ARCTIC OCEAN

  7:03 AM CENTRAL STANDARD TIME

  SOMETIME DURING THE night, the icebreaker Danus Marko moved out from under the storm into a slightly less rough, open sea. Ash was unaware of this, though. After his radio conversation with Matt, he’d been given a meal and had fallen back into a deep sleep from which even the rising and falling and rolling of the ship couldn’t wake him.

  When he finally opened his eyes, the ship seemed to be barely swaying at all, the vibrations of the heavy-duty engines cut back to a level that was almost unnoticeable. He pushed himself up, confused.

  Chloe lay on the bed across from him, her eyes still closed. Their hosts had decided not to treat them as prisoners anymore but as guests. They had been given a second room next to the one they’d been sharing with Red and Gagnon.

  Ash checked his watch and was surprised to see it was already after seven a.m.

  “Chloe,” he said.

  No movement.

  He sat up. “Chloe.”

  She rolled onto her back, but her eyes remained shut.

  Ash rubbed his face, and ran his fingers through his hair. Stretching his neck, he rolled his head from side to side, then stood up and gave Chloe a shake.

  “Wake up.”

  A groan, then lids parting. As soon as she focused on him, her eyes shot open all the way. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think we might have stopped.”

  “Stopped?” She sat up.

  “I’m going to go check.”

  “Not alone.”

  They stopped first to check on Gagnon and Red. Both were still out. Ash checked Gagnon’s temperature and was encouraged by the coolness of the man’s brow, and the color that had returned to the pilot’s face. Seeing no reason to wake up Red yet, they headed for the bridge.

  There were four people present when they arrived—three crew members and Gleason, the male half of Adam and Eve. Out the window Ash could see lights, maybe a mile or less from the ship. Not lights from another vessel, though. The way these were strung out, they could only be on land.

  “Where are we?” Ash asked.

  Gleason looked over, surprised. “You’re up. Good. We can get going.”

  “Get going?”

  Gleason nodded out the window. “We’re dropping you off here.”

  “And where is here?”

  “Grise Fiord. Thought it might be where you wanted to go.”

  Ash looked toward the lights again, his turn to be surprised. The small, isolated village of Grise Fiord was the location from which Ash and his team had left on their flight to Yanok Island. It was also at Grise Fiord where they’d left the Resistance’s private jet with its crew, waiting for them to return.

  A way home.

  “There is a little problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “We’ve been in radio contact with authorities on the island. They’re not exactly in a welcoming mood at the moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently the world has gone a little paranoid in the last twenty hours or so.”

  “They know about the virus?” Ash asked, hopeful. If people knew what was going on, maybe there was a chance to limit the damage.

  The look on Gleason’s face was not as optimistic. “People know something’s going on, just not what, exactly. There’ve been rumors, apparently bolstered by a video that showed up on the Internet, telling people what they need to do. But from what I understand, nothing official has been determined. The people at Grise Fiord apparently don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Then how are we going to get there?”

  “We’ll move in some, then you and your friends can take one of the Zodiacs in.”

  “That still doesn’t mean they won’t try to stop us.”

  Looking tired, Gleason said, “You’ll have to convince them not to.”

  Ash stared at him for several seconds. “Where are you going?”

  Gleason shook his head. “I don’t know yet.” He paused. “Unfortunately, my people and I haven’t received the vaccine. So isolation seems like a good idea, but we’ll take a vote. This isn’t a decision for one person to make.”

  “I’ll get my people ready,” Ash said, turning for the door. “You get us as close as you can.”

  As he and Chloe walked back to Red and Gagnon’s room, Chloe whispered, “There’s vaccine on the jet. We could have bartered that, maybe gotten them to take us all the way in.”

  “These are the same people who raided the Bluff and freed Olivia, who killed almost everyone there. Do you really think they deserve to be inoculated?”

  She frowned. “Okay, maybe not. But it would be safer coming into the dock in this than a small boat.”

  He made no reply.

  She sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  So did he.

  MONTANA

  6:23 AM MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

  THOUGH THE WOMAN had never pointed her rifle directly at Brandon, the double-barreled gun had always been aimed at a spot nearby. He’d had no choice but to do everything she ordered.

  The first thing she had him do was return the box he’d put on the roof of her car to its shelf, then she’d marched him across the yard to the house. He’d been terrified to go inside, but he had no other options. She directed him to a set of stairs that led down to the basement, and locked him in a room crowded with canned food and bags of grain.

  At least she’d left the light on. And, he reminded himself, she hadn’t shot him. Yet.

  Trying to think like his father, the first thing he did was check to see if there was any other way out of the room, but the only exit was the door he’d come through, and that wasn’t budging.

  Exhausted, terrified, and not sure what to do next, he sat down on a large bag of rice and did his best not to cry.

  “I should have just stayed in the woods,” he told himself. “I should have just kept going.”

  If his dad had been there, he would have probably said something like, “Don’t deal wi
th should haves. Deal with what is, and staying alive.”

  But how was he supposed to do that? He was locked in a cellar. If he’d had his bag with him, he might have found something inside to use as a weapon, or something to force the door open. But as far as he knew, his bag was still sitting in front of the garage.

  Wait. Maybe there was something in the room he could use.

  He jumped up and took in every inch of his makeshift jail cell. His gaze fell on the shelf against the far wall. Stacked four high and five deep were cans of Campbell’s soup. Apparently the woman was fond of cream of mushroom.

  He thought for a moment. A soup can had some weight to it, and would fit nicely in his palm. A nice fastball into the woman’s leg might at least knock her down or stun her enough so he could make his escape.

  Buoyed by this idea, he grabbed one of the cans and tossed it up and down. Not quite the baseball he and his dad played catch with, but it would do.

  He figured the best place for him to stand to guarantee he wouldn’t miss would be about five feet straight back from the door. The problem with that was, it would also give her enough time to see what he was up to. The smart place to be was off to the side. He wouldn’t necessarily see her as soon as she opened the door, but she wouldn’t see him either, and would be forced to take a step inside. As soon as she did, he could let the can fly.

  The only wild card was that he assumed there was at least one other person in the house. The woman had said we, so she wasn’t alone. It would be horrible if he disabled the woman, only to be stopped by other people who lived in the house.

  He went back, picked up a second can he could take with him, and returned to the spot near the door. Once settled, he focused his attention on the creaks of the floorboards above him. It sounded like there was only one person moving around—the woman, he assumed—so maybe her friend was on the second floor. If whoever it was stayed there, Brandon thought he should be able to get out of the house before the other person even knew he’d escaped.

  Suddenly, he heard a door open and steps moving downward, the sound now coming through his cell door instead of the ceiling.

  He tensed.

  This is it.

  The can in his throwing hand began to feel slippery. He quickly set it down, wiped his sweaty palm on his pants, and picked the container up again. That was better.

  As the steps approached his door, he cocked his arm back, ready to throw.

  But instead of opening it, she stopped just outside. “What’s your name?” she asked, her voice not as strained as it had sounded when she first found him.

  Come on. Just come in.

  “I asked you a question,” she said. “What’s your name?”

  “Please, just let me out,” he yelled. “I didn’t mean to cause any problems. I…I have someplace I need to go.”

  “And where would that be?”

  “Uh…home. My family. They’re waiting for me.”

  “So you’re telling me you live around here?”

  “Yeah. A few miles away. I went out for a walk and got lost.”

  “You’re packing an awful lot of stuff for someone just out for a walk.”

  He had no idea how to reply to that.

  “What’s your name?” she asked again.

  He hesitated. “Brandon.”

  “Well, Brandon. You want to tell me what you were really doing in the woods?”

  Please open the door.

  “Brandon? Why were you out there?”

  “I…I was being chased.” The words left his lips before he even realized what he’d said.

  “Chased? By who?”

  “They were in helicopters,” he said. Now that he had started, he couldn’t stop. “And they had guns. They killed my friend, the man who was helping me. Please, I was just trying to get away.”

  The door opened, but Brandon had already dropped the hand holding the soup. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The woman remained out of view.

  “Why were they chasing you?” she asked.

  How did he explain that? “I don’t know.”

  Silence.

  “We heard those helicopters,” she said. “Yesterday. They were a long ways off, though. Ten, fifteen miles at least. Are you saying that’s where you were?”

  “Yes.” His voice almost a whisper.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll ask him.” Her words were almost a mumble.

  “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  Ignoring him, she said, “You’re from over the big ridge, aren’t you? From that valley with that big building, and the airstrip?”

  She’d seen the Ranch?

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Owen told me about it. Some kind of militia place, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what that means.” Was Owen the other person in the house?

  “Private army. Anti-government. Racists, maybe? Religious zealots? Both?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Again he paused. He’d never been good at lying, so he was sure she’d see through him if he tried now. “The Resistance.”

  “The what?”

  “Resistance.”

  She was silent for several seconds. “What exactly are you resisting?”

  “The, um, end of the world.”

  He heard her mumble again, but this time couldn’t make out what she was saying. It went on for nearly a minute, with pauses here and there, like she was listening. Finally, she stepped into the doorway, the barrel of her gun leading the way.

  “Are you just a bunch of brainwashed crazies? Or are you telling the truth?”

  There was something in the way she asked the questions that made Brandon think she was inclined to believe him. Like she knew something. Like—

  Oh, no. “It started, didn’t it?” he asked. “That’s why the helicopters attacked us.”

  “What started?” she asked.

  He tried to recall everything he had overheard and learned while he was at the Bunker. “The shipping containers.”

  “What shipping containers?”

  “They’re all over the place. They’ve been turned on, haven’t they? Is it on the news?”

  Her face twisted in confusion. “The news?”

  Her response caught him off guard. Maybe it hadn’t happened.

  Before he could say anything more, she shut the door on him. A moment later, he could hear her go upstairs and across the floor. There was a loud scrape, maybe a table being moved or a chair, then nothing for several minutes.

  When the floor creaked again, she was walking faster than she had previously. In no time, she was down the stairs and opening the door to his room again.

  “Come with me,” she said, disappearing into the main part of the basement.

  Confused, but hoping this might be his opportunity to get away, he followed her. Once they reached the main floor, the woman crossed over to the sparsely furnished living room, and stopped in front of a plain wooden table with a computer sitting on it. He could hear what sounded like voices coming out of it, but he couldn’t see the screen.

  Brandon’s eyes strayed to the front door. If he moved quickly, he could get outside before she’d be able to do anything.

  “Over here,” she ordered.

  Now, he told himself, go! But instead, he walked into the living room, the power of what might be on the computer drawing him forward.

  On the screen was the website for one of the cable news networks. It was playing a live feed.

  The room around Brandon seemed to disappear as he was sucked into the reports of the strange containers that had been found in dozens of countries, emitting some kind of mist. Authorities were doing everything they could to keep the public away from the boxes, but Brandon was sure that wouldn’t matter.

  After several minutes, the woman looked at him. “You knew.”

  He nodded, his eyes not leaving the computer.

  “Then
tell me what’s going to happen next.”

  “Almost everyone is going to die.”

  GRISE FIORD

  7:41 AM CENTRAL STANDARD TIME

  A SPOTLIGHT CUT across the water, lighting up the Zodiac.

  “That’s far enough,” a voice boomed over the electronic megaphone. The speaker was standing on the dock not far from the light, surrounded by several others.

  Ash backed off on the Zodiac motor, but didn’t bring the small boat to a full stop. He had no intention of using the dock, but he had to get by it to reach the beach closest to the airstrip.

  “We just want to get to our plane,” Ash yelled back, not sure if they would even be able to hear him.

  Something hit the water next to the boat. A split second later, the sound of a rifle shot echoed through the air.

  “Any closer and the next one will go through the side of your vessel,” the man on the dock announced.

  Ash cut the engine.

  “Please,” he called out. “There’s nothing wrong with us. We just need to get to our plane.”

  No response.

  He looked over at Red, who was sitting up front next to Gagnon. “Pass me the radio.”

  Red tossed it to him. The device was a handheld walkie-talkie with eleven different channel options. They had tried it several times on the way in, but hadn’t been able to reach anyone. This time, Ash held it in the air so those on the dock could see it, and yelled, “Channel Four! Channel Four!”

  There was movement on the dock, several of the men clustering together in discussion. Finally one of them broke from the crowd and jogged to the shore. They watched his progress until he disappeared into one of the buildings.

  “We really need to get Gagnon someplace warm,” Red said.

  The pilot, whose condition had been improving, had lost a lot of the recently regained color in his cheeks.

  There was a pop over the radio, then, “This is Grise Fiord calling party on boat.”