IMPACT_A Post-Apocalyptic Tale_The Complete Series

by Matthew Eliot

  They were running towards a truck, parked some way in the distance. Paul only spotted it by looking at the direction they were running in. Three men, and a young boy chasing them, screaming his lungs out.

  Paul darted forward, heart either stopped or beating like mad, he couldn’t say. Others were emerging from their tents, and he was partially aware of someone raising the alarm, but it felt like they were all too far. Unable to help.

  He was trying to catch up with Adrian. And then what? He didn’t know. It was insane to think that he could overpower three of the Warden’s men (because that’s who they were, of course, he saw it now) on his own, wasn’t it? Yet, he couldn’t stop. He ran faster, as fast as he ever had.

  “STOOOOOP!” Adrian was shouting. It was an awful sound, filled with dread and helplessness and despair.

  One of the kidnappers looked around. They had been discovered, and abandoned the stealthy approach. Paul watched as he raised a machine gun of some sort, and fired a blast in the air. Brief, blinding flashes of light piercing the darkness.

  But Paul didn’t stop. Neither did Adrian.

  It looked like Adrian would actually catch up with them. He was fast, and the men were encumbered by Alice and by having to constantly watch their backs. If he could do little against them, what in the world would little Adrian–

  But there he was. Paul watched in terror as the boy leaped through the air with a deafening howl, and landed onto the man carrying Ally. The captor let out a growl and tried to shake him off, but Adrian was clinging to him, trying to scratch and bite and hurt him, while at the same time doing his best to pull Alice free.

  “I’m here, Ally, I’m here,” he was shouting, over and over, and the desperation in his voice made Paul’s heart falter.

  “Get him off!” the man shouted. “Get this fucking kid off me now!”

  Paul sensed what was about to happen. He actually saw it somehow, as if time had shattered, hurling him through the uneven flow of instants that followed and preceded. But he didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t.

  Another one of the men, who had been running a few strides ahead, turned around, saw his comrade trying to shake Adrian off. Then, as if it were nothing at all, he raised his weapon, took aim. And shot.

  It happened.

  Adrian fell. An instant later, he was lying perfectly still, his small body resting in the mud.

  The men reached the truck, and were off. Around him, Paul heard the Pack coming to life. Orders being shouted, people running, chasing the invaders. But it was too late.

  Paul too was running. Not daring to breathe. Hoping against hope, eyes fixed on the small motionless bundle before him. He ran and realised that maybe this was finally it.

  Maybe, this was when his own life had finally collapsed and crumbled and lost all meaning.

  Chapter 27

  Walscombe

  “You haven’t forgotten about me, have you?”

  Walscombe caressed Aubrey’s delicate leaves. The little plant he had inherited from Jeff sat on his desk, next to the chessboard. He hadn’t opened the latter since hearing about Ivan, but he couldn’t get himself to pack it away. A little testament to his friendship with his Russian colleague.

  “I know I’ve been away a lot, Aube,” he said, kneeling down beside it. “Thing is, I’ve been busy.”

  It was true. When he had heard that chilling, enigmatic message from Ivan’s murderers–

  (“I’d get him on the line, but he’s lying here with three bullets in him, Walscombe. Dead. And we’re coming for you, next, man of Atlantis.”)

  –he’d frozen. Not knowing what to do, how to do it, and why. He spent a couple of days, maybe more, in a strange daze, with no plans, no will. Then, gradually, hatred had somehow replaced the confusion. These people who killed his buddy from across the world, these evil douchebags who had then proceeded to threaten him, they’d pay.

  He raised a glass of water, carefully tipping its contents into the Aubrey’s vase, watching the drops sparkle under the artificial lighting, before they were absorbed into the earth. “Yes, Aube, I’ve been busy. And I’m sure you’ll forgive me, right? It’s not like I forgot to water you or anything. But yes, yes I know – the conversation has been rather poor. Gotta admit to that. I’ll try and make up for it, okay?”

  Aubrey nodded. Of perhaps didn’t. In any case, Walscombe smiled at her. He was tired. But it was a good sort of tired. Working with Atlantis’ surviving security systems had proven a challenge. A worthwhile one. He was just about ready to get into bed, now. Read a book, try and dream maybe.

  “It’s just,” he continued, “that we have guests arriving, Aube. Pretty sure about that. Not nice people, my little friend. In fact, they’re quite the opposite of nice.”

  It had taken him a couple of weeks to figure out a plan. He’d first considered somehow infecting a section of the base with whatever sickness had taken Jeff and Nancy, but later figured that, if these guys were still alive, they were likely immune to it, too.

  Still, there were other things he could do. He would do.

  “Yes, my dear friend. We have guests on their way. And, believe you me, we’ll be ready to greet them.”

  Walscombe sat on his bed, observing the plant, then the chessboard, then his small room.

  One day Atlantis will drown, he thought. But not by the hand of these murderous bastards. This place still has a couple of tricks up her sleeve. And so do I.

  He lay his head on the pillow, closed his eyes and listened to the silence of those empty rooms. The shattered world outside was little more than a distant echo.

  Yes, it was time to catch a bit of rest.

  He slept, and dreamt of lonely kings and drowned cities and mermaids dancing amidst the ruins of the world.

  END OF BOOK THREE

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  Dear Reader,

  If you enjoyed Gods from the Shadows, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It really helps.

  Should you wish to write to me, my email address is: matt@mattheweliot.com

  Back to writing.

  Talk soon,

  Matthew

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First of all, I’d like to thank my ARC/Beta Reader team for their invaluable help, their kind willingness to lend a hand, and their patience. I’ll try and write a little faster. Promise.

  So: Beth, Kay, Ash, Cody and all the rest of you, please accept this humble, but heartfelt thank you.

  I’d also like to thank First Officer Will Burke and all the pilots and soon-to-be pilots on Reddit’s /flying subreddit. I wandered in there with lots of questions, and received more help and information that I would ever have expected. Their wit, knowledge, charm and humour all but confirm the view I had as a child, when my father would drive me for miles, to watch planes land in Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci Airport - that pilots are superheroes in dashing uniforms.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2017

  Fortunately, all the events in this book

  are the product of the author’s imagination.

  Any similarities to reality are merely coincidental.

  Join Matthew Eliot’s Reader List and get enjoy new release alerts, special offers, and more: http://eepurl.com/bpK_an.

  To you, Sewi.

  Table of Contents

  1. Maurice

  2. Paul

  3. Sea of Sands

  4. Walscombe

  5. Alice

  6. X Marks the Spot

  7. Three Steps

  8. Ana

  9. R3dPill

  10. Walscombe

  11. Lucy

  12. Glitch

  13. The ’Wraith Queen

  14. Mordor

  15. Paul

  16. Walscombe

  17. Cathy

  18. Ana

  19. R3dPill

  20. Alice

  21. The Beginning of
the End

  22. The Dance of the Dead

  23. Atlantis

  24. Bately

  25. Atlantis

  26. Alice

  27. Atlantis

  28. The Throne

  29. The End

  30. Somewhere in America

  Epilogue. The Beginning

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  Chapter 1

  Maurice

  The last time Alice had seen her father, he had lied to her.

  She knew it, but it wasn’t the kind of lie that made you feel bad, or angry. Besides, it had happened so long ago, in another place, another time. Thinking about it now was almost like trying to remember a dream.

  I’m dreaming now.

  Was she? There was rocking and humming, and it was warm. It felt nice. But there was something else, too—something dark. A sad black thought trying to push through the memories of her father, and make her cry.

  Maurice. That was the name adults used to call him. She called him Daddy.

  His job was drawing comics. Her friends in school said that was ’awesome.’ She wasn’t sure about that. It wasn’t like he was drawing superheroes or adventure stories or anything. They were single picture drawings, with men in suits saying things Alice couldn’t understand. No colours. Her mummy told her it was satire. Alice didn’t know what that meant, but she noticed that their adult friends would laugh, when they read them.

  Maurice would sit for hours in his top-floor study, alone. She could hear the wooden floorboards creak above her, from time to time, and she pictured him walking up and down, trying to find ideas for his cartoons. Sometimes, although she never asked her mum about this, she thought he was a bit weird. He would whisper: angry whispers that were sometimes followed by the sound of paper being torn up. Or he would laugh, all by himself, like a crazy person. But most of the time, there was just silence.

  Her parents were very different. Mum would talk and laugh and play games with her, but Maurice… even when he was in the room with them, he’d stare out the window, as if observing something far, far away. But sometimes, he would turn and look at her, at Alice, and he’d smile. A slow smile, that made his eyes twinkle. She missed that.

  When her mother died of the disease from the meteorites, Maurice buried her in their garden. Alice spied through the window. She watched as her dad shoved the last of the dirt in the grave, then planted the shovel in the ground. He wiped sweat from his forehead, then rested it against the shovel. The sky was grey, the woods around the house thick and dark. Alice had never seen so much sadness in someone’s eyes. She had to look away.

  After that, the days had been long and silent. Her father would sit at the window, as he always had, but now with an old hunting rifle in his lap, and his gaze was full of fear.

  Before bed, he’d tell her stories. This was new, something her mummy had always done. Alice discovered she liked her dad’s stories better. They were more real, with adventures and people she could believe. Maurice’s voice was deep and warm, and Alice knew she loved her father.

  They saw very few people. A man from the village would drop by, a couple of times a week, with a bit of food. He never wanted anything in return. One day, the man stopped coming. That’s when Maurice started sitting at the window with the rifle.

  There was the boy next door, too, of course, the one in the house through the woods–

  Don’t go there, not yet. Please don’t.

  One night, she woke up and heard screaming. There was laughing, too. Evil, wicked laughing echoing through the mountains. Her father had laid a hand on her chest. “Don’t worry,” he said, but his voice was a whisper.

  The noises were coming from the town. She hoped they wouldn’t come here, next. Neither of them slept, that night.

  * * *

  “We’re leaving,” her father said, one day.

  He was standing in the kitchen, two rucksacks on the table in front of him. He looked at them the way you look at a liar. Like he didn’t trust them.

  Alice remembered that her first thought was that she didn’t want to leave the neighbour boy behind, alone. He had lost both his parents to the disease, but refused to leave his house, in case one of his relatives showed up. She told her dad. “He can come, too,” Maurice said.

  “Where are we going?” Alice asked, staring at the rucksacks with a strange tingle of excitement.

  Maurice turned to her and tried to smile. “Away,” he said.

  * * *

  They had set off, Alice, her father, and the boy.

  At first, it felt like it might be fun. They were travelling north, leaving the tall Swiss Alps behind them. The world had changed a lot, and she knew this wasn’t going to be a camping trip like the ones she’d been on in the past. But the company was good, and there was hope. Hope they’d find a happy place to live in.

  Things changed, of course. They saw the dead, but feared the living more. They kept to themselves, walking, heading onwards, mostly trying to forget the things they’d come across.

  At night, Maurice would light a fire. Again, he’d tell them stories, until both she and the boy fell asleep. Once, Alice pretended to be sleeping, and spied her father through half-sealed eyes. His beard was long, his hair a mess. He looked more tired than anyone she’d ever seen.

  They came across a bungalow, one day. It looked nice, and reminded her a bit of home. After a while inspecting the place, Maurice said it was safe, and they could spend a couple of nights there. They found food in the pantry and ate like kings.

  The bad men came the following night.

  Alice had never seen ’wraiths before.

  Even now, in this warm, humming place she was in, dreaming about her father, she remembered the fear of that night. It cut like glass.

  There were howls in the dark, laughter. People threatening them in French. They were outside, still quite far, but getting closer.

  Maurice was ducking behind a window, rifle held tight.

  Alice felt the boy next to her, holding her hand, as he would so often do in the months ahead.

  Time passed. Bits of broken instants in which Alice had no idea what to do. All she wanted was her father to hug her tight.

  Maurice looked at them, then outside again. He swallowed, closed his eyes tight. When he opened them again, Alice knew what he was about to say.

  “You go.”

  There was a door in the back. It opened almost directly into the woods on the northern side of the valley. Maurice nodded towards it. “You go out through there.”

  “Daddy…”

  Maurice rose and walked towards Alice. Kneeling beside her, he turned to the boy. “Get your things together, please. Yours and Alice’s. Be quick.” The boy had nodded bravely and got to work.

  “He’s a good boy, Alice,” he said, and it was like he was afraid of looking her in the eyes. “Stay with him.”

  Alice’s chest started to tremble. “Daddy–”

  “Listen to me, my love…” Then came the lies. Lies he wanted them both to believe—father and daughter. “If you stay with him, you’ll be safe… and… where is it he says his auntie lives? England? Bately? I’ll meet you there, okay?”

  Alice nodded, pretending to believe him.

  “I’ll meet you there,” he said again, but now his voice was broken. Then, he pulled her forward, into his arms, and held her tight. They quivered and shook and clung to one another. Then came the truth, whispered into her ear. The simple, perfect truth that ties fathers to daughters, parents to their children. “I love you.”

  And suddenly, she was being pushed away by her father, and grabbed by Adrian. Dragged to the back door and out into the thick woods. Behind them, Maurice (Daddy), was calling out to the ’wraiths, drawing them towards the house, challenging them to try and break in. Keeping them far from the children.

  The boy squeezed her hand as they ran. Saying things through his own tears, trying to console her. She was grateful to h
im, for that. But it didn’t work. She turned back, desperately trying to see her father, catch a glimpse of him, beyond the trees.

  Goodbye, Daddy.

  In front of her, the boy was running desperately. She fixed her eyes on the sharp shoulder blades, shifting beneath his t-shirt. He looked so young, so small, even to her. This boy who, she knew already, was in love with her.

  This boy–

  * * *

  Adrian.

  The humming had stopped, and so had the rocking. There were voices, the sound of a car door opening.

  Before she knew it, Alice was sitting up in the back seat of a car, staring into four sets of eyes, screaming, “WHERE IS ADRIAN?”

  Chapter 2

  Paul

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  The ’wraith looked up at Paul and shook his head. They were standing in a tent, the Pack’s nervous chatter filtering through its worn fabric.

  “You’re a doctor!” Paul said, desperately. “There must be something you can do.”

  “I was a doctor. We don’t believe in all that, any more.” He examined the bullet wounds on Adrian’s motionless body. Again, he shook his head. “Besides, I have no equipment. No nothing.”

  Paul felt Ana’s hand rest on his arm.

  “Will he live?” she asked, her voice almost a stutter.

  The ’wraith sighed. He lowered his gaze. “I doubt it. With no proper medical attention, the boy won’t live more than a handful of hours.”

  Paul’s heart sank. It had been an awful night, and it wasn’t getting any better.

  After the Warden’s men had raided the camp, kidnapping Alice and leaving Adrian for dead, the Pack had come to life. There were teams patrolling the area, orders being shouted, people busying themselves. Paul had hardly noticed. He walked through the camp, Adrian’s limp body swaying in his arms. Ana had swung into action immediately, calling out for a doctor. One of the new arrivals, from the Queen Wraith’s vanguard, reluctantly offered to help. But he couldn’t help. Paul felt utterly helpless.