Earth's Survivors: box set

by Wendell Sweet

  “They started that place in the park when we left... Might be established... Has to be by now, at least a temporary place for winter,” Billy said.

  “Maybe,” Adam agreed. “I saw a place on the other side of the mountain one day while I was out looking things over. It's a few miles from the main cave, on the eastern side, behind our ridge... Here,” he said. He leaned forward as Beth sat up. He drew with a small stick: Lines to represent their own ridge and valley, and another ridge that shot off from their ridge in an El.

  “See?” Adam asked.

  “Been around there,” Pearl said. “There are caves all through there.”

  Adam nodded, smiling. “Exactly... Well,” he continued to draw. “Right about halfway down on the eastern side there is a cave at near ground level. Doesn't look like much from there, but the space inside is huge. I mean huge as in space to park trucks, trailers,” he nodded at the truck and trailer as he talked, “But also a place to live... Build our own homes. It would be close by, but removed.” He tossed the stick aside and sat back. Beth found his chest and rested her head against it once more.

  “I'm for it,” Beth said sleepily.

  Adam laughed. “I think you are up for some sleep,” Adam told her.

  “Is that an invitation?” Beth asked. They had set up tents not far from the truck, surrounded by a fenced in area topped with barbed wire. The fencing could be easily rolled up and taken with them. They had used it twice now, carrying it on the back of the donor trailer, and it had worked well. The dead stayed away or became tangled in the wire. Stakes faced outwards to help keep the dead away, but other than the first night, the dead had left them alone. They had all wondered if that meant that the antidote worked that fast. They simply didn't know.

  “How about dinner first, turn in early. Tomorrow will be soon enough to start filling the trailer.” Adam said.

  “I'll take the first watch,” Billy said.

  “It is settled then,” Pearl said.

  “We should be on the road heading home in a few days,” Beth said. She sat up and then got to her feet. She reached down with her hand and took Adam's hand.

  Adam laughed, took her hand, and got to his feet. He was tired too, They all were. Rest was needed.

  They began preparations for dinner as the sun crept across the sky heading north.

  The Fold

  March 12th Year two

  Jessie Stone's Journal

  We had walked for days. The desert seemed never ending, plateaus, sand dunes, the bleached bones of cattle. The sun rose, the sun fell. On the fifth day we came upon the river. It was wide and deep and seems never ending. From then on we followed it.

  It had taken weeks to walk out of the Nation: South after we found a highway, then west once we left the snow behind. They might have killed us putting us out in the middle of winter like that. Maybe meant to, I can not say. We found vehicles somewhere in Mississippi and started for the coast.

  We lost David outside of Arizona. We had been fighting the dead as we traveled, and they seemed to have become less and less. One morning while we were searching the remains of a small border town, deserted we thought, when we were suddenly attacked.

  The dead had been easy to handle. They seem sickened. Slower, barely there. Like they had contracted some disease that was taking them out. I can not count the times we have come across corpses scattered on the highways or roads. Vacant buildings. It is unnerving. Especially since we do not know why it is. David fell into an old well while he was running. We managed to pull him out hours later, but he was gone. Janna was destroyed: She still is, I really don't know if she'll make it.

  For the record I would like to say that David's death is on the shoulders of The Nation: We were not given a choice in our leaving. Since this journal will be part of who we are, will document The Fold as it continues to grow and is established, I want the understanding to be there from the beginning of our creation. They forced us out, simply because we challenged them. They forced us out in the cold of winter with nothing but the clothes on our backs. They did allow us weapons, but only because I begged them for them. Conner, Jake, Aaron and a few others, and the guards that turned a blind eye as we were marched by them at gun point in the dark of night. There it is, understand my hatred for The Nation and her people, and understand why we have come to this place to build our Fold where any and all are welcome.

  We had been following our river through the desert and into the rolling hills and flat lands of the plains as it widened out and took us out of the desert and into a lush land of rolling hills and green fields. The place we chose is a long low valley with the river nestled between her walls. Verdant green fields pour away on both sides of this valley. I stood and looked down upon the land when we found it, and although I said nothing we were no longer searching for a home.

  We set up a rough camp beside the river that first night. With those that we had picked up along the way, the Fold numbers just twenty-four souls here. Within a week we will have more rough shelters going up, some we have already started. A long, low overhang, that can shelter us from the weather, and can become our home for the next several months as we build River Crossing. I, unfortunately, will not be one of the ones to build it. It will have to be done in my absence.

  We had left word when we were in Snoqualmie, a quickly thrown together ramshackle settlement back in Washington State, that we would be pushing on toward the east coast. We have some of our own that stayed behind there, and so we must go back, gather them together, and tell them that we have stopped somewhere east of the old Texas border and will make this place our home.

  Things to be worked out:

  We, myself and a few others, will leave in the morning to push on for the west coast. I can't leave it like this. I have to know what is or isn't left, if that means traveling all the way to Snoqualmie, so be it. If we find nothing there, we will make our way back here and collect those we find along the way, if we find others to the west, we will decide what to do then. I am only glad to write that there is a world outside of Seattle Washington where we came from, and there is a city rising here. As we leave in the morning for Snoqualmie and get the ones who remained moving in our direction, another smaller group will go east. I have to know what has happened there.

  About this world: It is in a very bad way. The governments are gone. There are dead rising, it defies everything I know as a doctor, but they are. We have come across the phenomenon several times. One of our own died under my care, turned, and came back a few short hours later. I saw it many times in the Nation. I don't know what to think, except, as we move through towns and the outskirts of cities that still stand the dead seem to be less. Like there is a disease that has attacked them. I can only hope it is true. It remains to be watched and seen. A note of interest, we have picked up a young doctor and added him to our group. Very fortunate I believe.

  I will keep this as we go. Those we leave behind will build River Crossing in our absence. We hope to come back here before too long and find River Crossing established before this second winter for The Fold.

  EARTH'S SURVIVORS: WATERTOWN

  By Dell Sweet

  Copyright © Dell Sweet 2016, all rights reserved.

  Additional Copyrights © 2010 - 2014 by Wendell Sweet

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  LEGAL

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

  This novel is Copyright © 2016 Wendell Sweet and his assignees. The Names Dell Sweet and Geo Dell are publishing constructs owned by Wendell Sweet. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic, pr
int, scanner or any other means and, or distributed without the author's permission. All rights foreign and domestic are retained by the Author and or his assignees.

  Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.

  Cover and Interior Art Copyright 2016 Wendell Sweet

  Book Six Table Of Contents

  FOREWORD

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  Foreword:

  When I thought about what I wanted my last books to be about, I thought about the back story. I thought about Alice, Richard Weston's secretary: Never really explained fully. Sammy wondered about her every time he saw her, and that made me wonder. Who was she? What was she all about?

  That made me wonder about Gabe Kohlson and David Johns. What was it like working at a top secret facility? Did they ever get tempted? Could the whole place really have existed that long without an incident? Probably not.

  I have spoken many times before about Billy Jingo and the fact that he had a life before the fall of the society: Before he became Bear's right hand man. This is that life. Not pretty, not heroic. Just life like it truly is, or once was for some of us. I hope you enjoy this book. Look forward to one more Earth's Survivors book to finish the series late this year, if things go well for me and I am able. Meantime, enjoy this one if it turns out to be the last.

  Dell Sweet

  EARTH'S SURVIVORS: WATERTOWN

  PROLOGUE

  Six months before:

  Esmeraldas, Ecuador

  Tommy Murphy and Jefferson Prescott

  Jefferson Prescott stood quietly and sipped at his coffee. The house in Esmeraldas was his own private escape. He could sit and watch the ocean, or travel into the mountains in just a few hours time, and Ecuador was such an easy country to live in: The people so happy with so little.

  He owned a building in Manhattan, he owned a house in the hills outside of L.A., but this was his favorite place. This was where he did his real business, entertained and spent time with the women in his life, besides his wife and daughters back in Manhattan. This was the place where he bought his associates. Those another man might call friends: In Jefferson's world there was no place for friends. The luxury the concept didn't exist.

  Tommy Murphy stood at the rail a few feet away and smoked a cigar, looking out over the ocean. He was probably the closest person he had to a friend. The two of them had a lucrative relationship. Jefferson's drugs and drug connections, Tommy's organized crime connections. Between the two of them, they controlled almost everything that moved on the East Coast. They had tentacles that stretched all the way to the west coast, and inroads into the south that we're starting to look like highways.

  They both dealt in millions daily. Privately, they were probably two of the richest men in the world, but they were on no one's list of who's who, except a few specialized task forces within the world's governments: Even they couldn't touch them. They owned too many of their officials, too many of their agents were on their payrolls. They didn't fight the task force's or special government branches the way the old syndicates had, they simply bought them. Every man really did have his price. And if that was too high you simply bought the man beside him, or above him, it was just as effective.

  With all the deals they had made, and the millions they had amassed, nothing came close to what they had on the burner right now. Tommy had fallen into a deal on a tip, a way to collect on a sizable gambling debt, and the two of them had decided to take the risk.

  Tommy sipped at his drink and then raised his eyes to Prescott. “Concerned?” Tommy asked.

  “Unconcerned... It's only money,” Jefferson assured him.

  “Good,” Tommy said quietly. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a slim silver cylinder. A small red button, with a protective cap in the same cheap looking, red plastic covered the button.

  Jefferson pulled a deep breath, audible in the sudden silence. From somewhere deep in the jungle of a forest that surrounded them a big cat screamed.

  “Looks like nothing,” Jefferson said.

  “I told the kid it reminded me of these little refill cylinders I used to have for my BB gun when I was a kid,” Tommy said.

  “Jefferson laughed. “I can't imagine that you played with anything that didn't have a silencer and at least a ten round clip.”

  Tommy laughed and then fell silent. “This is it, Jeff. Strip off the protective cap, push the button... The kid said it doesn't mater after that... How close, how far, it will protect us.”

  “Infect us,” Jefferson corrected. “There is a difference.”

  “Infect us,” Tommy agreed. “I figure, why not... We paid the big bucks for the rest of it, but this will start us down that path... Why not do it.”

  “Why not,” Prescott agreed. “A sample? Just enough for two?”

  Tommy shrugged. “He didn't say... I depended upon the reports he smuggled out more than the first hand knowledge he has. He knows what he has seen, but he has not witnessed anyone come back... The reports detail exactly that.”

  Jefferson laughed and shook his head. “Immortality.”

  “Immortality,” Tommy agreed. He paused, stripped the small red cover from the slim, silver tube and pressed the button before he could change his mind. Nothing. He turned the silver tube back and forth.

  “Maybe there should be no sound,” Jefferson said. He had braced for what he expected: A small cloud of vapor, a hiss, something to impart that magic the tube was supposed to contain.

  Tommy raised the tube to his nose, but there was no detectable odor. “But did it do its job,” Tommy said so low it might almost have been to himself if he had not raised his eyes and asked of Prescott.

  “The million dollar question,” Prescott said quietly.

  “Multi million dollar question,” Tommy corrected. He stared at the container a few seconds longer and then slipped it into his pocket. “In for a penny,” he said.

  “In for a pound,” Prescott agreed.

  "You know Ben Neo?" Tommy asked after a few moments of silence, changing the subject to private business.

  "Your best," Jefferson said.

  Tommy nodded and turned back to the rail. "When you find out who it is, tell me. I'll have him take care of it for you. He's good. Discreet. Fast." He turned and looked at Jefferson. "Yeah?" he asked.

  Jefferson nodded. "Yeah. I appreciate it. I've got Carlos on it. I'll know soon. When I know, you will know. From my lips to yours," he said.

  Tommy nodded. He sipped at his drink again.

  "I have that young woman you like so much coming over in just a little while," Jefferson said.

  Tommy turned away from the rail and smiled. "I could use the diversion," he said.

  Jefferson shrugged. "It's what we do for each other," he said as he got to his feet. "Enjoy yourself, Tommy. I am about to head back... Take care of a few things. I will see you at your place up in the Catskills next week?" he asked.

  "Absolutely, Jeff, absolutely." Tommy said. The two men embraced and Jefferson left the warm night air of the deck and followed his driver who was waiting to take him to the helicopter pad. Tommy watched him go and then turned back to the rail, watching the waves out in the sea, rolling under the moonlight.

  "Sir?" a voice said from the doorway.

  Tommy turned from the rail to look at Andrea Ivanna Zurita, the beautiful young woman who stood in the doorway smiling.

  The Lita Situation

  Manhattan

  "Lita... Lita, stop, Lita. What are you doing?"

  "I want you... I want you... I know what I'm doing," Lita said. Her lips fell on his, her body pressed up against his own. He had been okay until he felt the softness of her breasts pressing against him. The firmness in her thighs as they moved against his own thigh. Whatever he had held back: Whate
ver resolve he had, had, he lost. He felt it fall away as he pulled her to him. Tasting her. Feeling her hands on his own body.

  "Lita?" he tried again, but without much resolve. He breathed it against her cheek as she kissed his neck, ran her hands over his chest, squatted and came level with his belt line. Her fingernails pressed against the fabric of his shirt, ticking downward, and she ran her hands across to stomach and found the catch to his pants, and then worked the zipper down.

  "Lita... Think, Lita," he said.

  She took him in her mouth and everything flew away. Everything he had fought to say. Everything he had been afraid of. All of it gone. There was only the warm night, the girl, and the darkness.

  She stood and lifted her dress, she was bare beneath. He picked her up and her thighs spread apart coming around his hips and locking together as he slid into her. Her lips fell on his neck once more, his hands pulled her closer, drove deeper into her. He stumbled forward until the wall was at her back. She thrust her hips harder, and the last vestige of doubt, the last small piece of resolve, melted away: She came alive under his hands.

  Two Days Later

  Watertown, New York

  Carlos and Gabe

  The man moved more fully into the shadows. “You Gabe?” he asked in a near whisper.

  The darker shadow nodded. “You...?” He started.

  “Now who in fuck else would I be?” He asked.

  The darker shadow said nothing. The other man passed him a small paper bag. “Count it,” he told him.

  Gabe Kohlson moved out of the shadow, more fully into the light. “It's a lot, I can't stand here, out here counting it.”

  The man laughed. “You asked for this place. It's the middle of nowhere. I Googled it, it comes up marked as the middle of nowhere. Who in fuck will see you?” He laughed and then choked it off with a harsh cough. “Count it. No mistakes... You got the shit?”

  Kohlson's head popped up fast from counting. “Of course I don't... That wasn't the deal.”