The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Greene, Daniel

  Her eyes met his. They were cold. Eyes that had seen too much. Not the woman he fell in love with. Once she was so caring, free and full of life. Now her eyes showed a soul that had suffered immensely, shrouded in sadness.

  “You came,” she said.

  “I did.”

  She looked at the nearby soldiers. “Can I have this back?” she said to Sergeant Hawkins, gesturing at her weapon.

  He gave her an incredulous look, then eyed Steele.

  “Don’t look at him. Give me my gun back,” she demanded.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sergeant Hawkins said. A slight smile broke across his face.

  Gwen checked the status of her weapon. “Now, where were we? I believe you were about to apologize,” she said.

  Steele was dumbfounded. She had always been capable, but she now acted like a stone-cold killer.

  “I. Um. I’m sorry.” He had no idea why he was sorry. Women were a fickle group, but it was safe to say that he probably had done something wrong.

  “Why are you sorry?” she asked, scolding him. Her chin rose ever so slightly as if it would make her taller than him, an impossibility.

  He took a stab at the only thing he could think of. “Because … I wasn’t here?”

  “And because you left me.”

  “And because I left you,” he repeated. He adjusted his feet, uncomfortable under her gaze.

  “That will have to do. Accepted.” She tightened her lips up.

  “What happened to your nose?” he asked. He reached out cautiously, afraid that if he touched her she might flinch away. Her nose was swollen and her right eye was purpled around the edges.

  “We will talk about it later.” Her eyes shifted away from his.

  He nodded. “Whoever did this will pay,” he said.

  Her eyes flashed anger followed by pain. “Yes, they will,” she said, and kissed his cheek like a delicate flower.

  Master Sergeant Hunter circled them up. “Joseph is secure. Let’s move to the beach.”

  They were off. Everyone ran across the road for the helicopters.

  The other squad of soldiers had set up a loose perimeter around the helos. Steele and Gwen didn’t stop running until they reached the lead helicopter. Colonel Kinnick was there, head lowered with a radio against it.

  “Sir, we have Dr. Jackowski, and Patient Zero. The doctor needs medical attention,” Master Sergeant Hunter said.

  “Outstanding, gentleman. Sergeant Hawkins, do not let him die on us, do you understand?” Colonel Kinnick commanded. Hope filled his eyes and energy seemed to fill him.

  “Not a problem,” Sergeant Hawkins said. He pulled out a trauma kit from a side compartment on the helicopter and hooked an IV into Joseph.

  “I’m waiting on an update from General Travis now. Master Sergeant Hunter, keep this place sterile while we work this out.”

  “Turmelle, make sure this perimeter is tighter than a tick’s ass.”

  The curly black-haired sergeant called out, “Baxter and Venezie, take south. Adams, you’re with me.” They ran in separate directions, kneeling down in firing positions.

  Kinnick held the microphone up to his mouth. “Sir, this is Colonel Kinnick. We have the Packages. What is our rally point, over?” The colonel held the radio microphone away from his mouth and waited for a response.

  “Sir, what is our rally point, over?” Colonel Kinnick repeated.

  “Kinnick, NORTHCOM is saying that you need … Sorry.” General Travis’s voice grew more faint. “Major Holt, what the hell was that?” came over the radio.

  “Is that him?” Steele asked. He gestured with his head at Patient Zero. Gwen nodded. Steele eyed the overweight middle-aged man slumped cross-legged in the sand, his hands bound behind his back. So that’s the bastard to blame for all this mess. A balding, mid-life-crisis-having, mini-van-driving dad. “I’m glad you got him,” he said. He gave Patient Zero a glare, letting him know that he despised his existence.

  “Sir, what is happening, over?” Colonel Kinnick repeated. He turned up the radio volume. Pounding could be heard over the static of the radio. Voices called out, frantic and alarmed.

  General Travis’s words came out crackled and broken like a crumbled-up jigsaw puzzle being shaken. “We need you to take your team to Rally Point Desperado. Alamo is overrun. I repeat, Alamo is overrun,” the general said. Each word came out faster than the last.

  “Sir, what do you mean Alamo is overrun? What happened to Rally Point Bravo and Charlie, over?” Colonel Kinnick eyed Master Sergeant Hunter. Gunfire sounded over the radio and then screaming. Kinnick looked down. The gray-haired colonel seemed to be taking it personally.

  “Sir, what is your status, over?” Colonel Kinnick said. He held the microphone under his lips in reflection. He knew. Steele knew. He’d heard it in the general’s voice. Terror, confusion, most of all fear. Kinnick looked back at the group. Static overtook the radio. It only played white noise.

  “The Pentagon has been overrun,” Colonel Kinnick said. He tossed the mic back into the chopper in disgust. “Those bastards!” Kinnick cursed. His eyes said he was ready for a fight, if only to just fight somebody.

  Steele crouched down and looked out over the beach. The dead were coming. They had heard, seen, or felt the living’s presence. They ambled down the sand. They came calling for their lives. They came to snuff out what little resistance the human race had to offer them. Steele wouldn’t lie down for them. He stood up, hefting his M4.

  “Colonel, what’s the plan?” Steele said.

  Colonel Kinnick gave Steele a hard look. “Goddamn it,” the colonel swore.

  Steele smiled grimly.

  “We lost comms with CDC a weeks ago. East Coast has crumbled. Both the Pentagon and Mount Eden are gone. I just don’t know,” Kinnick said, eyes weary. The hopelessness of the situation hung heavy on the men, like a rain cloud smothering them from above.

  “I can’t believe it’s come to this, but we have no choice. I guess it’s all we have left. Desperado,” Colonel Kinnick said.

  Steele didn’t know if it was a question or a statement. “What’s Desperado?” he said.

  “Our final rally point in the west. It’s a secret facility in Colorado. It was supposedly decommissioned in the early 2000s, but nothing is further from the truth. In fact, it was expanded.”

  The last holdout of a defeated government. Perfect.

  “Master Sergeant Hunter, get the boys prepped and ready to jump,” Kinnick said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Agent Steele.” Pain shrouded Kinnick’s eyes. Steele knew what he was going to say, so he made it easier on the man and cut him off.

  “Colonel. I appreciate the offer, but I think me and my crew are going to stay here. My mother lives about sixty miles up this coast.” Steele gestured north. “And I want to see her again.”

  Kinnick nodded, looking past Steele to the north. “I’ll make sure to clear the infected off this beach before we depart.”

  “Master Sergeant Hunter, let’s clear the beach for our allies. Sergeant Hawkins, make sure they are well supplied.”

  Master Sergeant Hunter waved a firing squad into position. They jogged down the sand, killing the infected in the shallows. Sergeant Hawkins unloaded packs of ammunition, food, and gear onto the sand.

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “No, thank you, Agent Steele. With men like you in the fight, I have no doubt we will weather the coming storm.” Kinnick gave Steele a sharp salute, one of respect.

  “Colonel, I’m not a saluting man, but keep up the good fight. The rest of us are counting on you. I hope my fighting days will be behind me.”

  “I have no doubt we will meet again.”

  Master Sergeant Hunter ran up with his squad. “Mate. Good luck out there.” The bearded operator shook Steele’s hand.

  “Stay frosty, Master Sergeant.”

  With a nod, Master Sergeant Hunter was back in the helo.

  The soldiers piled back in the
helicopters and lifted off the ground. Joseph gave a wave and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Steele held his M4 over his head with both hands. The choppers thundered away, becoming tiny specks before disappearing into the gray puffy clouds.

  Gwen was glued to his side. She held a carbine across her chest like an operator. He never doubted it was inside her, but it still surprised him.

  Kevin picked up an M4 carbine along with a pack and shouldered it.

  “You good to go, Ahmed?” Steele said.

  Ahmed hefted a pack onto his shoulders with a faint grimace of pain. “I’ll be good.”

  Gwen smiled up at Steele. “I never doubted you would come back.”

  Dead bodies rolled and twisted in the crashing waves, but more walking ones emerged from the houses.

  “I didn’t get your picture back,” Steele said.

  “I don’t need the picture because I have you.” She gave him a sad smile and touched his face.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  “Home is when I’m with you,” she said.

  “Then let’s make it a better one.”

  He walked off through the sand. His feet dug into the surf.

  “Let’s move.” But his people were already all right behind him. Gwen so close she could have been his shadow. It made him feel something. Pride. A sliver of hope. The will to go on.

  All they had were moments, and he intended to live his to the fullest. It was these moments that were worth fighting for, and he intended to fight like the devil to keep them.

  The Rising

  The End Time Saga

  Book Three

  I dedicate this novel to my Grandfather Victor. Thank you for introducing me to Prince Valiant as a young man and piquing my imagination for lifetimes to come.

  THE PASTOR

  Northern Michigan

  Thick leather cowboy boots clopped over the finely polished wood floor. His weary body felt every step he had taken in his soul’s sixty-four years of mortal existence. His weathered hand fell on the head of the hammer that hung from his hip. Its metal head was tarnished with rust. The face was dinged and the claw on the back stripped from a long life of use. The shaft was worn and dirt had been ground into the old fading wood; it swung as he walked. The hammer of a simple carpenter.

  He whispered a prayer under his breath. The words hid inside his mouth, sticking to his tongue. I am your servant. Your word gives me strength in the darkness.

  The muted sounds of a sobbing woman were muffled through a closed door. The crying lured him forward through the clean wooden hallway adorned with framed family pictures. Light shone beneath the door, and as he drew near, the crying grew in volume.

  The echoing of his footsteps stopped. A small metal crucifix hung slightly off-kilter. He took a wrinkled, knuckled finger and gently straightened the bottom of the cross upright. His finger wavered below, waiting in case it swung back. He surveyed his handiwork another moment before moving on.

  Continuing down the hall, he eyed family photos that had been taken all over the world: Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China. All were photos of the same family. Mother, father, son, posing, smiling and living. A young blonde-haired woman appeared in some next to the son and eventually the father disappeared.

  Reaching the door, he grasped the gold door handle and tenderly opened the door inward as if he respected their privacy. The room was dark but for a series of flashlight beams shining on a distraught couple. The large bedroom was extravagant and filled with the possessions of the affluent. Large expensive furniture. An equally large king-sized bed in a thick wooden bedframe.

  He acknowledged a large man resting on the wall, arms folded against his wide chest. The man’s sandy blond curls bounced when he looked his way. The two men were almost of equal height but the pastor still looked down on the broad man.

  “Peter, how are they doing?” His voice hardly rose above a whisper. He knew he would be heard when he spoke.

  The gold-haired man straightened upright, and he flashed a beam of light tentatively on the crying woman. Her face frowned at them and she squinted her eyes, turning her head away. Her face twisted and her lip curled through her gag. Peter removed the light from her face.

  “They seem pretty shaken up by everything, but I have faith that God will show himself here tonight.”

  “God always shows himself. It’s only the matter of us seeing him.”

  Peter bowed his head in deference. His curls shifting. “This is true.”

  Three more of his followers stood expectantly in the room. They held flashlights on the two people. One trained a shotgun on them and the other two held long knives.

  The captives sat on the edge of the bed, hands bound behind their backs. Blankets and sheets lay tangled behind them. They huddled close together and the woman’s shoulders shook as she cried. The man nursed a swelling eye with blinks, his other eye darting frantically at the men surrounding him. Humans were pitifully weak and sorry creatures.

  They may not be ready. They may yet be castaways, vestiges of the old world unwilling to embrace the new. We do not choose when he calls, but we must answer. “Gabriel, release their gags,” he said, waving one of the men with a knife forward with a curt gesture.

  The pastor turned toward his broad-chested lieutenant. “Peter, a chair if you will. My back.” A chair was set behind him, and the wood of his hammer gave a dead thump on its side as he sat eye level with the man and woman.

  The man before him exercised his gray stubble-clad jaw. He wasn’t as old as the pastor and he wasn’t young. He was probably in his late fifties and unaccustomed to wearing a beard. The woman, her face wet with salt-laden tears, had gray streaks running through her once blonde hair. She stared at him, defiantly afraid.

  The pastor leaned backward, stretching his back and allowing the chair to support him with its frame.

  “You need not be afraid. We are not here to hurt you.” His voice was soft and gentle.

  His two captives did not appear soothed by his forthcomingness.

  “Why are you doing this?” the woman stammered. She sniffled back tears. “We haven’t done anything to you.” The man next to her only stared.

  The pastor cocked his head. “The chains that bind you are only of earth, but what chains bind your soul?”

  The older woman wiped the side of her face on her shoulder. She blinked confusion. “I have no chains on my soul.”

  The pastor grimaced. “You do. You sit here in all your opulence, refusing God’s call to service, for service is where we find him. You are a doctor, are you not?”

  “Yes. How did you know that?” She looked over at her partner, confusion on her face.

  The pastor smiled, brushing his thick white hair back from the front of his head. He rubbed his hand over his hair in a second effort to keep it out of his eyes.

  “A man does not lead a parish for thirty-five years without getting to know a person with just a glance.”

  She looked down before she answered. “I’m a doctor at St. Anastasia’s North Shores Hospital. I am the chief of surgery there.”

  “It appears that you are a woman God has blessed with many gifts.” He nodded as the left side of his mouth curved upward.

  “And you, good sir?” His eyes took in the other man. Another doctor, no doubt.

  “I am an oncologist at St. Anastasia’s,” the man said flatly.

  The pastor grinned inwardly. These were very special people. People that would be such a great asset to his parish.

  “Two very gifted people indeed,” he said, folding his hands between his knees and leaning forward.

  “Gabriel, get them some water.”

  Gabriel bobbed his flat brown-haired head in confirmation and pulled a bottled water from a green backpack on his back and cracked the top. He was a young man from his parish, not more than eighteen. He did as the pastor bid and stepped forward, pouring water in their open mouths.

  “That’s a goo
d lad,” the pastor said. At one time he feared death. Now he embraces his place here on earth with the willingness of an old man. The young man finished and tightened the cap back on the bottle. He stepped back and the pastor gave him a nod of appreciation before addressing the doctors.

  “I want you to join my church community. I won’t ask you for much, and you will be safe from those who would do you harm, but I think we would both benefit from getting to know each other better.”

  The man looked indignant. “You come here and hold us hostage at gunpoint. That’s some way to welcome someone.”

  “Some introductions must be harsher than others,” the pastor said, spreading his hands and folding them back together.

  The woman looked away as if she didn’t want to say it, but she turned back to him, resolution settling on her face. Her eyes filled with angry tears. “We’ve seen what you’ve done to the Millers.” She looked out the window. “The bodies. The fire,” she spit out softer, her lips trembling. “You and your people are monsters,” she hissed.

  “The only choice we have is to see God’s will be done. I will release you when you repent and join. No harm will befall you. You will join the hundreds of good people of my parish. People that you called neighbors once. You will be safe and a valued member of our community. You will be a part of something so much greater than yourself. You need not work only for your own gratification. You can truly be God’s servant, helping him to build his new paradise on earth.”

  The captive male doctor snorted. “Paradise? Have you looked outside? The world has gone to hell.” The pastor leaned back stretching and stood up. Even with support, standing always seemed better. He put his hands on his lower back and pressed in the center of his spine.

  “One may call this world hell, yes. This world has only ever been hell, each and every misery put here by God to cull his flock. To drive his flock forward. Throughout mankind’s history, he has wrought us with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Pestilence, Death, Famine, and War, if only to test us. Pestilence was only the beginning. Before this is over War, Famine, and Death will fall upon us with their wicked arrows and swords. Most will perish. This is known. It is also known that God’s people will rise up stronger,” the pastor said, letting his voice rise as if he stood at the pulpit.