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

by Greene, Daniel

  Steele swung the carbine around, pointing it at a few of them. “Now, I never want to see you assholes again. My group is gone, so leave us be.”

  Peter cried through his gag.

  “It’s okay, Peter,” the pastor said, leveling his chin at Steele.

  Steele let Peter’s chain drop. It clanked as it hit the ground, making Peter jump. Steele placed his M4 over his forearm, still holding the remote detonator clacker in his hand. He pointed his carbine at the pastor.

  “I could kill you now and have every right to do so, but not today. Enough blood’s been spilt.”

  Steele walked backward, spinning in circles, taking his turn pointing his gun back at the men surrounding him. They parted wide for him and he backtracked. They watched him with wide eyes. Others had a cold look in them as if they didn’t care if he blasted them fifty feet into the air, obliterating them into tiny pieces of charred flesh.

  “I won’t warn you boys again. If you come to Little Sable, you will die.” Then he turned and ran. After one hundred yards, he shoved the detonator in his pocket. He ground his teeth in rage as he ran and pushed his sadness and fear into the pit of his stomach through the pain.

  GWEN

  Lakeshore Drive, MI

  The wall of death advanced in their direction. They were all dead, but they still moved like the living. Slower, but alive in the sense that they moved with a singular purpose. The ones wearing clothes wore them disheveled and torn, most hanging by bare shreds as if they had been shipwrecked on a deserted island or had survived a bear attack. Blood stained their clothes and skin alike, most drying in ink-like stains coating their bodies.

  The necks of the newly infected were swollen, lymph nodes four times their normal size protruding from their skin like hideous hidden plums. Red blood covered their bodies, but they were few. The dead that had been decaying for weeks dominated their ranks.

  The infected that had been killed in the beginning were gray. Their flesh hung from their faces, drooping beneath their eyes and jawline. Their mouths hung open, revealing chipped, broken, and missing teeth. Puckered bullet holes painted the exposed skin of their bodies. Arms hung by mere tendons. Crippled, bent feet dragged behind them, anchors from being assaulted, run over, and maimed. They didn’t care what horrible fate befell them now. Only the virus remained, pulling their strings in a shoddy uncontrolled manner, one ugly footstep after another. They moaned, an evil call to arms picked up by all like an angry pack of wolves.

  Gwen ground the gearshift into drive and hammered her foot down on the gas. The old RV lurched as if it had forgotten that she required its full power. It was an old war-horse, spurred into the fray by the sharp spurs of its rider for one last battle.

  The RV creaked its way to ten miles per hour before the first bodies ricocheted off the front and sides. The dead glanced off the grille of the metal beast. They spun and twisted as they were shoved to the side. The unlucky ones were dragged under the wheels, causing the RV to lurch and shake. Hands pounded the doors. Nails screeched down the sides.

  “Keep going,” Max yelled.

  Cries of terror shrieked from the back. Her speed hovered at about twelve miles per hour, and the old RV took the flesh of humans in its heavy determined stride. The RV shuddered, its shocks bouncing as they absorbed the bodies underneath its wheels. The whirlwind of flesh, hands, and bodies came to an end. She felt the steering wheel stiffen and the steering column lock up in her hands. She wrenched on the wheel, fingers gripped tightly around it.

  “I can’t steer,” she yelled. She muscled the steering wheel, inching it onto the road, but finally, she couldn’t budge it. She stared at her white knuckled hands, unable to steer the vehicle. “I can’t steer!” The RV could only go straight in her last direction. It stayed true to its current course and motored undeviating into a ditch, launching itself into a coastal forest full of trees with trunks the diameter of teacups. Her chest caught on the steering wheel as they crashed. The air was forced from her lungs. “Uff,” she breathed.

  The headlights were shadowed by the dried leaves of fall trees. Branches pushed onto the windshield as if they tried to hold them back. Her eyes fogged and it took multiple blinks before she could see clearly again.

  Her hands immediately went to her stomach. She stared down at it, hands feeling across her belly. She coughed. My baby, her mind screamed, but she had no time to think about the potential danger to her unborn child. The RV leaned forward, its front end pressed tight against trees.

  “Damn it,” she swore.

  The door swung open and Max jumped out of the RV.

  “Max,” she screamed. His .22 banged out two shots.

  She fumbled with a silver button door handle.

  “Hurry, Ms. Gwen,” Max hollered.

  She grabbed her M4 from between the seats. She slid off the seat and out of the RV. A dead woman reached for her with skinny arms, using the side of the RV to get closer to Gwen. Gwen squeezed the trigger and the M4 bop-bop-bop-bopped. Her last round struck home. Gwen grimaced, her stomach and chest in pain, impossible to tell which was worse or if one was caused by the other. Hunched over, she rounded the RV.

  Freshly crushed corpses lay scattered along the road. The bodies were the worst roadkill disaster she could have ever have imagined. They crawled for them. Their fingernails scraped until they popped off their fingertips, but the clawing of the concrete didn’t stop. It wasn’t the ones mangled on the roadway she cared about; it was the ones that walked and doddered in her direction. Too many of them staggered her way. Max fired his small caliber rifle hurriedly.

  “That door will never hold them,” she cried out. She let off three single-round shots, rushing her trigger. Only one corpse fell.

  “We’ve got to get them on top,” Gwen yelled. She hustled for the side RV door and ripped it open.

  Max’s gun continued to bang in the background.

  Terrified eyes looked back at her. Gordon barked shrill notes into the night.

  “Everyone get on top of the RV. Hurry,” she said. She ran for the red emergency hatch and pulled hard on the red levers. Popping it backward, she opened it up and the night sky appeared draped above her.

  “Dr. Thatcher, I need your help. Ben and May,” she said to an old couple, “we will hoist you up first and hand you the kids. They nodded.

  “Of course,” Dr. Thatcher said, setting down Gordon. Gordon did circles on the bench seat, yapping as he went.

  Gwen waved at a little blonde girl. “Lacy.” The little girl jumped into her arms. Dr. Thatcher helped her push the children one by one through the hatch. After the fifth child, the pounding came on the door. Only a few hands.

  “Hurry, Doctor. That door won’t hold long,” she urged. One after another, they lifted them up. More hands joined the others on the door. Pounding echoed inside the camper. The glass on the camper door broke. Mangled, rotting flesh pushed its way through the broken window.

  She took a foot to the face as she hefted the doctor up and through the small hatch. The RV rocked as the dead surrounded it. The door dented inward, bending in the frame, the weight of the bodies pressing into it.

  Dr. Thatcher’s face peered down at her. “Here,” she shouted, handing up her M4.

  The door weakened, gaps widening. The door gave way and they stumbled inside the RV. Without looking, she jumped up, grabbing Dr. Thatcher’s fleshy arms. Ben grunted as he helped Thatcher pull her up. The sharp sting of fingernails raking across her butt cheeks and into her thighs seared through her pants as they pulled her up from below. The dead moaned below her, almost as if they were saddened by her departure.

  She collapsed on top of the RV for a moment, breathing hard. She squeezed her eyes tight, catching her breath.

  When she cracked open her eyes, the kids, on their hands and knees, looked at her. She almost relaxed. Max. Her eyes shot open as she remembered the teenager was still below.

  “Max?” she shouted. She stood up, ignoring the burning down her back
side. She circled the roof, leaning backward to balance and keep from sliding off the top.

  “Gwen,” mumbled a voice. Max stood wedged between trees near the front of the RV. He had weaseled his way through the tightly grown trees. She raced to the front end of the RV and dove down onto the roof.

  “Grab my gun. I’ll pull you up,” she said. She held the M4 by the stock, reaching it out. Grabbing the barrel of her weapon, he jumped on the hood of the RV. Fear encased his eyes. The dead pushed through the trees, stretching out their wicked fingers for him.

  “I gotcha,” she said. Both hands on the gun, she heaved. His feet scrambled, trying to get a grip up the windshield. He wasn’t the only one. Dead hands gripped around his legs. He kicked wildly trying to get them away. More arms reached for him.

  “Don’t look down,” she said. His hands grasped the gun tight, and the barrel started to slip through her fingers. His eyes locked onto hers, frantic.

  “Don’t let go,” he squeaked. His freckles were almost white in the headlights. His hands slowly slipped off the stock of the gun. Inch by inch, he was overpowered. She was thrown backward onto her rear.

  “Gwen. Gwen. No,” he shouted. She flipped the gun around and leaned over the edge of the RV.

  Max’s screams penetrated the night. “Ah. Ahh. Ahhhhh!” The infected tore into him. Their fingers penetrated his body, sawing through flesh and muscle alike. They scooped out his insides until his lungs gave out, and he twitched as they ate his body. Headlights revealed the whole gut-wrenching episode like an old drive-in horror movie.

  Gwen stared in shock, her mouth partially open until she could tear her eyes away from their kill. More white eyes stared back at her, their arms grasping for her like she was a rockstar onstage playing a guitar solo. She stood up. The children looked at her through scared eyes. She slung her M4 on her back. She only had two full mags. Not enough bullets to even thin them out.

  “Come here,” she said to them, kneeling on the RV for balance. It rocked as the horde below tried to get on top. Banging into the seats and tables, they fumbled around causing the large vehicle to shake.

  “All the kids, come to me.” The children crawled to her on their hands and knees, sliding over the roof. She brought them in close and hugged as many of them as she could tight.

  “Shhh,” she whispered. She sniffled back tears. “We must be quiet.”

  Little Lacy snuggled into her and wrapped her arms around Gwen.

  “Will they go away?” Lacy asked, looking up at Gwen.

  “If we are very quiet, they will leave us alone. Which means no crying.” She wiped a tear from Lacy’s eye. “There, there.” She stroked her cheek for a moment.

  The older adults scooted in closer, sliding over the roof.

  She put her arms around more of them. “Now, we can’t cry or they won’t leave. Okay?” She made sure to eye the adults as well then back to the children. “We’re going to use our imaginations to make up a story about going to your most favorite place in the whole entire world. Then when they’re gone, everyone gets to tell their story, okay?” She wrapped her arms around more of the children, shushing them. “Be quiet and think really, really hard…ready? Go.”

  She held as many of the children of Little Sable Point as she could manage while the infected clambered below. After thirty minutes had passed, she stared off into the distance, watching one child who hadn’t joined her.

  The blond boy sat on the edge of the roof. His feet dangled off the edge. He giggled and pointed at the dead below. He turned, staring at her with a smile on his face as if he were watching the monkeys at the zoo. She bit her lip, holding back her tears. He turned back around, wiggling with mirth. I am bringing him into a world populated by only monsters.

  STEELE

  Little Sable Point, MI

  Steele rounded the bend in the road to Little Sable Point, taking it too fast. The back end of his pickup truck spun out, fishtailing across the road. He corrected the wheel with a sharp jerk of his hand and it begrudgingly straightened out. He sped for the pickup-made entrance of Little Sable. When he got close enough, he slammed on the brakes. The pickup screeched, sliding to a halt on the sandy road. He snapped the driver’s side door open and hopped out. As he walked for the entrance, no one challenged him.

  He climbed over the car blocking the entrance. A small feminine shadow ran from her RV. She jumped on him, wrapping her arms around him. He hugged her for only a moment before he pushed her away.

  “I thought they would murder you like cowards,” Tess said.

  “They would have, but they didn’t have the opportunity.” He handed her the explosive clacker.

  She spun the remote around in her fingers. Her eyes questioned him, looking for an answer. “What does this do?”

  The sun was beginning its daily rise over the land, emerging in the east and settling upon the west. He dug around near the tire of a camper, kicking sand away with his foot from the back of the tire. After a few moments, he bent down, using his hands to scoop away the sand.

  She waved the clacker at him. “What does it do?”

  He uncovered a bag and picked it up, throwing it over his shoulder.

  He smiled at her. “It detonates explosives.”

  An unsettled look fell upon her as she set it on the hood of a car very gently.

  “Where did you get explosives?” she said.

  Steele marched away from her. Time was against them. As seconds seeped away, the pastor would realize he had been duped. Then it was a race to mobilize his forces. He walked over to the lighthouse, Tess lagging behind. Opening the door, he grabbed his tactical vest and checked his mags.

  “Thunder had them.”

  Her eyes searched for answers in his. “He gave them to you?”

  He ignored her and he scooped up magazines and placed them into his pockets. He made sure the hawk was secure on his belt. He ran a hand down the blade. A few chips had been taken out of it, but it was still a killer in a close-quarters fight. He glanced up at her.

  “No. I stole them and hid them because I knew we’d need them for something.”

  She watched him. “Why did they let you go?”

  “I made it look like Peter was wearing a bomb. It was believable enough, but it won’t be long before they figure out I was lying.” He stood up, meeting her eyes. “The pastor admitted to murdering my mother.” The words stung his mouth like he spit fire.

  Her dark eyes spoke of only vengeance. “They’re rotten to the core, but mark my words, Steele, we will have our vengeance.” Her eyes blazed then softened. She squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry. You’re sure? He had proof?”

  Steele sighed, allowing himself to grasp her words. It was fact that his mother was gone. Not missing. Murdered. “He knew too much about us.”

  “He’s an evil man,” she said, nodding.

  “If I was here, that wouldn’t have happened. She would still be alive.” He stared at the ground in anguish.

  “No, you would have been murdered too. You have been given a chance to save people from that fate.”

  Steele nodded and pushed his emotions deep inside. “He will pay and then we will mourn.”

  He put his arms through his tactical vest and strapped it tight. He checked his magazines inside his vest. Their weight felt good and solid on his frame. “I had to give peace a chance. Now they can have their war.” He slung his M4 around his shoulder diagonally. He walked away from her yelling at the ring of cars. “Larry. Jason.”

  The two stood sleepily. Larry scratched at his bald head, and Jason rubbed his eyes.

  “Hurry up now,” Steele shouted. Larry pulled a shirt on, and Jason fumbled with his shoes and gun at the same time.

  “Hope you got enough sleep because today is the day. Can we get Trent up there?” Steele looked up at the lakeshore lighthouse.

  “I can,” Jason said.

  Steele judged him for a moment. Jason wasn’t the best shot in the group, but he wasn’t the worst.<
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  “We’ll get you and Trent up there. Larry, get all the rest of the volunteers here. Rouse the rest of Little Sable up. If they can shoot, find them a place and get their guns ready.”

  “Yes, sir,” Larry said and ambled off, swaying as he walked like an ape.

  “Tess, can you find Ahmed? I need his help. And Kevin, wake his drunk ass up.” Tess jogged off.

  The sun creaked higher in the sky and dawn embraced them. The sun topped the trees like a match as he prepared for the coming storm. The volunteers trickled in along with Kevin, teetering from the effects of alcohol, and a tired-looking Ahmed.

  “Bring it in close,” he commanded. The group of volunteers took timid steps forward. “I ain’t going to bite. Now bring it in.” They came in close enough. Do I only have sheep? Are there no sheepdogs among them?

  Steele crouched down, bending his knees. Taking a stick from the sand, he drew a large circle around a rock. The stick squeaked as it dug into the granules of sand. “This is us.”

  He snaked a line in the sand leading up to the circle. “That is the only road into Little Sable Point.” He drew x’s around the road. “If they want to get here fast, they will have to use the road. If they want to ruck in through the forest, they can, but I don’t think they will. They smell blood in the water. And they’re angry.”

  “How many of ’em are there?” asked Gregor, his long thick black hair draped about his neck like a mane.

  Steele looked up at the man. “I estimate they will have at least five hundred.”

  The eyes of his nine volunteers betrayed their fear. It oozed out of the group like a stink they couldn’t get rid of.

  “But there’s only about fifty of us,” Hank said, massaging his scantily hair-clad temples.

  Steele nodded. “I know that, Hank. So we’re going to have to be smarter, tougher, and craftier than they are.” He looked down at his sand map.

  “I want to funnel them through here.” Steele let his stick run down the line representing the road. “I want to keep them stacked up and easier to shoot, unable to concentrate any sort of firepower on us.” He looked up at them. Margie nodded. Nathan studied the map. “So let’s get some vehicles here and here.” He scrawled small circles along the road. “But not too many where they think it’s a trap, but enough for them to have to go our direction.”