The people atop the parking structure were the first to see it. They were also the first to realize they weren’t high enough to avoid it. Whitney shuddered as a collective wail of panic and despair rose from the city below. Tears brimmed and spilled over onto her face. They were all going to die. And she could only watch.
She’d seen death before and knew she lacked the stomach to witness what was coming. Turning away from the city of her childhood, from the home she had made, from all the places and people she loved, Whitney ran to her bedroom and closed the deck doors behind her. The distant voices were silenced. She leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, hoping the water wouldn’t reach her as well.
The next minute was spent in silence as she waited. In her mind’s eye she saw the citizens of Portsmouth clambering over each other, trampling the weak. She knew it was human nature to step on the next guy if it meant saving one’s own life. She felt certain a number of people were already dead, long before the wave struck. A sob escaped her as she remembered Cindy’s office was downtown. The tears flowed freely now.
Then the voices returned. Grew louder.
Closer.
Whitney stood, opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. A seventy-foot wave of water slid through Portsmouth and consumed it all. The people still on rooftops ceased to exist. Those on the streets were swept up and churned in the grinding waters as easily as the brick, concrete, wood, and mortar that held the city together.
The voices returned: “Open the goddamn gates!”
A small group of perhaps fifteen people had flocked to her front gate, probably neighbors who knew her home stood on the tallest peak of the hill. She cursed her father for building the eight-foot stone wall and metal gate that sealed off the estate from the rest of the world, protecting her from unknown predators.
Whitney glanced toward the downtown. The rising waters had consumed the city and were now racing toward her, pounding up the steady incline. Whitney dashed back into the bedroom, calculating how long it would take her to reach and unlock the front door, sprint the hundred feet to the gate, unlock and open it by hand, sprint back to the house with fifteen people, and shut the door behind her.
Too long.
If only she’d fixed the gate’s remote! That kind of thing hadn’t been her concern lately, and she’d let it go for six months.
A slight vibration in the floorboards at the base of the stairs reinforced the idea that she wouldn’t have time. Still, she had to try.
She reached the front door, unlocked the deadbolt, and flung it open. Vaulting down the five front stairs in one leap, Whitney hit the driveway at a sprint. She heard roaring water, breaking glass, and the horrid wrench of metal as the unseen torrent pounded relentlessly forward.
Not waiting for the gate to be opened, the fleeing group began climbing over it. To the left, a little girl struggled with the smooth metal bars. The others were leaving her behind. Whitney leapt at the gate and clung to it like a monkey. She yanked herself to the top, feeling the muscles in her arms tear. At the top, she reached over and thrust her hand out to the girl. “Take my hand!”
The little girl’s fingers intertwined with Whitney’s, and the girl was pulled steadily up. A bearded man next to the girl saw that she’d clear the gate first and took hold of Whitney’s arm to hoist himself.
“Let go!” Whitney shouted as the gate dug into her arm.
“Amber!” another man shouted with shock in his eyes. He lunged at the bearded man pushing the girl back down, and Whitney knew the girl’s rescuer was her father. Amber’s father wrapped one arm around the aggressor’s neck and pushed off the gate with his feet. The action added an unbearable amount of weight to Whitney’s arm, but both men fell to the ground. The father seemed willing to die for his child, and as the two men rolled away from the gate pummeling each other, she realized he would.
The water was upon them.
Whitney pulled with all her might, but her muscles had little strength left. The water hit her like an explosion. Whitney was flung back ten feet, her grip on Amber’s arm lost. She sat up quickly and looked to the gate. The people were gone, replaced by a churning wall of water that roared like a wounded Kodiak bear.
Whitney shouted as she pushed herself up and ran back to the house. Ten feet from the front stairs, her feet began splashing through ocean water. A surge of water hit her knees and threatened to knock her down, but she lunged up the stairs, freeing herself from the water’s grasp.
She entered the house, closed the door, slammed the deadbolt home, and careened for the stairs, hoping another ten feet would be enough to save her life. She reached the top stair in four leaps. As she stepped into the hallway, a force struck the house so hard that she was shaken from her feet. She fell forward and heard a loud crack, but it wasn’t the house; it was her head. A stab of pain shot through her skull. As she fell, she saw the wooden chest she’d struck as she’d fallen.
It was the last thing she saw. Her vision blurred and turned black.
As her consciousness faded, the sound of rushing water and groaning wood surrounded the house.
Whitney awoke with a start and clasped a hand to her throbbing head. She struggled past the pain, attempting to gather her thoughts. As the pulsing headache in her left temple eased in intensity, she remembered: the wave. The people. The death. Despair, rage, and confusion attacked her all at once, an emotional lion pride, circling with hackles raised and talons extended. They wanted to devour her alive. But they were old enemies she’d faced before. Using willpower built over the past year’s suffering, she pushed the emotions away and faced her grim new reality.
She forced herself to calm and became more aware of her surroundings. She was still on the hallway floor of her house, but she was freezing. Wondering if she was wet, she checked herself and found her clothing to be dry. She looked down the stairs. Even the downstairs floor was dry.
From her position on the floor, she could see her alarm clock, but the power was out. She had no way of knowing how long she’d been unconscious, but it couldn’t have been long. It was still daylight, though the previously blue sky was now thick with ashen clouds . . . and something else.
Standing came only after a concerted effort. Her head pounded with every step, and she found herself walking through the bedroom and toward the deck door with her eyes closed. Hands outstretched, she stopped when she reached the wall. She slid her fingers from the wall to the glass of the sliding door.
When the flesh of her finger made contact with the glass, Whitney yelped and pulled her hand away. The pain was like searing heat, but she knew from experience that it was cold. Freezing cold. Whitney’s eyes flew open and blinked at the brightness. Despite the overcast sky, something outside was abnormally bright.
Through squinted eyes, Whitney took in her new view.
Extending out from ten feet below her home’s foundation all the way to the horizon was a sheet of ice. Thick flakes of snow fell from the sky. She seemed to have been transported to the North Pole. She didn’t dare go outside dressed for summer as she was, but from her view behind the glass she could see that everything, from Maine to Massachusetts, was buried under hundreds of feet of snow and ice.
And now she was alone, completely, and she feared that the most. More than the wave. More than the cold. Being alone with her thoughts, with her demons, was just about the worst way she could imagine to die.
###
Help spread the word!
If you enjoy my novels and want to help bring them to the rest of the world, here are some ideas. Everything below can be accomplished with no cost and just a few minutes of time.
On Amazon:
• Post reviews
• Create Listmania lists featuring other bestselling Kindle novels in the horror, thriller and other appropriate genres with TORMENT featured in the top spot.*
• Create a So You’d Like To... Guide, featuring TORMENT, and similar novels.
*
• Add tags to the product page. These literally take seconds to add. Appropriate tags include: Horror, terror, zombies, zombie, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, kindle, thriller, science fiction, religion, Jeremy Bishop, gore, action, splatter, bloody, action adventure.
* Lists and Guides only work when lots of books are added, up to 40, so load ’em up!
On BN.com (Barnes&Noble):
• Post reviews.
• Click the Facebook Like button.
• Create an Essentials List with TORMENT in the top spot (same idea as a Listmania list).
On Goodreads:
•Post reviews.
• Add to any lists you have.
• Hit the message boards or start a discussion.
• Use the Recommend button to tell your friends about the book.
On the Web:
• Blog about the book.
• Hit Twitter and Facebook with praise and links.
• If you belong to a message board, start a conversation—I promise, this book will bring up some topics worth talking about.
Thanks for your help!
Older Kindle model? Click here for estore.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Sample - ANTARKTOS RISING
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
EPILOGUE
The Last Hunter - Ascent (Book 3 of the Antarktos Saga) Page 22