by Franks, JK
“How far out dey is? the boy asked.
The convoy and many of the residents of AG were out there bringing in the last convoy of Patriots. “Ten miles last report, hopefully, closer now. They said it was hell going out, we lost several cars and occupants. Bartos said not to worry, though, coming back should be fine.”
“How’s dat?”
“No idea, kid, trust in the Cajun, though.” He watched another chopper coming into view. This one he’d been told carried captured supplies to help feed all the new additions to the community. Tahir walked in looking pale. “What’s wrong, Tahir?”
“Scott. He’s not coming. I just got off the radio with a Marine general. Scott said for us to leave as soon as we could. Don’t wait on him.”
“What the fuck, man?” They’d already heard from Krychek and Nez about Skybox’s death and what Scott had to do to defeat Gia. “The military said that place will be crawling with infected, worse than here even.”
Tahir nodded and sat in the chair heavily. “I started going through the data from the labs there. There are teraflops of it, may take years to go through, but I learned a couple of things already.” He looked out the bridge windows as the chopper came in for a landing. “First, we have to get ready for something even worse than the blackout. That is what they were working on, modifying plant and animal life to survive what is coming next. The Gulf Stream is slowing to a halt. It will make weather more extreme, and much of the planet will be uninhabitable.”
Todd shook his head trying to absorb what he was hearing. “Goddamn…and the second?”
Tahir sighed and stood up. “I looked at the medical records, Dr. Colton had a file on Scott. He didn’t receive just the treatment the rest of us did. The changes to his genome are more…significant. In time, he may become like those,” he pointed across the Intracoastal Waterway. “Or, he could just be a carrier, infecting us with a new strain. We already know the antiviral may not work long-term.”
“So, he knows this…and that is why he can’t come home?” Todd said, rubbing his eyes.
Tahir nodded, “I discovered one other thing in the medical records,” he said. “Something about Gia.” Todd gave an instant look of disgust.
“Not sure I give a good holy fuck about anything to do with that woman,” Todd said.
“She was never pregnant, couldn’t have children, in fact. It was a massive tumor. The cause seemed to be the result of exposure to an ancient pathogen when she was much younger. She fought it all her life, much of her research centered around it, but in the end, it was killing her.”
“Scott thinks he killed his unborn child,” Todd whispered. His heart ached for his friend. He longed for a way to tell his friend that one bit of news.
The handset beside the ship’s helm crackled to life with the familiar sound of Bartos. “Hey, lugnuts, lower the bridge, we are coming in hot.”
Todd smiled grimly, looking inland and seeing a dust cloud coming off the road, and keyed the mic. “Make it fast, Cajun, we are starting the old girl up now.” He pulled the binoculars to his eyes and looked at the fast-approaching convoy. “Bartos…is that tanks I see escorting you back?”
“Hell, yeah, we made some new friends out here. They want to take a cruise, too. You ain't gonna believe this shit.”
Todd radioed down to Scoots to lower the bridge but to keep the infected off best they could. He saw Solo darting across the dock below. The dog hadn’t wanted to stay in the ship while Bartos was still out there. Trish and Bobby walked hand in hand with Jacob and Sylvia playing tag right behind. DeVonte was directing new recruits to fire on the infected coming out of the water, but he kept stealing looks back at Angelique who was helping offload supplies from the chopper. Porter’s adopted son, JD, was up with several others on the descending drawbridge, AR-15 at low ready waiting on Steven and Pam who had been out with Bartos. His dog, Elvis, was eyeing Solo warily, but he’d already seen the two dogs playing chase with each other earlier.
“You ok, Todd?” Tahir asked coming up and placing a gentle hand on the big man’s back. Todd’s body shook with racking sobs of grief, but he nodded remembering Scott’s mantra, ‘We fight, we live, we love.’ He turned two levers and pushed the green button starting the big diesel engines. “Life will go on,” he whispered. Thank you, my friend.
Epilogue
Scott smoothed the dirt over the grave. The soft forest soil had been easy to dig, once he found the body bags he was looking for. He was also starting to get used to all the infected around. Some would get too close and even bump into him. Occasionally, one would growl, but they generally just seemed to ignore him. He was ok with that, he wanted to be ignored. He’d said his goodbyes to Skybox, then turned to the other hole nearby. He’d unzipped Gia’s body from her bag. Even in death, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. The rictus of death was already making her body stiff, but he leaned and kissed the top of her head. He placed a hand on the bump of her belly, idly thinking it seemed too firm to be just baby, but he had no frame of reference for that.
“I don’t understand the cruelties in your life that made you this way, Gia. I choose to remember the other you. Whether it was false or not, she was a good person. She tried to do good, maybe to offset some of the bad that was going on in the other half of her life.” He placed her, uncovered, down in the hole and began raking handfuls of dirt over her body. “I love you, Gia. I wish you peace from the torment in this world.” His eyes stung, but the tears didn’t come this time. His body refused to let go of any more of its moisture for his losses.
Adrift in the middle of a dazzling blue-green Caribbean Sea, the California bobbed with the gentle waves. The presidential yacht was anchored thirty miles off the Costa de Mosquitos, or Mosquito Coast, of Nicaragua. The oppressive sun beat down unmercifully on the deck and occupants. The luxurious boat with its rich finishes and luxurious textures was now swathed in blood, gore, and the remains of much of the Coast Guard crew.
Madelyn Chambers sat in her stateroom, unwilling to make a sound. The creatures outside the door of the suite kept banging it or looking through the single round window. While she was injected with the treatment and immune from the Chimera virus, her crew had not been so lucky. She had carried the infection on-board, and in doing so, brought about her own end.
The engines had gone silent three days earlier. The lights and air conditioning stayed on for several hours before fading to a stop. The temperature in the cabin was well over a hundred, and the sun hadn’t reached midday yet. Behind her suite was a warehouse of food, fresh water and other supplies, including her wardrobe and makeup. She looked down through the tears at her battered hands, the bruises and cuts from where she’d beat on the porthole glass the previous two days. Like most of the room, it had been retrofitted to be bulletproof. She couldn’t get out, couldn’t get fresh air.
The smell of raw feces overwhelmed her senses as the toilets had ceased to function as well. She eyed the useless ‘football.’ The launch codes for the nation's nukes, as well as the access to orbital bombardment weapons, were all offline. That damn Levy had canceled them, she felt sure. She quietly moved to the stateroom door and peered up and out the small round window. A line of angry, hungry looking creatures met her stare and began charging the door again. Her crew, all infected, were now her captors. The boat bobbed again as a gentle swell rolled underneath.
She looked around the room for the hundredth time for a way out. There was only one, she knew that now. Her fingers unclasped the box on the shelf with the presidential emblem. Reaching in, she removed the commemorative nickel-plated pistol. It had an American flag imprinted on the ivory grips and a solid-gold eagle on the barrel. She looked at it a long time, sweat dripping off her and ruining the designer dress she wore. Sadly, she pulled the slide back like she had seen done in movies, remembered to click the safety off and placed it against her temple. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. A dull click sounded. “Fuck!” She threw the gun against
the wall.
Several hundred miles to the east, the Aquatic Goddess sailed past en route to Costa Rica. The almost 6000 occupants of the AG anxious to get a fresh start. Someone looking down that day would have seen Captain Todd holding Jack’s Bible in his hand as Roosevelt escorted a very lovely Angelique toward a beaming DeVonte, and Bobby Montgomery escorted his daughter Kaylie forward, handing her off to a very nervous DJ. The double wedding would be the first of many the captain would perform.
The remnants of the US military were aboard numerous Navy ships heading to Guantanamo Bay. They had also asked Cuba for temporary asylum. That island country’s isolation and more basic infrastructure had protected them somewhat. They had not yet encountered the infected but had suffered great losses since the blackout. Commander Garret and General Daly had promised any assistance possible in helping the country remain free of the pandemic in exchange for allowing safe harbor.
It would take years for the infected to finally die off. Until then, the epigenetic treatment pioneered by Dr. Gia Colton would become routine and widespread, and all descendants from the groups of survivors inherited the immunity. Her alternate identity and other more ruthless pursuits would be lost to history, yet benefits to mankind from the work at Thunder Ridge would benefit everyone in countless ways over the years to come.
The hordes of infected were long gone as they were in most places he’d been. They’d kept moving westward, migrating packs of predation in search of new hosts. A few still wandered the streets but not many. Not a day went by that he didn’t think of his friends and family, or Gia, for that matter, but he was dealing with it. He’d spent weeks searching through the bombed-out labs in Tennessee finding several even more amazing discoveries. He’d looked for Tommy, and several times felt as though someone was watching, but never saw the man. We are the last of the living, both of us ghosts among the dead, he thought.
In a remote hangar there, he’d found row after row of the sleek LSV Spider vehicles. He’d strapped spare fuel, batteries and a trailer full of supplies he’d found and finally headed off the mountain. He made a stop at Graceland where he slept for weeks in a bed supposedly belonging to Elvis. His leg wound healed remarkably fast before then heading toward Little Rock where he visited the old Sanderson place where Bobby had met Jacob and his mom. After a long stay at a small cabin on the Pearl River near Jackson, he headed to the coast.
The gas ran out about a hundred miles from Harris Springs, the electrical motors on the LSV carried him on to within twenty. From there, he’d walked, his limp barely noticeable now. He passed the entrance to the old dam and saw the sleek but abandoned HondaJet Tahir had landed sitting off the side of the road on Highway 50. The sides of the road were littered with the now familiar sight and the smell of thousands of decaying corpses. The infected had been thick here. He hoped with all his heart his friends got away unharmed.
It was over three months after the final exodus, when Scott Montgomery walked across the lowered bridge into what had been Harris Springs. Not seeing the Aquatic Goddess in its familiar mooring place as he approached the town was jarring. He wove his way past the marina. Todd’s fishing boat, the Donna Marie, still sat bobbing in its slip. He moved down the main street past the dilapidated buildings. He thought of his walk months earlier with Jack. He felt closer to the man now than ever before. He paused on the old raised sidewalk thinking of the day of the event, seeing the preacher that morning in that garish shirt crossing the street toward him. Those guys had saved him, and he’d tried hard to return the favor. He rounded the corner and walked toward the docks they’d built for the AG. The space was empty save for something large covered by a canvas tarp on one corner.
He removed the tie downs and pulled the tarp back to reveal his Jeep Wrangler. On the back, in its familiar spot, hung his Trek Domaine bicycle. A note sat on the driver’s seat along with what appeared to be a map. His lips fought against gravity and months of depression to form the tiniest of smiles.
-End-
MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for reading my novel “Ghost Country”. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would be so kind as to take a moment and leave a review, I would be very grateful. Unfortunately reviews and referrals are the only real ways for self-published authors to compete with the big-name writers, and it sure would be nice to make it out of the crowded, dark and dusty aisles of Amazon.
Please click here to leave review
If you do write a review, please email me at [email protected] and I will forward you a special bonus chapter featuring ‘Bartos’ story’ from the end of the book. It also offers a few hidden facts and a surprise (re)appearance. I thought this would be a fun way to say “Thank you”
About the Author
International bestselling author JK Franks once again offers a look at an alternative America in his latest book—Ghost Country. The gripping story of a country at war with itself and a group struggling to maintain their humanity in this concluding chapter to the epic Catalyst Series. The prior novels of this post-apocalyptic series have been hailed as some of the best in the genre including American Exodus which became an International #1 Bestseller early in 2018. “Post-apocalyptic fiction are cautionary tales that should scare us but also, even more importantly, they should make us think.”
His stories are not only fast moving, each has regular and amazing characters who must make life changing decisions, all while the earth is experiencing an apocalyptic event unlike anything imagined.
Franks and his wife now live in West Point, Georgia, which is briefly featured in this story. He is currently working on a new story, not involving the end of the world. No matter where he is or what's going on, he tries his best to set aside time every day to answer emails and messages from readers. You can visit him on the web at www.jkfranks.com. Please subscribe to his newsletter for updates, promotions, and giveaways. You can also find the author on Facebook or email him directly at [email protected].
Other books by JK Franks
The Catalyst Series
Book 1: Downward Cycle
Life in a remote oceanfront town spirals downward after a massive solar flare causes a global blackout. But the loss of electrical power is just the first of the problems facing the survivors. In the chaos, that follows. Is this how the world ends?
Book 2: Kingdoms of Sorrow
With civilization in ruins, individuals band together to survive and build a new society. The threats are both grave and numerous—surely too many for a small group to weather. This is a harrowing story of survival following the collapse of the planet’s electric grids.
Book 2.5: American Exodus Novella
This companion story to the Catalyst series follows one man’s struggle to get back home after the collapse. No supplies, no idea of the hardships to come; how can he possibly survive the journey? Even if he survives, can he adapt to this new reality?
Book 3: Ghost Country
Since the Solar superstorm and CME almost two years ago, the Gulf Coast town of Harris Springs, Mississippi has suffered from gang attacks, famine, hurricanes and battled a crusading army of religious zealots. Now, they face their greatest challenge. Outsmarting a tyrannical President and escaping an approaching pandemic.
Connect with the Author Online:
** For a sneak peek at new novels, free stories and more, join the email list at: www.jkfranks.com/Email
Facebook: facebook.com/JKFranksAuthor
Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/-/e/B01HIZIYH0
Smashwords: smashwords.com/profile/view/kfranks22
Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/15395251.J_K_Franks
Website: JKFranks.com
Twitter: @jkfranks
Instagram: @jkfranks1
this book with friends