LAW Box Set: Books 1-3 (Life After War Book 0)

by Angela White

  He screamed for his cousin as his filthy foot hit the girl chained to the center pole again. “Get up! There is work!”

  3

  A short time later, a plump woman rode out on one of the few horses. The cries of her two young children reassured Cesar that she would do as he wanted. She would be missed here for her cooking skills, but at Safe Haven, she would be an invaluable tool waiting for his use.

  Cesar’s army was drunk on their successful invasion of the hated Americans, but the wise guerilla captain sensed confidence and courage wouldn’t be enough to defeat the group of survivors from his dream. The blond man had been hard, and Cesar recognized the future battle. When it came, he would be ready and none of them would stand in his way.

  There was a feeling of importance to the woman disappearing into the fog and Cesar stared until she was out of sight. Maria might be the key to that battle.

  Shoving the toddlers away from his leg, Cesar summoned one of his slaves to care for them. When his sons were older, they would also be sacrifices for the cause, as his other children had been over the years.

  The evil slave trader let out a battle cry that was echoed by his men.

  “Muerte a Estados Unidos!”

  “Muerte a Estados Unidos!”

  Death to America.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A Hard New World

  February 21st

  Devils Head, Colorado

  1

  The wolves hadn’t left. Cold and hungry, they were determined not to let man regain control, and even a lone female was a threat to this new awareness. Mother Nature, having recognized the chance for a different outcome, was uniting species all over the world–most of them natural enemies–and her army was relentless.

  Arrrooooooo!

  Samantha’s eyes flew open and she froze, listening intently.

  After a minute, she told herself to relax, that she had more pressing problems than wolves or coyotes outside.

  The pain in her leg was agony, and her hands and feet were so cold that she couldn’t feel anything in them but pain. It was dark and drafty in the cabin, the flames long out, and she forced herself to scoot over to the fireplace.

  Sam clenched her teeth at every jar of her leg against the hard floor, knowing she needed heat, but all she could think about was how much she wanted to shoot up. It was the same craving that made her drool when she woke in the darkness with only the flaring misery to comfort her. So, she made herself wait. She would not come out of the war an addict.

  It was frigid in the hunting lodge, but the woman was thankful that the front glass windows had survived the cold wave with only small cracks. The thick line of birch and evergreens in front of the cabin had taken the brunt.

  And the birds, she thought, shuddering.

  Sam hadn’t realized the birds were there until she watched them freeze. The larks were huddled on an upper branch for warmth, and it had been awful to witness. She could still make out the faint yellow hue of their snow-covered bodies. It was a mirror of her own fate, had the windows not held.

  It was better now; enough that she could even go to the outhouse, and while Sam was glad the freeze had let up; there was still plenty of nasty weather that she would have to travel. The feeling of wrongness invading this place said it wasn’t safe here anymore. She needed to get moving.

  Adapting to the thick, groggy feeling of the morphine upon waking each day, she slowly stacked some of her dwindling supply of wood into the charred pit.

  Finished, she surveyed the dark corner and found the crackers gone. She had noticed the animal cage in the SUV as she’d come up the driveway to the hunting lodge, but it hadn’t registered and she had mistaken the ferret for a mouse in her fear of doing self-surgery. The brown and white fur had hung sadly from its narrow frame, and she’d been feeding it whenever she ate, leaving water out. If it would come to her, maybe she would have a companion.

  Shivering now, Samantha squirted the lighter fluid gently and struck a match, having to use three before the fire finally roared to life, singeing her fingertips. Vaguely thinking she had never smelled worse in her life, Sam pulled the blanket tighter around her thin shoulders, huddling as close to the heat as she could get.

  Needing to know how her wound was doing, she gently pried off the bandage, trying not to disturb the newly forming scabs. It was still ugly, but clearly improving and she could even put a little weight on it now. Her shaking hands replaced the mostly clean material, thinking it had hurt more–

  Arrrooooooo!

  Samantha froze at the sight of red, malevolent orbs glaring through the front window.

  She stared for a long moment, evaluating her situation. It had been three days. It was blizzard cold, the snow was still falling, and the wolves were out there…stalking her.

  Sscccraatch. Sssscchh.

  Paws at the small gap under the front door got her moving, but her gaze stayed on the window, where more hungry snouts had appeared. She was in trouble, and once again, there would be no rescue except for the one she could provide.

  Sam squared her shoulders, feeling the helpless anger that always rose when she thought of the old world now. Fine, if they wanted a war with humans, she would give them a taste of what they were in for.

  The first thing the storm tracker did was give herself a light dose of liquid gold and use the bedpan, glad her leg felt stronger. She would need that. She dressed as fast as she could, knowing the layered shirts would help protect her from bites and scratches. The sweatpants went on over the jeans for the same reason. After tying her dirty blonde braid up, she strapped the gun around her hips, wishing it had more than two bullets in it.

  Samantha chose to make her stand in the corner, to the left of the stone fireplace, and she was crying hard tears by the time she had tumbled the cumbersome desk onto its side, pulling it in like a wall.

  After stowing all her things behind it, she filled half a dozen syringes with morphine, leaving the caps off, and added them to the knives already in the wide pockets of her trench coat. They made a comforting clink. When the wolves came, it would be through the windows already weakened by the first strong wave of the blizzard, and it would get cold in here fast.

  “Sure could use a solid,” Sam muttered hoarsely, aware that this was probably where her luck would run out. “If I’ve got any credit, I’d like to use it now, please.”

  Sam took a little more of the morphine she feared she would crave forever, recapping the needle with shaking fingers. She had already survived worse. Wolves, no matter how determined, were nothing compared to Melvin and Henry, both drunk and wanting sex. She would survive.

  Scratch. Paw. Sniff.

  Sam counted two shadows under the door, four pairs of eyes at the window. Six animals, and probably a few others hanging back, waiting. But not for much longer, she thought, almost able to feel their hunger, their hatred, as they watched her through the frosted glass.

  The storm had piled up a foot of thick snow, giving the wolves a ledge up, and she glared as she put the torches near the fire, not sure why she’d made them. The fire poles were a last–

  Smaaaaash!

  The front glass shattered under a huge black wolf that landed on its side. Sharp pieces of glass flew across the floor, and snow, dark and dirty, flew through the jagged hole.

  Snarling at her before it gained its feet, the wolf padded her way, promising death.

  Crack! Thud. Ccrrssshhh!

  The second window failed. Snow and wolves streamed through the gaping opening.

  Hungry fangs bared, claws digging into the floor, the wolves prowled toward her.

  Sam waited for them with her heart in her throat. They had to get close enough for her meager weapons to be effective.

  Craasshhh!

  A third window exploded under the weight of a large white wolf. The animal didn’t slow as it hit the wooden floor, using it to jump again instead, fangs bared in anticipation.

  Sam reacted fast, jerking ne
edles from her pocket. She slammed two syringes into the white wolf’s furry chest as it came down on her.

  Grunting, she pushed the double dose in, cringing away from the heavy, reeking weight.

  A second wolf lunged with its leader, and was hit with the first animal’s convulsing body. It knocked them both into the corner of the desk. The heavy marble slid against Sam’s good leg, shoving her backward and away from their snaps.

  Pictures crashing to the floor behind her, Sam ignored the stabs of pain. She quickly glanced up to find a lanky wolf flying through the air, and two others about to launch.

  She fired the last two bullets in her gun, only one of them connecting, and then the third animal was flying toward her, snapping viciously.

  Sam leaned into the wolf’s lunge, knife from her pocket impaling, ripping upward.

  Yiiipe!

  She let the bloody blade fall as she grabbed the Taser she’d found refill packs for, and shocked the wolf she’d missed with the gun. She hit it in the muzzle as it went for her injured limb.

  The wolf fell, whining loudly.

  She kicked the animal that had recovered from hitting the desk’s sharp corner with her good leg, seeing blood trickling from its ear.

  Iiippe! Iippe!

  Her boot crunched against its ribs, and the wolf yelped horribly. Then, all of the animals were fleeing, retreating before the injured prey that had taken out half of their pack.

  Sam rotated in time to witness the remaining three wolves jump through the snowy window, disappearing into the cold drifts of slush with their tails tucked between their legs. Bloody paw prints marked their path of retreat, drops and sprays of scarlet scattered over the floor. Their howls of mourning as they vanished into the storm were haunting.

  Samantha lowered her arms, struggling not to puke at the blood on her hands, but when the white wolf at her feet twitched, she plunged her last knife deep into its thick chest.

  Scratch…

  Sam swung around, shoulders relaxing when she spotted the ferret. Not thinking it odd for the pet to be out despite all the noise, she didn’t notice the restless twitch of its tail, nor the fact that it was charging her until it was too close to do anything but stomp.

  She hit it with her injured leg as it lunged for her ankle, saliva dripping from its sharp, little fangs. The ferret’s body crunched under her boot, guts and blood squeezing out as stabbing pain shot up her thigh.

  Furious, Sam ground the ferret into the bloody floor, taking bitter satisfaction in every snap, crack, and dark splatter. “Slam you too!”

  Tears streaming down her cheeks, Sam went to wash and gather her things. She would go now, ready or not. It truly was survival of the fittest, and those who didn’t listen to the warnings and prepare for nature’s worst would die.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Castaway

  12/21/2012

  The Pacific Ocean

  1

  “Let me go!”

  The dark-haired females struggled against each other, but they went mostly unnoticed in the mayhem that had taken control of the cruise ship.

  “Keep going! We have to get below!” Kendle spotted a group of crewmen running down the crowded deck, grabbing wildly at unsuspecting women.

  Ducking, she roughly spun her twin sister from their reach. Everything was OC now.

  “Stop!”

  Kendle shoved the girl again as she tried to go back the way they’d come, one eye on the horribly fascinating tidal wave eating up the ocean as it raced toward the boat, and one terrified eye on the younger and bloodier girl in front of her.

  “We gotta help dad!” Dawn screamed, skin on fire.

  Kendle shook her head, noises buzzing together unpleasantly as they stumbled along the debris-covered deck. They were being jostled by other panicked holiday passengers, many of them bleeding, having to stop and vomit.

  Tears blurred her vision, and Kendle wiped a hand across her face, not surprised by the red smear.

  “Move, Kendle!”

  “Fall back!”

  Dawn took a swing at her famous survivalist sister for the first time in her life, missing, and Kendle’s thin control over her own emotions snapped. Her terror (the first she’d felt in many years) flew out uncensored as the roar of the ocean grew louder, the screams more frantic. “He’s dead, Dawn! You saw his eyes explode!”

  Dawn screamed again, this time in horrified denial, and Kendle shoved her harder, sending the rebellious teenager tumbling down the dark stairwell. Ready to mix it up to keep her alive, Kendle quickly followed, wishing for her camera crew. She hated to be without them.

  Kendle yanked the dazed girl up. “Hang on to this rail. Supposed to be unsinkable, but if it flips, I hope–”

  “Flips?!”

  Kendle locked her arms around the suddenly gutless teenager and the banister, the already-damaged wooden planks under their bare feet groaning in protest as the ocean under them swelled, roared.

  “Hang ooonnn!”

  The seven-story wall of water slammed into the side of the Carnival Cruise Liner like it wasn’t even there, not flipping the ship, but rolling it repeatedly like dead wood.

  The eighty-foot wave then thundered across the open ocean to engulf the small island state of Hawaii.

  2

  Kendle

  Two months later

  “Go away. Please, God. Make it go away.”

  Kendle swallowed a groan as the shark fin rose out of the water and ran along the side of the faded speedboat. It had been stalking her for the last few days, almost certainly drawn by the blood in her urine, and today it had begun nudging her floating home until only her screams drove it off.

  The great white shark was big. Twenty feet long at least, it acted as if it hadn’t been in contact with a boat before. Kendle was sure the simple shot of a flare would get rid of it, but she had no flares, no gun, no knife, no gas, and no radio. She was adrift on a dead stranger’s boat somewhere in the Pacific Ocean–the sole survivor of a passenger manifest that had numbered over a thousand.

  The shark was circling the boat again, and the red-skinned woman braced herself to follow through with the plan she’d made. Fight or die had served her well in the past and it would now too.

  Bump!

  The boat rocked and her grip tightened.

  Bump. Bump!

  More violent this time, it produced an awful creak of waterlogged wood that got Kendle up on her knees. Her boat wouldn’t take much more, and she would likely only get one shot. She needed to get closer.

  Kendle scooted to the side of the boat, not feeling the splinters digging into her clothes and skin. Her attention was focused on the shark streamlining toward her for another hit, this one likely an attack. It had also sensed the water-weakened wood.

  The great white came in high on the water, the hunter moving in for its meal... Didn’t they usually hit from beneath?

  “Aaaahhh!” Boat dipping precariously, Kendle swung the claw hammer with all her strength and buried the hammer in the shark.

  Liquid squirted, and the surprised predator jerked downward, yanking the weapon from her grip.

  It disappeared beneath the murky waves, tail thrashing against the battered boat. Was it enough?

  Kendle searched intently, relaxing a little more with each second that passed. She’d lost her fishing hammer but had kept her life and boat, and that was a fair trade as far as she was concerned.

  Kendle shifted, keeping her attention on the waves as the adrenaline rush faded. It was gone.

  Gone like her world. She had no idea where she was. The gas had run out a long time ago, and she was alone, at the ocean’s mercy. She searched the waves as they swelled and dipped around her, finding nothing but debris and endless water. Forcing herself to ignore the waiting tears, she got out her strings and began to tie a square of net to fish.

  “Fifty days and nights,” she muttered, cracked lips aching, skin a constant bruise from the gentlest touch. In all that time
, she hadn’t seen anyone, not a ship in the distance, not even a plane in the sky. Surely, they had found the liner by now, counted bodies, and started a search for survivors. Hadn’t they? Shouldn’t she have at least spotted a plane, one of those big 747s? They wouldn’t be able to pick her out, of course, but knowing she wasn’t alone would be a comfort.

  Fingers aching as she tied off the ends, Kendle flexed her hand a couple of times before starting on the next side, making small, tight squares that would trap anything bigger than a marker. She let her mind wander as she labored on the net, each piece a different color or type of material. She was almost out of anything to drink and she was hoping to catch a bottle of water.

  Kendle croaked a bitter laugh, thinking of the saying about water being everywhere but there not being a drop to drink. “Definitely fits.”

  Her throat was raw from trying to scream the shark away, and at that thought, she stared around wildly, searching for a great white with a hammer in its head and revenge in its heart. Instead, murky waves, the unnatural, vivid green sunset, and the dark layer of clouds now ever-present in the sky were her only companions.

  Below was another world, but it was one she was terrified of now, full of foreign creatures that brushed against her wooden home and stole her breath. Where were the planes, the rescue ships? The land?

  “It was a Carnival Cruise Liner, for God sakes!” she blurted in frustrated fear, turning as if to discover the Coast Guard pulling alongside. “Front page news! Wealthy stars go missing, massive search ensues!”

  Someone should be hunting for all those citizens, all those lifeboats. And what was with the ocean? While she was grateful–it had certainly kept her alive–she could only worry about an explosion that had been big enough to literally litter an ocean with debris.

  Just about anything she could think of was floating in the salty waves–bottles, cans, cups, clothes, jugs. It was like a constantly moving store shelf of surprises (some awful, like the hand she’d pulled up, still inside the leather glove), and she was constantly scanning, trying to find more each day than she used. She currently had three weeks’ worth of food, divided evenly into the corners of the boat for balance, but her stomach clenched painfully at the thought of being on the ocean long enough to consume it all. Where was the land?