No Shelter: Book 3 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (Zero Hour - Book 3)

by Justin Bell

  NO

  SHELTER

  The Zero Hour Series

  Book 3

  By

  Justin Bell

  Mike Kraus

  © 2018 Muonic Press Inc

  www.muonic.com

  www.JustinBellAuthor.com

  www.facebook.com/WolfsHeadPublishing

  www.MikeKrausBooks.com

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  www.facebook.com/MikeKrausBooks

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Author’s Notes

  Stay updated on Mike’s books by signing up for the Mike Kraus Reading List.

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  Special Thanks

  Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great. Thank you to Al, Ashley, Caroline, Claudia, Glenda, James, Jonathan, Julie, Karen, Kelly, Laurel, Mark, Marlys, Mayer, Robin, Sarah, Scarlett and Shari!

  Zero Hour Book 4

  Now Available!

  Chapter 1

  Every year she asked herself why she kept the annual routine. This ritual adherence to the capitalist farce of Black Friday. She thought it was because she lived in such a small town and saw the same people day after day and week after week, that her early morning adventures the Friday after Thanksgiving were more about the people than the items they were shopping for. Her sister and her friends always met her here year after year, and this year she had two nurses from the practice in town tagging along as well. They’d sounded fascinated about the annual habit, and with both of them approaching their sixties it seemed like such a rebellious and outrageous thing to do that they couldn’t help but go along with it, especially since the office was going to be closed all weekend.

  Priscilla Conrad eased her blue sports utility vehicle around the tight curve of the parking lot and veered it into the narrow spot near the rear of the lot, quite the distance from the big box store filling up their entire horizon. Another novelty they didn’t have in their small town. The sheer size of the building and the droves of people were almost overwhelming, and she thought for a moment that there might be more people here than the population of her entire town.

  “Look at everyone,” said Beth, one of the nurses from the family practice. She was slightly older than Kate, the other woman tagging along, just celebrating her fifty-eighth birthday a few weeks prior. They’d had lemon cake with white frosting in the lunch room, Priscilla remembered. It had been dull to the point of inedible, but Beth had ranted and raved about how much she loved it and how appreciative she’d been. Kate had laughed as she choked down her piece, and Pris could tell she found it about as appetizing as she had.

  Now that Priscilla thought about it, that was the day they’d started talking about this little adventure. As the physician in the family practice, Pris didn’t talk much about her personal life, especially this particular routine, which she found somewhat distasteful and performed purely out of love for her sister. She’d said something that day, though she couldn’t remember exactly what, something about how the cake had stuck to the pan and she’d have to remember to look for something non-stick when they went to the big store.

  Kate’s eyes had grown wide and she’d asked how often Priscilla went to the store, and that’s when they’d started talking about the day after Thanksgiving. To Priscilla’s horror, both women thought it sounded adventurous and exciting and reluctantly she invited them to come along.

  Now, here she was, a night she normally at least appreciated for being a “girl’s night” away from her husband, but this year two older ladies were tagging along, both sitting in the back seat like children, chattering back and forth excitedly about this trip as if it was some new discovery, and not a decades old American capitalist past time.

  “Is there a line up there?” Beth asked. “Like an actual line to get in the store?”

  Priscilla smiled warmly, obscuring her true bitterness. “Yeah, isn’t it amazing?” she said. “A whole different world.”

  They slammed the car doors and walked out into the parking lot, Pris taking her phone from her pocket and checking for any recent texts from her sister. There were none, so she pounded a quick where r u? into the phone’s screen and sent it. The medical school qualified doctor in her bristled at the grammatically offensive wording of the text, but she wanted to get this over with. The ritual drove her crazy enough as it was in its fifth year, and she had no desire to drag it on this year, especially with Beth and Kate in tow.

  Halfway thru the line her sister texted back and as Priscilla lifted her eyes, she saw the flash of movement of Bonnie waving.

  “She’s up here,” Pris said softly and kindly, gesturing toward a throng of people, where her sister Bonnie was standing. The novelty of this annual tradition shocked Priscilla, especially from her sister’s perspective. She lived in Holyoke, and while certainly not a bustling metropolis, there were half a dozen stores just like this within a fifteen-mile radius. What made this trip so special?

  “Prissy!” she shrieked and stepped forward out of line, opening her arms.

  “Hey, sis,” Priscilla replied, stepping into the embrace, allowing herself to be swallowed by the larger woman’s eager hug. Although they only lived about sixty miles apart, they rarely found time for each other’s company outside of this annual venture. Bonnie was consumed by her three children and their various extracurricular events, and Priscilla was so absorbed in her job that they just never found much time for socializing. The Black Friday adventure was one of the few times they actually got together throughout the year, which Priscilla suspected was a big part of the reason why she still bothered.

  “How’s Rick?” Bonnie asked, straightening her arms to look at her sister.

  “He’s good,” Priscilla replied, smiling as a dutiful younger sibling should. “And Dan?”

  “Dan’s Dan,” Bonnie replied, rolling her eyes as if that small gesture would explain every single thing he’d done wrong in the twelve months since they’d seen each other. Priscilla had them all itemized anyway, in the form of the frequent text messages they exchanged back and forth. Bonnie was a bit of an oversharer.

  “How about the kids?” Pris asked, her smile broadening. That was one part of her sister’s life that Priscilla found herself truly interested in, and a little bit envious of. The kids. She and Rick had been trying to have children for years, and were just about ready to give fertility treatments a try even though Pris was concerned she was approaching the maximum age for such measures. She had infrequent exposure to her two nieces and one nephew, since they never came on these Black Friday jaunts, but she relished hearing about them.

  “Oh they’re great,” Bonnie replied. “So great. Elle’s playing goalie for the soccer
team, Ruby is over the moon for gymnastics. Buck hasn’t quite got anything figured out yet, but that’s boys for you, right?”

  Around them the line started moving, gathering together and pushing forward toward the doors which had begun sliding open.

  “Bonnie, I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce Kate and Beth.” Priscilla gestured to the two older women as they began moving slowly forward toward the door. “They work in my office. Both of them wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

  Bonnie flashed a warm, legitimate smile and threw a friendly little wave toward them. “So good to meet you,” she said softly.

  Moving as one large organism, the people in the line pressed forward, converging on the narrow doors, squeezing through, then spreading out once inside the store. The once meticulously polished tile was streaked with dirt and scattered with melting snow less than ten minutes after the doors opened and Priscilla’s group started to separate slightly.

  “So what’s the plan of attack?” Bonnie asked, her voice stiffening like a military commander.

  “I need a new non-stick cake pan,” Priscilla said quickly, much to Bonnie’s evident chagrin.

  “Booo-ring,” Bonnie replied with a laugh. “Doesn’t Rick want some cool new gizmo or something? Flat panel TV? Stereo? Anything interesting?”

  Priscilla shrugged. “We usually buy that stuff ourselves when we want it,” she said. “Anyway, even though I brought the Forerunner, I don’t know how much room is in there.”

  “What about you ladies?” Bonnie asked, turning to Kate and Beth. They looked back at her like deer caught in especially bright headlights.

  “Oh, I’m not even sure,” Kate replied. “We just wanted to see what the fuss was about.”

  “I need some beauty supplies,” Beth said. “Shampoo. Some hair spray. Are those things usually on sale?”

  Bonnie laughed loud and long. “Okay, let’s split up. I’m heading over to electronics, you all do your things, we’ll meet back here at the door in an hour? That’ll give the crazy rush a little time to thin out.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Priscilla replied, already veering away to head toward home goods.

  The two older ladies nodded and broke away, forming a linked pair and headed toward health and beauty. As they walked away, Bonnie and Priscilla turned and glanced at each other with the same open-mouth grin, a distinct look they had both gotten from their mothers. Bonnie kissed her finger and blew it toward her little sister and Priscilla smiled in return.

  She headed down the aisle, not knowing then that it was the last time she’d see her sister alive.

  ***

  It had only been forty-five minutes, but Priscilla’s capacity for the annual tradition had just about reached its max. The store seemed unusually busy this year, with a thicker crowd than she’d ever remembered seeing in the years before, and it seemed as if every aisle she went to was busier than the last. Typically, she and her sister rejoined each other after thirty to forty minutes and spent most of the rest of the time chatting and laughing, all up through check out, mixed in with a nice cup of coffee at a twenty-four-hour diner down the road.

  Tonight, she wanted none of it. Continuously jostled by careless people, bumped into by three separate shopping carts, and curtly beckoned to move aside so someone could grab a non-stick cake pan (the last one that had been on sale—the one Priscilla had wanted herself), she’d decided she’d had enough. As she cut through several aisles, wondering why she’d ever allowed Beth and Kate to join them, wondering just how much they were going to wreck this annual get together that she felt was nearing its end times anyway, she cut into the health and beauty section, craning her neck to look for the two older women. Suddenly she felt like she needed to get out of the store. It was too full, too busy, and just too stinking loud.

  As she rounded the aisle of shaving products, she saw them, about halfway down. Kate was bent at the knees, looking at some strange electronic razors on the bottom shelf, tracing her finger over a few boxes, while Beth looked way too intently at the foaming aftershave a few shelves up.

  “Hey, ladies,” Priscilla said sweetly, desperately trying to hide her irritation. “Find everything?”

  “Oh, I think so,” said Kate, her voice meandering like some lost stranger.

  “Are you ready to go already, sweetheart?” Beth asked, turning toward her.

  “Someone bought the last non-stick pan,” Priscilla said, “and there’s so many people here this year.”

  Beth’s eyes went wide as she nodded. “It’s incredible.”

  Kate hooked her fingers around an electric razor that looked more advanced than Priscilla’s computer and smirked. “I think Charlie will like this,” she reported, as if it really mattered just what next generation features this particular electric razor might have.

  They all gathered together in a small group, turning to exit the aisle when the first can burst.

  It was a strange sound, a muffled, metallic pop that sounded too soft and too tinny to be at all dangerous. Priscilla turned in curiosity just in time to see one of the shaving cans teeter on the edge of the shelf and topple over, the side of the metal surface bowed out in a flower of shorn metal.

  “What was that?” she asked. Then two more pops echoed right behind it, another pair of aerosol cans blasting apart, thin metal hides rending open and spraying compressed air and discharged shaving foam into a wide arc in the aisle.

  Kate gasped and took a few steps back, pressing a hand to her chest as a scant spray of foam arced over her forehead. “My goodness!”

  “Are you okay?” Beth asked, stepping toward Kate who coughed loudly, spraying some foam back out into the back of her hand.

  “I think so,” Kate replied, coughing lightly again.

  Several more staccato pops rattled from the shelves, another half dozen shaving cream cans bulging slightly, then bursting, foam spinning into the air amidst an invisible cloud of compressed carbon dioxide.

  It only lasted a few seconds. Already heads were peeking into the aisle from both sides, people walking in to check on the fiasco, even as foam and CO2 flittered through the air, landing on clothes and skin.

  “Are you all okay?” some strange woman asked, reaching for them.

  “Fine,” Priscilla barked, confused at what had just occurred, “we’re fine.” She strode down the aisle, the two older women close behind her. Kate had left the fancy razor on the shelf, walking aimlessly after the younger woman, who turned left, crossing the aisle, walking against the crowd as more people made their way toward the strange noise, which hadn’t sounded deadly, but was certainly unusual enough to attract all sorts of attention. The crowd was thickening, and Priscilla was feeling even more claustrophobic and quickened her pace, the two women trailing her.

  “I think we should go,” she whispered, pressing between the onrush of more people coming the opposite direction.

  “Okay,” Beth said quietly and Kate just nodded, both of them following Priscilla’s lead, neither of them quite sure exactly what was happening. A few moments later they successfully burst through the threshold, leaving the crowded throng behind, slipping through the automatic doors and out into the darkened parking lot. They walked in silence, not really sure what to say about what had just happened, but Priscilla felt increasingly uncomfortable about the whole event.

  As they walked, she punched a quick apology and good-bye to her sister via text message as they made their way back to the car and back to the small town they all called home.

  ***

  There was something strangely satisfying about a morning run in the throes of December and Priscilla pressed her lips together behind the canvas-wrapped face mask as she turned the corner, picking up speed along the sidewalk. A pale cloud of breath puffed from her lips as she pressed forward, a thin red parka pulled tight over her thermal undergarments, insulated windpants covering lycra tights keeping her legs warm. It had been unseasonably warm this winter, but at this hour of the day it was
still typically in the low teens or twenties and she had to make sure she was well bundled before venturing out. She had a black headband tied around her dark hair, gloves on her hands, and a simple elastic armband holding her iPhone pressed against her right bicep. A coil of thin cable stretched from the phone to the earbuds pressed into her ears as the streaming radio rocketed her along, pumping her up and keeping her moving.

  Rick had shaken his head at her this morning as she pulled the windpants on, not sure what to make of his wife and her cold weather runs. He was a fitness buff like she was, but on days like this he preferred to put a few extra reps in on the weight bench or to use the exercise bike rather than spend an hour running through twenty-degree temperatures. Priscilla had heard that running during cold weather actually burned more calories, and while her medical experience couldn’t necessarily validate that, she liked to convince herself of it anyway. Truth was, she generally ate like a starving teenager during the holidays and took whatever opportunity she could to burn some extra pounds off, no matter how cold it was.

  She’d never been particularly overweight, but as she had passed thirty, she became distinctly aware that after a night of bad eating, she felt much worse than she used to, and she’d decided to battle back in advance rather than try to lose weight once it became too late. Her husband chided her about it, as he chided her about everything. His head shaved bald (mostly because he was balding naturally) and with a thick, brown mustache, Rick looked like someone’s stern uncle, but in reality was one of those men who found humor in everything. Even as Priscilla had returned from her ill-fated Black Friday tradition, he’d managed to make her smile and laugh when she was stomping around the house threatening to never go to another one of those stupid shopping trips ever again.