First Wave Series Box Set (Books 1-3)

by JT Sawyer

  After he and his team cleared the two buildings, he sent Dane and the others to walk a perimeter and gather information on the terrain and vantage points. Then he went back into the bus and sat alongside Becka, who was knocked out from the morphine Rob had given her earlier. “We’re gonna stay here tonight and then figure out the next leg of the trip. The building has some canned goods inside and there are rain barrels hooked up off the back gutters so we’ll be able to replenish our supplies. Let’s get Becka into the small cabin to the left. It will be easier to heat a small space than that trading post.”

  Rob had just finished examining Becka’s eyes and was tucking his flashlight back into his medical kit. “Her fever’s still high but there’s only so much I can do for her,” Rob said, glancing up with angry eyes at Travis. “Tell him, Katy, you’re a nurse—you know how this is going to play out.”

  Katy stood with her arms crossed, mulling over Rob’s words. “She hasn’t turned yet—maybe she won’t turn at all. Hell, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Rob stood and pushed his way past Travis, nodding for him to follow. The two men stepped outside the bus.

  “Something you wanna say?” Travis said, standing with his hands on his belt.

  “Yeah, 9mm hollow point—I mean why are we dragging this out for the kid? She’s fucked.”

  “We’ll take shifts watching her. If she shows signs of progressing, then we’ll restrain her to the bed. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get to Durango and return back here with the antidote. I have to try—we’re so close. If there’s even a chance that we can do something to circumvent this nightmare, then I will walk through flying daggers,” Travis said.

  “Look, man, I only volunteered to come on this little vacation because I’ve got a brother in Colorado I’m hoping to make it back to. I knew your mighty expedition was fucked from the moment Crawford told me about it but this was my ride back here. Besides, you don’t even know if that mystical vaccine or this secret lab in Durango are real. I mean, have you even opened that metal case yet to see what the hell is in there? Maybe you’ve all been played as fools this whole time. What if Becka is undergoing the second wave right now?—she could tear through us!”

  “First off, what kind of medic gives up on his patient? You’re a medic, aren’t you?”

  Rob tilted his head up, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, bro, I’m a medic. Two combat tours and plenty of field experience to tell me when someone is circling the fuckin’drain.”

  “That’s right, I forgot you were also God—standing aloof like you do, waiting to pull the plug because you’re so jaded that hope doesn’t ever enter into your three-inch brain.”

  “I’m trying to provide a merciful solution to that poor girl’s suffering, Travis. It’s you and the others who are too jaded to know a lost cause. Now you’re going to drag out her life—and for what? Some magical potion at the end of your sacred pilgrimage that you’ve duped everyone into joining.” Rob stepped forward. “Look, I’ve seen enough people bitten by these creatures to know that if you had any humanity left, you’d end her—and tonight, before she bites one of us. I didn’t make it through months of carnage in Arizona only to risk getting chomped on by some scrawny-ass kid.”

  “So you’ve done your duty and can be on your way, is that it?”

  “Fuck you and your righteous band of followers. They’re as doped up on messiah juice as you are.”

  Travis shoved Rob against the stone wall and grabbed him by the throat. Rob struggled to remove the grip and then began flailing his arms at Travis’s face. Travis kicked him hard in the groin and shoved his head back into the wall. “If I thought it would help the morale of the group, I’d end you right now,” Travis said through clenched teeth. “That would relieve the headache I’ve had from your never-ending cynicism but seeing as how I ain’t got the time to bury you out back, I’m gonna let you live for now.”

  With his other hand, Travis grabbed Rob’s pistol from his chest rig and removed the tactical knife from his belt sheath. “You know in native cultures, the worst form of punishment wasn’t killing a person who had done something heinous. It was banishing them from the village forever. Left to wander alone without the help of others.” Travis tucked the weapons in his belt then pointed out the view of barren, windswept mesas around them. “That’s going to be your next home if I so much as hear another word from you that gives me reason to wince or if I find you anywhere near Becka.”

  Katy and Pete were carrying Becka on a blanket out of the bus as Travis released Rob. The man stood hunched with his hands on his knees, gasping for air.

  “Everything alright?” said Nora.

  “Tell the others this piece of garbage isn’t to set foot inside the cabin or have access to any weapons.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To study a map and gather some goods. I’m setting out on foot tomorrow at dawn.”

  Chapter 10

  “We need to close this gap now, Mr. President,” said Logan into the speakerphone in his helmet. “We are close to finding my field operative with the vaccine. I need more resources.”

  “I’ll see what can be done. We are stretched thin on the east coast and our research efforts here at developing a vaccine are months away from being remotely feasible to try on humans,” said the voice on the other end. “And the reports keep coming in from around the globe about a much faster type of RAM. These aren’t isolated cases anymore and the fatalities are rising once again.”

  “Copy that, sir, but if you can get me more men, I may be able to secure the package and we can begin producing the serum.”

  “What about the two Delta teams that were reconning Colorado Springs?”

  “We recently lost contact with them. They were closing in on a potential medical facility and that’s the last I heard from them.”

  “I will have Admiral Bardsley contact you shortly. He should’ve returned with the SEALs to Coronado Island by now. They can then link up with you in Montrose or wherever you need them. They are one of the last outposts still operating at low elevation. Most of the remaining military units have all relocated to regions above five thousand feet as the RAMs don’t seem to be able to adapt as well to reduced-oxygen environments. After you’ve made contact with Bardsley, I hope your next call to me is about how you’re sticking people’s arms with the cure.”

  “One more thing, Mr. President—there appears to be another player in the picture, a scientist. We uncovered his image on a Pallas laptop we obtained. I have no idea who this guy is but his personnel file was listed amongst the six other virologists so he must be a pivotal figure.”

  “How’s that possible, Logan? You’ve been the one spearheading this operation from the start.”

  “I’d like to know myself, sir. This must be someone who is affiliated with another group or was down deep in Pallas. Either way, I’ll get to the bottom of his involvement.”

  “Send me what you have on him. I’ll have my people study it here at Langley and get back to you on anything we turn up.”

  “Copy that. Raven out.”

  Logan looked out at the barren desert landscape below, reflecting on the new intel and the last few weeks. First Travis goes on a walkabout and now this guy turns up, adding more weight onto my sore back. He shook his head while grating his teeth. When will this end? He thought of his wife and daughter back at a secure facility in Virginia. He wondered how long it would be before he’d be reunited with them and some sliver of hope for the future of humanity would return.

  The helicopter pilot leaned over towards Logan. “Sir, while you were talking, I received word from Montrose that they briefly picked up sat imagery of vehicle movement on the Colorado-Utah border. A bus speeding down the highway with nine tangos on board.”

  “How far off is that from here?”

  “Normally it’d be ninety minutes but we need to refuel. After that I can have us there by sunrise.”

  “Alright, then punch it! Maybe we�
��ll get lucky for a change.”

  Chapter 11

  Talia was lying under a tangle of spruce branches, panning her binoculars over the streets of downtown Durango. She and her six-man team had inserted two miles away the previous night and had been hunkered down in a thick grove of trees, taking turns with guard duty and scanning the city below. The teams were spread out in two clusters under the canopy of low-lying branches. Like the rest of her group, she was clad in a gray-and-white winter parka, insulated boots, wool pants, and thick gloves to cope with the temperature, which hovered around 26 degrees Fahrenheit. The elevation on the ridgeline was 7,400 feet and the three feet of snow on the ground revealed a heavy winter was already in store.

  Sitting still in the cold for hours did little for revving the metabolism and she periodically sipped from a thermos filled with hot chocolate and butter. The sugar provided a quick boost to her insides while the butter kicked in over the next hour, providing the necessary BTUs to keep her warm. In this frigid setting, she knew her calorie intake would need to be boosted from her usual 3,000 a day to double, or even triple that, if she was going to keep her internal woodstove roaring.

  Having worked for the Mossad for years before joining Logan’s outfit, she had had her share of winter survival training in Sweden along with operational experience in Russia and even Iran. She preferred the desert and hoped that this intel-gathering mission in Durango would be short-lived.

  She peered into her binoculars along the railroad tracks just north of the Animas River, which was a few blocks from downtown. The streets were filled with the undead, wandering aimlessly. All of the creatures moved independently, staggering into one another at times, falling over the curbs, or walking the pathway by the river only to stumble and fall in. “This would almost be comical if it weren’t so sad,” she said to the burly man beside her.

  “Yep,” said Marcus, staring through his riflescope at the images below. “Those onion-eyed freaks should all be torched and put out of their fucking misery. Too bad we don’t have a few F-15s to spare. Then they could just carpet-bomb the shit out of this town.”

  “I was thinking about the fact that those ‘freaks’ used to be someone’s kids, spouses, parents, or friends and now they’re trapped in this living hell of a world we’ve created.”

  “You mean that Pallas created, don’t you?”

  “Pallas, sure, whatever—call it what you will—one of those other biotech firms that were contracted by the DOD would have gotten the same virology results eventually. These corporations answer only to their funders. And since there’s no fucking oversight, one of them would have eventually gotten to the same endgame. Pallas just happen to be at the forefront because they had more financiers.”

  “Ugh…here we go again,” Marcus said, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re preaching to the fucking choir again, sister. Haven’t you picked up any new stories since zipping around sunny Arizona?” He grinned.

  “You didn’t see the shit I saw when Travis and I were doing the mock security breaches of those biotech facilities. There was way more going on there than I bet even the DOD knew about but then, the secretary of biodefense probably had any loose ends conveniently tied up.”

  “How I’ve missed working with kick-ass warrior and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Talia Kaplan. I should tell you that I don’t have the White House clearance to hear this—again and again and again—so I better just cover my ears, OK?” Marcus said with a chuckle.

  “Alright, I’ll can it for now. I need to contact Logan anyway,” she said, turning to walk over to one of her men who was sitting beside the radio and spare batteries. As she did she saw Marcus slip and fall to the ground. At first she thought he had simply lost his footing, then she saw the snow turning red as a pool of blood formed around his head.

  Before she could react, the radioman’s head split open as a silenced round struck him just above the right eye. “Sniper!” Talia said, diving for the frozen ground beneath the spruce tree.

  She turned and looked back at Marcus. His eyes were still open and his bloodstained beard was freezing to the snow. Not a wisp of breath came out of his nostrils. She thought that the shots may have come from their rear, which would explain the exit wound on the back of the radioman’s head lying beside her, but not Marcus, who appeared to have been struck from a different angle. Talia had done sniper work herself and knew how the deadly game worked but she had never envisioned being pinned down like this. She also knew that she would be the main target, given her command status, if the enemy had that intel. They needed to get back to the Blackhawk, which was in a tiny meadow on the other side of the hill but unfortunately in the direction of the sniper or snipers.

  “Everyone stay put and sound off,” she said. “Marcus and Hanson are dead.”

  The four remaining members of her team called off their names in low whispers—Skyler, Beaumont, LeClair, and Ward were all accounted for and spread out on the ground within ten meters of her location. Skyler was the pilot that had flown them to Durango. She knew his survival was imperative. “We’ll have to scatter to the secondary evasion grids. That’ll mean going towards the downtown. After that, we will link up back at the helo, if we get separated. Let me call in first.”

  Talia crawled forward and quickly raised one hand up to grab the radio. She yanked it free from the dead man’s pack and rolled over, turning on the power button.

  “Raven, this is Kestrel One, do you copy, over?”

  “Go ahead, Kestrel One,” replied Logan.

  “We are under attack from a sniper team. Two men are dead. We are heading to secondary evasion grids and after that…” The radio shattered into fragments, sending a spray of plastic and wiring into her face. She leapt to her right against a snowbank, grabbing her hand as rivulets of blood dripped off her fingertips.

  “Talia—you OK?” said Ward, who was splayed on the ground on the other side of the tree.

  “Fuck!” she muttered, trying to conceal the pain surging through her lacerated left hand. She reached into her vest and pulled out a thick wad of gauze and began wrapping it over the pulpy section of her palm. “The comms are gone and my left hand is a little diced up but I’m fine otherwise.” She wiggled her fingers and felt sensation in her skin, so it must have been only the fine splinters that accounted for the blood.

  Whoever had us fixed in their crosshairs is just toying with us or I’d be dead by now. Time for the tough decisions, she thought. We stay here, we get smoked. We go down into the city below, we’ll be trolling for zombies but at least we’ll have a chance.

  “On the count of three, we are all going to bolt down the hillside. Grab your evasion kits from your main pack and any spare mags you can grab while keeping your asses low.” She didn’t get a response but heard everyone moving around, getting into position.

  They all slithered up to a tall embankment of snow, eyes darting back and forth while they strained for any noise. Their small evasion kits consisted of water, ammo, compass, and personal location beacons.

  “Beaumont, you go first. Everyone else will be five seconds after that.” The path ahead was thick with trees at the halfway point once the hill leveled out but for the first fifty yards their cover would be sparse. “Go,” she yelled as Beaumont bolted out of the tangle of brush. He was running when he fell forward on the snow and tumbled down the hill in a series of somersaults until he arrived at the heavily forested treeline and kept sprinting, disappearing from sight.

  “LeClair, move!” she said.

  LeClair was the shortest of the group and was the team medic. He took a deep breath and rushed forward into Beaumont’s deep tracks and bolted for the treeline. Like the man before him, he slipped and also somersaulted down the hill but a red mist burst from his torso. He left a trail of blood as he tumbled a few feet, finally coming to rest spread-eagled on the embankment.

  “Shit! Screw waiting, let’s get out of here—together,” Talia said, slapping Skyler on his shoulder as they bo
th bounded from the snowbank down the hill. They sprinted and slid their way down the hill, careening past LeClair’s twisted body and into the cover of thick pine trees. Talia looked at Skyler while he glanced at her, examining each other for bullet wounds. “We haven’t sprung a leak so far,” said the lanky blond pilot.

  They scrambled to a low outcropping of gray boulders, sweeping their M4 rifles around the forest then scanning the terrain ahead. “Looks like Beaumont’s still hoofing it,” Skyler said in between heavy breaths while pointing to the tracks in the snow.

  Talia unzipped her parka slightly and pulled out a pair of binoculars. She surveyed the streets and the Animas River ahead. “There are only a handful of RAMs over by the bridge and they are moving pretty damn slow. I say we run over there and use the cement guard rail for cover while crossing. From that point, we’ll veer right by the grocery store and then follow the railroad tracks to our rendezvous grids.”

  “Those snipers up top are gonna know that’s the best route outta here, especially if Beaumont went that way,” said Skyler.

  “What you got in mind?”

  “How about we duck down under the bridge and then follow the riverbank going east out of town? We’ll have plenty of boulders for cover and fewer fucking RAMs to plow through.”

  “OK—I like it. Let’s do it,” said Talia.

  They moved quickly out of the treeline, skirting along the rock outcropping and sprinting alongside abandoned cars until they were near the bridge. “Fuck—look, on the other side of the bridge,” Skyler said, pointing to Beaumont’s slumped body. His head was half gone and seven zombies were beelining for his corpse.

  Talia swallowed hard, her pulse racing. “This is going to be a long fucking day by the time we get to our helo.”

  They ducked under the right side of the bridge and crept along the polished boulders dotting the riverbank. They moved at a slow trot for nearly an hour, dropping out of sight on occasion when they saw a group of RAMs in the area. Their boots were soaked through and Talia could barely feel her numb feet but the cold helped to dull the pain in her wounded hand.