Final Impact: A Dystopian Trilogy (BOUND Book 3)

by Doug McGovern

  They can sense the Nectorian outside, but when I feel a tingle on the back of my neck, I gasp. I can sense only one person and I left him behind. But I know for a fact he is outside right now. “No, no. It’s Hayden,” I whisper, though nobody around me knows who Hayden is. Nobody knows he is my mate whom I left for the sake of his safety. Nobody knows he is a warrior.

  I peel the door open and scan my surroundings, widening my eyes and taking in my Hayden, laying on the ground, cool steel features masked in nothing less than utter agony.

  And all around him are a dozen Szorians, bitter smiles pervading each of their faces.

  *****

  Chapter 12

  Mary

  She could have gone back to the town where she left her bag of supplies, but that was so far from the trail, she knew she would never find her way back to Ross and Red. She also knew of a town near the path on which Ross has to travel, so she decides instead to cut it right and go to the town, hopefully finding enough water to last a presumably long journey. Mary’s job is to keep Red safe and healthy, and that means providing at least two meals a day when Mary and Ross may not even get one.

  As she grows farther from Ross and Red, she attempts to leave herself a clearly beaten-down trail to follow back. She has nothing to leave in her path, but she purposely rips branches from trees and lays them on the ground in her path. “Come on Mary,” she encourages herself, picking up her pace. “During a baby’s first year of life, it must consume between 1,000 and 1,300 calories a day. It’s when she will grow the most,” Mary spews to herself, traveling aimlessly through the woods and attempting to note landmarks. With her photographic memory, there is no way she will forget them.

  Mary hums to herself and allows herself to recall all the facts she has retained on a baby's growth and health, but she couldn’t figure out how to give Red the amount of food she needs for proper growth. Unless Mary is able to find calorie-rich foods and drinks that won’t weigh down her bag too much, she will be all right.

  But for the life of her she cannot figure out how to feed the child so many calories when Mary is lucky to get five hundred or less every day. This is no world for a child, but at this point, there isn’t another option. Mary must do whatever she can.

  She notices the smell before she comes anywhere near the city, but this tells her that she is heading in the correct direction. She has yet to encounter a town without a stench and she is confident she never will. It is why she will never live in a populated area. The smell is soaked into the ground and will never cease to exist, even if there are future generations who attempt to cleanse the earth.

  Mary sees the buildings before she leaves the woods and heads in their direction. She doesn’t know what the city is called—just that it was the closest one on the map. She walks down a few residential streets, stepping over the rubble and blackened corpses, some exploded from heat and some barely intact. None of them are recent and none of them have a discernible reason for dying, which is a good sign.

  She finally reaches the commercial part of the town and passes by a hospital. Like in many cities after the rains, there are piles of bodies covered in tarps outside of the hospital and multiple others strewn around the building. Hospitals are the most congested area full of bodies and the smell is so gruesome that Mary finds herself taking shallow breaths and dry heaving.

  As she walks down what looks to be downtown, she notes the signs of a subway and a few fancy-lettered restaurants. What seems to be a supermarket full of delicacies comes into view and Mary rushes in the direction, knowing that those kinds of shops often hold canned and jarred foods, and jarred food is as close to fresh as a person can get these days.

  She rushes inside and finds the place nearly untouched, other than the broken windows and money taken from the register. She wonders how she could have gotten so lucky as she rushes down the aisles. Mary is starving beyond words and grabs the first jar she sees on the shelf. She attempts to read the label and laughs out loud to herself.

  It’s a store where every word is written in a language unknown to her. “Chinese, of course,” she mutters with a laugh. “It couldn’t have been Latin, Spanish, French, but it had to be Chinese.” Mary shakes her head and looks at the contents of the jar, trying to determine if the food within is edible or even slightly decent.

  In a spur of the moment thought, she decides that the taste doesn’t matter and all that matters is that it will give her body the calories it requires. She opens the jar and the seal pops. Without thought, she dips her fingers into the food and shovels it into her mouth. Whatever it is, the food is bitter and disgusting, but it will provide her with the calories she needs to stay alive.

  She finishes the jar without an issue and feels only the growling of her stomach to accompany the foreign food. After not eating for so long, it hurts to eat so much at once, but Mary hopes that the food will satisfy her stomach for longer than usual. She wants all of the food to go to Red, and if she isn’t hungry, she won’t need to worry about pilfering some of Red’s food.

  Though it is a Chinese shop, when Mary looks around, she does find some familiar foods. Canned rice, which she hadn’t ever heard of, and canned corn were among the shelves of relatively known American foods. Not only would the jars provide possible storage for later, but they also ensure that the food is fresh and edible. Mary stacks a few meat-based canned items in her bag and of course corn. With three large glass jars, full to the brim, and a few sealed bags of chips and candies that will likely be stale, Mary decides that she must make do with what she has. She cannot carry too many glass products because of their breakability and too much more would slow her pace.

  She takes six water bottles from behind the counter, unopened and layered with dust. Mary wonders how dust is still an issue when all humans are dead. After all, dust is dead skin particles, and without people, she would have assumed that dust would be nonexistent. She goes to walk out of the door and halts in her tracks, broken glass crumbling beneath her feet. Though distant, she hears footsteps.

  Mary’s heart immediately accelerates, knowing she must get back to her trail as soon as possible. She already has to catch up to Ross and Red, and the more time she wastes, the more difficult it will be to catch them.

  She backtracks and hides behind the counter of the Chinese shop, leaning her back against the desk. Mary knows better than to run toward the woods and hope for the best. There are far more things stronger and more dangerous than her in the world, and the footsteps could belong to any number of creatures—Szorians, cannibals, Nectorians who believe her to be one of the evil creatures, and the list continues. Mary may not even know of all the terrible creatures in the world, but she knows that there are far more bad than good.

  Voices accompany the footsteps and Mary attempts to hold her breath, scared of who the voices may belong to. “There should be a lot of untouched shops,” one of the peoples say. The voice belongs to a man and Mary attempts to put a face to the name. It is difficult when the possibilities are endless.

  “What brings us to this city above all others?” A female voice asks. Mary can recognize the tone as that of an alien. Something in their voices is similar, almost like an accent of sorts, only not an accent used on Earth.

  “This one has a lot of authentic cuisines and it was not a tremendously populated city. In the middle of the mountains, most people fled during the rains and ended up far from here,” the man explains. Their voices grow closer and Mary’s palms sweat profusely. She prays they don’t enter this shop. If they pass through, she can escape—hopefully.

  The glass from outside the Chinese store crumbles beneath their feet as they slow. Mary calculates the odds quickly. What are the odds that they would walk into the only store with a living human inside? What are the odds that they chose this store—this city—instead of anywhere else? And on top of that, what are the odds that they arrived at the same time as Mary planned to leave?

  The odds are too slim and too many variables im
pact the outcome, but Mary knows it is less than a one in a million chance that they happened to stumble upon this area, let alone this store, at the same time as her.

  And as they walk into the Chinese store, Mary’s heart feels like it stops for a brief second as fear cascades its way through her system. She finds herself wondering if they will notice the recently opened jar that she left on the shelf. Did she leave distinguishable footprints?

  “Everything here is canned,” the woman says with disgust. “Who cans rice?” Under normal circumstances, Mary would have snickered at the coincidence. She wondered the exact same thing. All she wants to do is calculate the odds, but the stress is making it difficult for her to think, and Mary cannot remember the last time she had difficulty thinking.

  “Let’s move on to some other stores then,” the man says with exasperation. Are they mates? Is that why a human and Nectorian are traveling together?

  Mary releases a breath, relieved that they are moving on. What would she have done if they would have found her? She is intelligent, but Mary is far from a fighter.

  But with her deep breath, the counter groans behind her and the two retreating footsteps halt, leaving nothing but a silent room and Mary’s dangerously high heart rate.

  Again, she asks herself, what are the odds?

  *****

  Chapter 13

  Jo Leigh

  “Hayden,” I screech, attempting to run from the house. Two sets of hands grab ahold of my arms and pull me backward, stopping me from seeing him—from saving him. “Let go of me,” I scream at the brothers who hold me back and slam the door in front of me. “He’s hurt,” I cry.

  “You can’t go and get him. They will kill you, too,” Abdul reasons, clutching both sides of my frantic face. “He’s gone and you have to face that possibility, Jo. There isn’t anything you can do to save him now.” I yank myself out of their grasp. I left to keep him out of this entire situation and in less than two days, he has found me and forced me to face the one thing which I didn’t want to happen to him.

  “He isn’t gone. I can save him,” I watch as Abdul and Jebadyah concentrate and slowly begin turning metallic. I have never seen anyone use that much effort to change forms, so I am shocked. My shock is short-lived, because my hypersensitive emotions gain opportunity and rush toward the door, using the brother’s distraction to my advantage.

  I rush toward the door, grabbing for my Glock 22 in my waistband. Some deep part of myself knows I won’t allow anything to keep me from Hayden. Nothing will keep me from him. A hand on my wrist causes me to lift the barrel of my gun and point it at Alex, who stands behind me timidly. “I don’t want you to be killed,” he says, releasing my wrist and holding his hands in a surrendering position.

  “I can’t see him die. Not right after my sister,” I say firmly. His mouth tilts down at the corner and I crack the door, rushing through it. I realize that Lee did this on purpose. He stalled until he knew we would have no other choice than to fight with him, and he is the reason we will all be killed.

  But I can’t think about the betrayal right now. He will get what’s coming to him in this life or the next. Either way, I will be there to watch him burn. “Hayden,” I call, rushing toward him and the Szorians, my gun held high.

  None of them are in their true forms and I find myself shooting for the kill without hesitation. One shot after another fire from the barrel of my firearm—the first two shots hitting the men holding Hayden to the ground and the rest firing at the Szorians around them. It takes only a few seconds for their forms to change, but five expert shots had hit their marks within those few seconds, leaving eight Szorians alive and vigorous, surely fully charged after having Hayden in their possession.

  I meet Hayden’s defeated eyes and take a deep breath. That expression is the same one he wore when we approached the obliterated Nectorian prisoner camp where Charlie had died. It is his tragic look—the one that tells me that I won’t like the death that’s before us. Only this time, I see my own death in his eyes.

  “We’re really in a shithole this time,” Jebadyah says, taking a step beside me. Abdul stands on my other side, assessing the situation. I wonder briefly if it is hopeless to even fight, but when I look at Hayden on the ground in a heap, I know I won’t give up without a fight.

  “Hayden needs energy. If he is as powerful as you had said, he may be able to fight this battle alongside Lee and win,” Abdul says. I recall what I had asked Jebadyah initially about a Nectorian able to heal me from the dead. Abdul must have made the connection.

  “He’s too weak to fight on his own,” I state. I realize what I am doing. I am acting as if Hayden isn’t capable of fighting this battle, when in absolute reality, he could probably win. I just don’t want to see him hurt or in harm’s way.

  “He has us. Cover us,” Jebadyah shouts at me. I have no idea what he is doing or how to cover him, but as Abdul follows in his footsteps, running straight toward Hayden and the Szorian, I lift my Glock and pray that a bullet will slow the Szorians enough to give Abdul and Jebadyah a way to retrieve Hayden.

  The Szorians stare for a moment as the two Nectorian approach swiftly and as soon as the first one takes a step, I fire a bullet at his head, hitting my mark to no surprise. Only the bullet does little damage to such a metallic creature as it ricochets from his skin and busts a distant window. I should have known. When Hayden protected me from getting shot, transformation occurred, blocking the bullet with his body in a matter of seconds. The bullet did no damage to him and he hardly even flinched upon impact.

  This man stops briefly and looks at me maliciously, but I continue firing, doing my best to keep everyone safe. Abdul and Jebadyah reach Hayden’s side without any issue and they both lay their palms on him, closing their eyes.

  And my gun doesn’t stop firing until the last bullet runs out and I am left utterly defenseless. My attention leaves Hayden for a moment as I reach to reload my clip with limited time, pulling extra bullets from a pouch at my side and shoving them into the magazine of my gun with such dexterity that I feel untouchable.

  I don’t have enough time to reconnect my magazine and gun before I find my enemy standing before me, tall and smug.

  “Stupid humans,” he snarls, slapping my gun from my hand. His dark metallic skin is darker than most other Szorians and I find it difficult to breathe, knowing exactly what the dark skin means. “You think your weapons can save you from gods.”

  And before I know it, my feet are no longer connected to the ground and my body is flinging through the air. I feel myself land on the ground and roll before my back connects with the porch steps on which Alex is standing, gaping at me. “Are you okay?” he asks dumbly, looking down at me. He doesn’t so much as offer a hand, but I can tell he is sincere in his concern. I don’t know that he has ever been in a situation like this, so he may not know how to react.

  “I’m alive,” I groan, forcing myself to sit up. The same Szorian is strutting in my direction, confident that he will have the ability to kill me. I glance past him briefly and see Jebadyah and Abdul still sit on their knees, touching Hayden. I shot and killed the Szorians nearest to him, but they are running out of time and I can only pray that their strategy works. “Go inside,” I instruct Alex, rushing back toward the Szorian. I can’t let him get to Alex, but I can’t help but wonder where Lee and the other Nectorian has gone.

  “Just keep coming back for more?” the Szorian asks. His dark metal gleams with the sunlight and as I look into his eyes, I can see the promise of an exceptionally painful death. What did I ever do to deserve this?

  When the Szorian is within an arm’s reach, he springs forward and his metallic hand barely misses my left jaw as I bend backward. I know that his hits will hurt much worse than Lee’s and much worse than anything I have ever felt. I have no doubt he will use the physical contact to not only hurt me, but to drain me of the very thing that makes me human.

  He goes for another punch, this one more strategic and
quick, but once again, I avoid it. Since when could I avoid hits so easily? “I have underestimated you, little girl,” he smirks, this time reaching for my entire body. It is impossible to avoid him and I am forced to succumb to his dark touch. “I can feel your grief leaving you in waves,” he says, satisfied with the feeling.

  “And I can feel your ignorance leaving you.” Come on Hayden. Get up and come help me, I plead to myself. If he plans to kill me, I won’t make it easy on him.

  “I was going to make it quick, but I think I will have my fun with you, little girl. Do you know what they make us do to become part of these groups? I will feel nothing but joy when I tear you apart,” he snarls, grabbing me by the hair and throwing me to the side. I feel my feet leave the ground and my neck pops uncomfortably. All the pain from my earlier fall seems to evaporate.

  “You killed you soul mate and that will never go away. Have fun thinking about that every day until you die,” I groan, not moving from my spot on the ground. I don’t know if I can move.

  The unbelievably tall metal man makes his way toward me. He’s only a few steps away, but with each stride, my heart sinks a little more. Is this it? Did I go too far and trust Hayden too much? I should have left the Szorian alone, but I had to smart off and now he will kill me for it.

  I count the seconds until he will arrive at my side, but the numbers keep evaporating from my mind in fear. Once he is right above me, I hold my breath and stare at the sky. If I’m going to go, I should at least die staring at one of my two favorite things. It’s not dark yet, but the moon is noticeable through the evening light and the stars will be out soon. Will I see them?

  “You think beating up a human will test your strength?” I hear. Hayden’s voice is music to my ears and I nearly smile. The Szorian turns, kicking dirt in my face. I cough up the dirt, but can’t otherwise move. I won’t be any good to Hayden on the ground, so I hope he can handle himself.