End Days
Books 1-4
Craig Martelle
E. E. Isherwood
End Days
Complete Omnibus Edition
Contains all four books
Book 1: Blue Apocalypse
Book 2: Broken Arrow
Book 3: Broad America
Book 4: Begin Again
Fighting to Get Home
E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Connect With Craig Martelle
Website & Newsletter: http://www.craigmartelle.com
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Connect With E.E. Isherwood
Website & Newsletter: http://www.sincethesirens.com
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https://www.facebook.com/SinceTheSirens/
Contents
Blue Apocalypse
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Broken Arrow
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Broad America
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Begin Again
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Copyright
The End of the End Days Saga
Author Notes – E.E. Isherwood
Author Notes - Craig Martelle
End Days Complete Omnibus Edition Copyright © 2020 by E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Blue Apocalypse © 2019 by E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Broken Arrow © 2019 by E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Broad America © 2019 by E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Begin Again © 2019 by E.E. Isherwood & Craig Martelle
Cover Illustration by Heather Hamilton-Senter
Editing services provided by Lynne Stiegler
Formatting by Drew A. Avera
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
We couldn’t do what we do without the support of great people around us. We thank our spouses and our families for giving us time alone to think, write, and review. We thank our editor (Lynne), cover artist (Heather), and insider team of beta readers (Micky Cocker, Kelly O’Donnell, Dr. James Caplan, and John Ashmore). It’s not who we are as authors, but who we are surrounded by that makes this all happen. Enjoy the story.
Blue Apocalypse
One
11 am PST, August 1st, 2020. Modesto, CA
“Writing a letter to your girlfriend?”
Buck smiled at the young server working him for a better tip before he’d even ordered. “No, ma’am. I wish.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I’m just doodling in my comic book.”
“Looks like a trucker’s federal logbook.” Her bright eyes sparkled with her smile. Buck was old enough to be her father, but he understood. It was part of the game, and she was a master player. He bowed out of the contest early.
“How about a burger and fries?” She nodded. “And a Doctor Schnee.”
“We don’t have anything like that unless you mean a Doctor Pepper.” She wrote DP without waiting for his answer. “That stuff will kill you.”
“Eventually. It’s a guilty pleasure, but everything in moderation.” Buck had been driving semis for almost ten years. On one of his first solo trips, he stopped at a truck stop on a pull between Indianapolis and Kansas City and had a Doctor Schnee. He’d never heard of it before, and he hadn’t found it since. Still, he wasn’t one to give up on a good beverage, so he kept up his search.
She tucked her order pad in her apron and walked to another table.
It was the same dance he’d fumbled through at countless other diners and bars over the years. For the millionth time, he cursed his luck at being blessed with his father’s good looks but socked with his mother’s introversion. Sometimes he wished it had been the opposite.
He sighed and shut his logbook. With plenty of sleep under his belt, he was stoked to get on the road and head back east. Under Uncle Sam’s rules, he could drive for eleven hours today. If he put the hammer down, he’d make it to Salt Lake City before he ran out the clock.
Buck fingered the edges of his road atlas, even though he already knew the route, so he pulled out his phone instead. The shiny black device sported a tiny slide-out keyboard and an even smaller viewscreen. His son’s face beamed out, which caused him to get lost in thought for a few minutes.
“Ooh, he’s a cutie,” the server said in a bubbly voice
while sliding a burger in front of him.
Buck slowly shook his head. “They need to put a bell on you.”
She harrumphed and put the Dr. Pepper on the other side of the table from his logbook. She pulled a ketchup bottle from the next table and plopped it next to the plate with the burger.
Buck closed his eyes and fully inhaled the burger’s aroma. It made his mouth water. Schnees weren’t his only guilty pleasure. He wondered if it tasted as good as it smelled.
When he opened his eyes, he found the young woman’s face too close as she peered at his phone. “Your brother?” she ventured.
The dance.
“Here you go.” He handed her a twenty on a fifteen dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
She shrugged and strolled away, the twenty disappearing as if by magic.
“I’m coming for you, Garth,” Buck told the picture. “I need to tell you I’m sorry, and then I need to take you camping, fish for our dinner. All that good stuff that I don’t get to do enough of with you.”
2pm EST. La Guardia Airport, New York City, NY
“I dare you to call that number.”
“Dude? Are you crazy?” Garth elbowed his best friend Sam. They sat in the back of a New York City Transit bus, studiously examining the scrawl penned into the seatback in front of them. Someone had etched Call Mona for god tim in the leather.
“I bet it’s a smokin’ hot girl,” Sam asserted, “probably Puerto Rican with mamma mia legs.”
Garth knew his buddy wasn’t going to let it go. They’d spent most of the morning living inside a running joke with cologne, so a prank call would only continue his friend’s fun. It was his job to talk him down from taking things too far. “It is more likely a four-hundred-pound shut-in named Claus. Who wants to have a ‘god tim’ anyway?”
“Ha! Then how did he get all the way out here to write this?” Sam elbowed him back.
Garth slowly shook his head. It was an affectation he’d picked up from his father. The fifteen-year-old had needed the gesture many times over the years when he was around his wiry best friend. He lived with Sam and his parents while Garth’s dad was on the road.
“Just call it then.”
Sam seemed surprised. “No, I dared you to call it.”
They’d come off the subway line near the airport, but for some reason, they had to take a regular bus the last two miles. It gave them plenty of time to stir up trouble.
He had his friend trapped. “I’ll read the number, you put it in your phone.” Sam already had his phone in his hands, so Garth read off the numbers.
“You don’t think I will,” Sam said with bravado. “I swear I’m not afraid to do it.”
Sam put the number in his phone, but Garth didn’t really want him to call it, so he backed off.
“We’re almost there. Put your phone away. For now.”
Sam hesitated.
“Seriously,” Garth pressed.
“Fine.” Sam shoved the phone in his pocket like he’d been given the worst news in the world. “But I have the number for when we’re ready to talk to Mona.” He said the name with a suitable moan.
Garth laughed at his friend. He had no doubt in his mind the call would get made. Sam was fearless when it came to girls. Even fake ones who put their numbers on random seats.
The two of them scrambled down the steps of the bus and trotted into the main terminal. Sam was evidently a veteran traveler because he knew exactly where to go. At least until they reached the baggage screening area.
Garth led them up to a bored-looking security woman guarding a little podium.
“Need to see ID and your tickets, boys.”
“I, uh, we’re fifteen. We don’t have ID.” Garth felt stupid for not knowing there would be paperwork involved at the airport.
“Do you at least have tickets?” She turned up her nose like he was an unwashed vagrant.
Garth shrugged and motioned to Sam. “We’re here to see his parents.”
He turned around to get Sam to back him up, but the asshole had fast-walked to a distant corner where he tried to blend in with his fellow travelers.
“Looks like your friend ditched you,” the TSA worker said dryly. “You might want to take a shower. Next!”
Garth marched to his friend and clocked him in the shoulder with a right hook. “You are such an ass shovel.”
Sam feigned pain at the shot, but snort-laughed while trying to hold it back. “You looked like such a tool in front of all those people. How do you not know about the TSA gestapo? You can’t flush a urinal at the airport without your papers.”
Garth and Sam traveled all over the city on their outings, but he didn’t want to admit it was his first time at an airport if Sam hadn’t already figured it out. “I thought all we had to do was prove we were there to pick someone up.”
After brushing his blond bangs from his eyes, Sam turned to what was important. “Did she get a whiff of your cost-cutter perfume?” He snickered some more.
Garth nodded heavily. “Yeah, this stuff is starting to make me sick.”
“I saw her squinch up her nose like you’d dropped a deuce right in front of her. That was an added bonus.”
Sam waited to see if Garth was going to reply, but then kept talking.
“All right. We’ll have to wait. I like to watch planes land until Mom and Dad show up. They should be landing right now.” He strode off but glanced over his shoulder. “Come on, newb.”
“I’m not a newb,” Garth answered. There were few insults greater than being told you weren’t an expert at something. They used it a lot when they played video games, but it never rose to the level of bother he felt at that moment. He prided himself on being prepared for the real world and knowing what was going on around him. Sam had used that pride to play up his joke. They knew each other too well.
Sam rushed to the waiting area and plopped into a seat. The floor-to-ceiling windows along the terminal wall gave them a perfect view of the runways. It would have been a great place to wait in peace, except for their never-ending joke with the cologne.
“You had to sit there?” Garth pointed nearby because his buddy sat in the middle seat of a three-chair row. There were no other chairs in the vicinity.
“Where else would I go?” Sam said matter-of-factly. “This window has these nice, comfy chairs. We’re lucky no one was here.”
“Yeah, I see that. But why did you sit in the middle? Take one of the ends, you jackass, so I don’t have to sit next to your nasty cologne.” Today, they both doused themselves with the cheapest, most off-brand colognes they could buy while in the city. Not to impress girls, but to stink each other out. Garth’s reminded him of a flower that had been tossed into a port-o-potty. Sam’s was worse. They played dumb when people acted like someone farted on the subway, but they laughed uproariously once they were clear. It was probably why no one sat near them on the bus, too.
Sam slid over to the end. “Yeah, good point. I don’t want to smell you for another second, either.”
Garth got in the seat, slid up against the back, and finally relaxed. After a long weekend of being alone with Sam, he was ready for his friend’s parents to get back from Chicago. If there was one thing he’d learned in the experience, it was that he couldn’t leave Sam alone for any length of time or he’d get into some kind of trouble. Having his parents back would finally give Garth a break from keeping an eye on him.
I wonder when my dad is coming home, he thought, repeating the question that was always at the back of his mind. They’d been angry when he last drove off. There was no reason for it. He opened his phone, thought about sending a text, but stopped when he caught Sam watching him.
The airport was super busy. In the few moments they watched, numerous planes maneuvered on the runways and tarmacs around the terminals. It fascinated him to see the different colors and sizes of planes. A jumbo jet sat not far away, almost blocking his view. The Korean logo made it seem exotic even as the plane blended into
its bland surroundings.
“We shouldn’t have long to wait. My parents will run right over here when they get to this terminal. They’ve probably been worried sick about me.” He paused and looked over to Garth with his trademark smirk. “And you, I suppose.”
End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 1