End Days Series Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “I did my time for Uncle Sam and saw some pretty fucked up orders, but even I don’t think our leaders are capable of such a thing. We wouldn’t nuke our own city. Never. As for aliens, I don’t believe in them, so that’s easy to write off.”

  Connie harrumphed as if insulted her idea didn’t suit him.

  “Perhaps another alternative is staring us in the face. We just experienced two bad episodes with the blackouts. Maybe things are getting worse, and the Army is sending soldiers to SNAKE to fix it?”

  He shook his head to clear out the confusing thoughts.

  “Right now, it doesn’t matter. We have to get beyond Cheyenne, and then whatever is going to happen won’t be our concern.”

  Connie rubbed Mac’s ruff as he sat tall between their seats.

  “I guess you’re right,” she finally agreed. “I’d like to be far away from whatever it is. These shutdowns remind me of an infection. The area of disease spreads out in larger rings. We have to get clear of that.”

  They approached a green road sign with the mileage for cities ahead. Connie read off the numbers. “Cheyenne, 20. Sidney, Nebraska, 121.”

  “Strap yourselves in,” he laughed. “We’re about to find out what’s going on with these closures.” He made a production of giving his Peterbilt extra gas.

  “As long as you don’t pass out,” she cautioned.

  He backed off the gas again, sure her warning was sound.

  Twenty-Five

  Search for Nuclear, Astrophysical, and Kronometric Extremes (SNAKE). Red Mesa, Colorado

  Faith’s ribs felt like she’d been kicked by a mule, and the strong coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. She’d fallen to the floor of the tram and was on her back, but she considered herself extremely lucky to be alive.

  “Faith,” the general whispered. “We made it. I can see the last Four Arrows box. It hasn’t been blown up.”

  The tram car’s lights were out, but the station provided enough illumination to see the warped interior of the Little Scraggy. The door on the side of the car was halfway open, like it was trying to unload passengers one last time.

  “Come on,” the general said as he slid down the floor and out the door.

  Her phone rang with Dez’s ringtone, but she silenced it for the moment. There was no time to explain what she was doing.

  “Right behind you,” she called a second later.

  When she made it outside and stood on the platform, she got a good look at what had happened. The Scraggy had rammed the other engine, but their pointed noses had served to guide them apart, like two arrows passing each other. Both trains had come off the guide rails, and the force of the moving engine had pushed the Silver Bullet to the front part of the room, but both were mostly intact.

  “They built them well,” she remarked.

  The general didn’t answer. He moved toward the target like a lion stalking its prey. She followed as best she could, although her legs seemed to be filled with Jell-O, shaking with each step.

  Calm down, lady. You survived.

  General Smith walked over to the steps to go up and over the collider ring, but he stopped when he saw to the other side.

  “Son, step away from there!” he shouted, and darted over the top.

  Faith hopped up and filled the space he’d just abandoned. A young man with cropped hair sat on the floor next to the Four Arrows box.

  “Stay there!” the man shouted back. With lower volume, he continued, “My pack is loaded with C4.”

  General Smith halted about twenty feet from the man. He put up his hands, too, because the guy had a semiautomatic pistol.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Faith yelled, seeing her opportunity. “It won’t matter if you blow it up or not. Each box compensates. The last one will just disburse the energy into the ring.” It was a useful lie. She had no idea what would happen if the last box was shut down, but it was one of her team’s working theories.

  “What’s your name, soldier?” Smith asked the man.

  “Call me Ed. I’m not with an official unit. My group is…classified.”

  “Are you with the outfit out of Malmstrom?”

  The man looked up. “Shit, there goes the secret. How did you know that?”

  Faith moved next to the general. She vaguely recognized the young man. “You work here, don’t you? Facilities and maintenance, I think.”

  He nodded. “I had to learn the insides of your facility. It’s how I was able to walk this down the emergency exit stairs without arousing any suspicion.”

  “Where are my men, Ed?” the general asked.

  Ed pointed up. “They are safe in the woods. I chased them out with the threat of using this explosive pack on them. Oh, and I took their radios, so they are probably jogging through the forest to find their way back to SNAKE’s main entrance. I expect they’ll be along shortly.”

  “And the others?” Smith asked.

  “I’m sure the others took care of your men, too. We’re not killers.” Ed seemed to notice he was holding a firearm. “Usually.”

  “So, why haven’t you done like the other two and blown this up already?” she pressed.

  General Smith glared at her and shook his head as if she’d done something wrong.

  Ed still remained seated next to the cabinet. “They got them, huh? I appreciate the intel.”

  “Shit,” she mumbled.

  “It’s okay.” Smith spoke loudly to her while taking a half-step closer to Ed. “He could have blown up this box when we made our noisy arrival, but he didn’t. That tells me he is having second thoughts.”

  Ed chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve spent enough time here to know you scientists are the real deal. You believe that if this last box is wiped away, so too will all of history be. I’m trying to square that with my orders.”

  “What were your orders?” Faith asked in a respectful tone. “As the lead scientist here, I don’t want you to do this. I am telling you, there will be horrific consequences.”

  “When you work for my group, you learn not to ask too many questions. Even knowing our name can get you a 2am visit from the Bullet Fairy. It’s simply the way things are, you know?”

  “No, I don’t. I do things in the open for the betterment of humanity. I don’t work in the shadows.”

  “What about this bad boy? Didn’t you know what it would do?” Ed patted the cabinet next to him.

  The general sidestepped closer to Ed but spoke to Faith again. “I told you we had members of his special unit arrested and rounded up so they could be brought to SNAKE. They are on the way from Malmstrom.”

  “They’ll never make it,” Ed asserted.

  “Son, the US Army and Air Force are on top of it. We’re working with the Feds—”

  “You couldn’t even keep three of us out of the bowels of your precious facility. We are small but tenacious in keeping our interests secret.”

  Ed shifted like he was going to stand up.

  He’s going to kill himself.

  Faith’s heart started to pound a staccato, threatening to burst from her chest. She knew why the man had delayed blowing up the box. He wanted an audience.

  The general spoke to her, “Faith, I want you to—”

  He sprinted the last fifteen feet toward Ed.

  The gun went off, causing a loud boom in the cramped space of the subterranean room. She was surprised at the turn of events, and for a second had no idea what to do. She could only watch.

  General Smith flung himself into Ed’s gut and shoved his head into the concrete wall next to the cabinet.

  Ed reeled as the general’s fist slammed into his chin.

  “Fuck you!” Ed shouted during a countermove.

  She imagined the gun between them, although she couldn’t see it. The general remained hunched over from the impact and struggled with the younger man like he was trying to get the gun.

  The other man had been caught between sitting and standing, which put him at a severe disadvantage. B
efore he could get upright, she swallowed her fear and ran toward the battle.

  She had no weapon, and there was nothing lying around to use as one, but she got right into the mix by using both of her hands to pin Ed’s arm to the wall.

  “His gun!” Smith grunted.

  “You two are going to regret this!” Ed spat at them.

  She couldn’t even control the one arm, but she did see the gun because it was pointed away from her toward the Four Arrows box.

  Faith didn’t know how to change the outcome of the fight, but saw her opportunity to do some damage to the struggling man pinned to the wall by General Smith.

  Obadias jammed his knee into the other man’s crotch.

  “Oomph!” Ed reacted to the pain.

  The impact opened a small space between the two men, giving her an opening. She bent over, bared the wrist holding the pistol, and bit down with all she had.

  Ed screamed and dropped the pistol.

  The general punched Ed in the eye socket, which seemed to hurt him as much as Ed.

  “Get it!” Smith shouted.

  Faith slipped on something wet.

  Blood.

  She didn’t have time to figure out where it came from. She fell to the floor to get the gun, only to get kicked in the cheek by Ed, then her leg was accidentally stepped on by the general.

  They paid no attention to her.

  The gun was close to the cabinet, so she had to slide around the back of Smith’s legs and then reach for it.

  Ed tried to kick her again, but she snatched it before he landed a blow.

  “Shoot this bastard,” Smith said in a tired voice.

  She struggled backward on her knees, then stood up. She too was exhausted by those few seconds of life-or-death struggle. Still, she didn’t feel right shooting the man.

  Smith didn’t let her think about it. “Goddamn it, shoot!”

  Ed returned the favor and kneed the general in the groin. The general winced in pain, then crumpled. He desperately hung onto the other man, but stopped fighting, as if he’d run out of gas.

  Ed sloughed off his backpack and fiddled with it, seemingly ignoring her.

  “I’ll shoot,” she said with determination.

  “I can tell you won’t,” he replied as he gave Smith a big shove to the ground.

  General Smith was covered with blood. The gunshot had struck him in the chest, but she couldn’t figure out where.

  She took a step back but kept the gun trained on Ed. “I don’t want to, but I will. Tell me why you are doing this.” Her hands shook like it was twenty degrees in the room.

  “Orders, ma’am. This experiment is over. My bosses want no evidence it ever took place. It really is that simple. I’ve put a sixty-second timer on this. If you run now, you can get out.”

  Ed tossed the backpack at her.

  She fired the weapon and hit him in the middle of his throat.

  The pack slammed into her and she tried to catch it out of instinct, causing her to bobble the gun and the canvas bag at the same time.

  Ed fell to the pavement like a soggy bag of garbage.

  She stood there shaking for a few seconds, amazed by the terrible damage she’d done.

  “Good work, soldier,” Smith croaked.

  Before she realized what was going on, Smith yanked the pack from her clutches and hobbled past the Four Arrows cabinet, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He headed for the storage area of the station, which was the farthest point from the cabinet and the collider ring.

  “General!” she shouted. “You’ve been shot!”

  He yelled over his shoulder, “Faith, RUN, dammit! Listen to me this one time, please.”

  Somehow the injured man sprinted.

  It was impossible to stop him and she didn’t want to die watching, so she took off at a limping run in the opposite direction, toward the tram tunnel. She passed the tram and practically fell into the gap beyond. She imagined a giant clock ticking away the seconds, the sound pounding in her head.

  Or maybe that was her heartbeat. Faith jumped into the tunnel and kept hobbling. She heard the explosion at the same time that the ground shook below her.

  Then the air was sucked from the space.

  Sydney, Australia

  Destiny was unable to get a hold of Faith as she walked through the half-empty station. Since most trains were out or had simply vanished, as Becker and Gladys had explained, there were almost none left to carry passengers.

  Before she left, her brain was filled with the red light again. She held onto consciousness this time, although most people in the terminal crouched or fell to the floor. It was both horrible and fascinating to watch.

  Faith, you’re killing me, sis.

  She ran out while the people recovered, grabbed a taxi, and went to the Sydney Harbor Foundation. Her anger at how they had left her in the woods had ebbed, because she now understood the madness out in the world. She admitted they had done the right thing by taking care of the larger group, even if it meant she was left behind. However, she needed to maintain the appearance of anger to help her get out of Australia.

  She walked into the mostly empty office like a conquering Julius Caesar. Her clothes were dirty and torn from a sweaty and dusty couple of days.

  Rodney Blaskowitz was the guy she’d talked to earlier about using the Majestic to transport animals to America.

  He spoke as soon as he saw her. “You said you were going to call me back! I’ve been waiting for hours. Those flashes are crazy!”

  She rushed up and hugged Rodney. He was old enough to be her father, and she didn’t particularly like the guy, but he represented a tiny piece of stability in her topsy-turvy life.

  She pulled away after a brief squeeze.

  “Oi. What was that for?” he asked.

  “Rod, I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’ve been fighting to get here since the middle of last night when we spoke. Forget the flashes of red. Do we still have the boat?”

  “Sure, I guess. Why? What’s going on?

  “You don’t know?” she said with surprise. “The world has turned inside out. Train engines are disappearing. Train tracks are gone. Jungles are where they aren’t supposed to be. And the animals… You got my pictures, right?”

  He held up his phone, although it was turned off. “Yeah, you sent me some amazing photos.”

  She took a steadying breath, then looked him square in the eye. “We have to go to America. You. Me. Whoever else can fit on the boat. But we have to go right this minute. It might already be too late.”

  “Too late for what, Dez? What the hell are you going on about?”

  Her desire to go to America was mostly based on a desire to see her sister. If the world was going to fall apart, she didn’t want to be alone.

  She spoke like she was on speed. “I’ve not gotten proper sleep in three days. I’ve been left for dead in the fire. I swam to escape it. I’ve been shot at. I’ve shot a pre-historic bird. A jungle almost trapped me. Things are mad outside. I want to rescue some of these Aussie animals and take them to American zoos before they are all killed here.”

  Rod didn’t look convinced. “I saw the pictures, Dez, but I can’t believe they are real. The bosses didn’t think they were real, either.”

  “They aren’t giving us the boat?”

  She had to do it through proper channels because the boat would need to be piloted, and they would need fuel to get all the way to America. There was no better reason for a naturalist society than the preservation of rare species. Unless Tasmanian Tigers were showing up all over America, she was certain she could build a case for transporting them overseas to good homes—and those homes would probably pay for every drop of fuel to get them there.

  Rod shrugged. “They said if you can bring live specimens of these things, they’d drive the boat themselves. But Dez, I don’t think they were serious.”

  She held up her finger to shush him, then rang up Zandre.

  He picked up right a
way.

  “Dez! You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Made it to Sydney. The train won’t be running to Canberra for a long time, but that’s no longer my concern. I need a huge favor, and it might save both our lives.”

  “Sure. After the way my people treated you, I owe you one.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she agreed. “But listen. I need to take a boat to America. Planes aren’t flying anymore. To do that, I need some living samples of extinct animals. We’re sure zoos in America will cover our costs, but we have to bring them the good stuff. Can you help?”

  “I didn’t bag my Duck of Doom, but I’ll be happy to go back out and try. Every hour my hunters come back with new specimens, although some guys are getting attacked and injured by beasts we didn’t know existed out there. Nasty buggers, those.”

  She smiled on the phone but didn’t tell him what she really thought. The imagery of those asshole hunters getting injured warmed her heart. She didn’t like thinking what those same animals were doing to innocent people elsewhere in Australia, however.

  “Bring as many as you can—alive—in the next twelve hours. You’ll have to drive them here, okay?”

  “It will take at least four hours to drive there. That only leaves me eight to hunt. Lucky for you, most of the time will be in daylight, but it’s still going to be tight.”

  “You will save my life, Z. I swear.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “We’ll meet at Port Botany. The ship is called the Majestic. Please. I need you to come through.”

  She hung up and turned back to Rod.

  “He brings the animals, we go to America. Right?”

  “I’m sure the bosses will agree.”

  Twenty-Six

  Princess Anne, Maryland

  Garth kept his hands over his head while they waited on the dirty floor of the gas station as if they could protect against a gunshot. The gangsters had made it clear they were going to shoot one of the patrons, and he was out of ideas for how to fight back. They had his gun and his phone, so he couldn’t shoot his way out or dial 911 for help.