by AJ Powers
CONVERGENCE
The Far Side of Hell
AJ Powers
Edited by Talia Phillips
Edited by Sara Jones
Illustrated by AJ Powers
Contents
Convergence
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
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Also by AJ Powers
OTHER BOOKS FROM UNDER THE SHIELD OF
FIVE ROADS TO TEXAS
After the Roads
For Which We Stand
Torment
SIXTH CYCLE
DEAD ISLAND: Operation Zulu
Invasion Of The Dead Series
The Gathering Horde
THIS BOOK WAS FORMATTED BY
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by AJ Powers
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing, 2018
ISBN 9781790926442
Phalanx Press
www.PhalanxPress.com
Convergence
The Far Side of Hell
AJ POWERS
A Five Roads To Texas Novel
Chapter One
Hamilton, Ohio – May 24th
Silence…
It was all Malcom had ever wanted since becoming a father at the age of nineteen. Between the twelve-year-old’s perceived singing career, the six-year-old twins who were utterly incapable of agreeing on which shows to watch, and a toddler who complained about every dish he had ever been served, a quiet evening at home had become nothing more than a distant memory of his youth gone by.
And even when the kids actually graced them with a night of good behavior, he and Cameron usually pissed the opportunity away by finding something to argue about. Of course, they’d always work things out before going to bed. But, by then, it was usually closer to dawn than dusk, all but eliminating the possibility of make-up sex—the one good thing about throwing down with the missus.
There was never a shortage of topics for the young married couple to fight over, but love—or a lack of it—was never among them. Malcom and Cameron were crazy about each other since the day they met at Eaglewood High. They went from zero to serious in just a few weeks’ time, and before Malcom realized it, Cameron was the center of his every vision of the future. Three months after graduation, they were on their way up to Grand Haven, Michigan, for a bootstrap honeymoon on the lake. Less than a year later, they became parents. And that, Malcom suspected, was the root cause of their incessant bickering. He and Cameron never had the chance to enjoy married life before their cramped one-bedroom apartment was overrun with diapers, formula, and restless nights. Parenthood put a strain on the strongest of marriages, let alone one as fresh as theirs.
But despite the expense, fatigue, and drain that came with being a father, Malcom had never once regretted his position. The depth of love he had for his children was far greater than he’d ever thought possible. And, strange as it sounded, his love for Cameron grew exponentially with each tiny human they brought into the world. Nevertheless, no matter how much he loved his family, Malcom coveted some time off from day-to-day life. He wasn’t unreasonable—just an evening alone every now and then or the occasional romantic weekend getaway with Cameron. Unfortunately, life usually got in the way since Mackenzie, their oldest, had been born, and he was denied those requests.
Which was why it was all the more shocking when Cameron surprised him with the gift of silence for his birthday.
“I’m taking the kids to Sacramento for a couple of weeks,” she said as her naked body rolled off his.
Malcom, still floating in a state of euphoria, was certain he misheard her. “Huh? What?” he stammered in confusion as he turned to his side to face her. “Why?”
Cameron gave Malcom a warm smile—the same one that won him over in the tenth grade. “It’s your birthday. You’re an amazing father. And,” she paused for a moment, as if contemplating, “a somewhat satisfactory husband.” Amused with herself, she wrinkled her nose and shrugged her shoulders. As seriousness returned to the conversation, she added, “You work hard for us, Mal, and even though I don’t tell you as much as I should, you are the most selfless man I know. You’ve earned a few days off.”
Malcom was momentarily stunned with his wife’s unprecedented gesture. His cheeks rose as his grin widened.
“When?” he asked.
“Our flight leaves at six forty-five.”
“Tonight? As in three hours from now?”
“Yep. Kids are on spring break next week, and I didn’t have much trouble convincing the school to excuse Mackenzie for that second week. Just told them her grandfather was ill, and she hasn’t seen him in over a year.”
“Your dad’s sick?” Malcom asked worriedly.
Cameron hesitated before revealing a sly smile. “He has kidney stones,” she said with a wink, remembering the careful wording and subtle flirting she’d used to manipulate the principal into excusing Mackenzie’s absence.
To his surprise, Malcom was relieved to hear his father-in-law wasn’t dying. He didn’t hate his in-laws, but they weren’t close, either. Cameron’s parents didn’t exactly welcome him into the family—which was one of the reasons they never made it out to visit them in California since they moved there five years ago. That, and Malcom hated California. He likened it to China: beautiful scenery filled with Commie dictators.
“Anyway,” Cameron kept going, “I better go finish packing for the kids before Donovan wakes up.” She leaned closer to Malcom and gave him a quick, tongue-heavy kiss. “Try and miss me a little,” she said with a quiet moan before biting her lip. The sexy moment ended in her laughter before she rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom.
Malcom pressed himself deep into his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. Two whole weeks of bachelorhood? He didn’t have a clue how he was going to spend it, but he damn well knew a considerable chunk of it would involve a bottle of bourbon and a good thriller novel. “An afternoon lay and two weeks of peace and quiet? This is turning out to be one hell of a birthday,” he’d muttered to himself, a smirk still plastered across his face…
But two months had passed since that blissful moment, and the house was still deafeningly silent. Cameron’s ultimate gift became his greatest nightmare.
A low, guttural growl from just outside the bedroom window snapped Malcom from his lamenting memories, breaking the silence in the room and forcing him to endure a torrent of emotions that eventually led him to
a white-hot rage. He turned his head toward the source of the noise, his bloodshot eyes fixated on the aluminum blinds glowing in the morning sun. A lanky shadow passed in front of the window, its head whipping side to side in search of a victim. Malcom’s death grip on his Glock 17 beneath the comforter tightened, but he refrained from temporarily satiating his fury. Instead, Malcom let the infected man pass, listening to his moans and snarls fade away, bringing Malcom back to agonizing stillness. Back to silence.
Silence…
For over a decade, Malcom Barnett longed for it. And now that he had it, it was all he could do not to curl his lips around the barrel of his gun and deliver himself from this Hell on earth.
Chapter Two
2 – Hamilton, Ohio – May 24th
Malcom was running out of reasons to live. Actually, that ship had set sail the day the outbreak started, but for some unknown reason, he’d managed to convince himself to keep going long after his spirit gave up. “Just one more day,” he said right before sleep came each night. “Just get through one more day, and if things don’t get any better, then do it.” But there he was, two months after he first uttered those words inside the empty house, and things hadn’t improved. In fact, they were worse—so much worse.
As he lay on his bed, staring up at the textured ceiling, he knew it wasn’t going to get better. He chastised himself for not ending it all after he returned from his failed attempts at reaching his family in California. But there was no more fooling himself. He would no longer buy into the lies that somehow tomorrow would quench the agonizing pain in his soul. There were no more tomorrows left for Malcom. He had no more hope, and soon, he would no longer be concerned with the world falling into deeper desolation.
Reluctantly, Malcom climbed out of bed and walked over to the rifle safe in the master closet. He grabbed two guns from inside and placed them next to his Glock 17 on the bed. The Glock had been his workhorse since the beginning of the outbreak, and it consistently delivered blow after devastating blow to the infected. He knew he could rely on the 9mm pistol. He then placed the FN FAL next to it. Though it was heavier and more awkward to carry than his AR-15s, the 7.62x51 NATO round delivered a morbidly satisfying punch to an infected’s skull that could be heard over the report of the rifle itself. For this reason alone, the FAL became Malcom’s weapon of choice.
Then there was the Sig Scorpion 1911. Malcom always talked about buying one someday—it was his dream pistol since junior high—but it was never in the budget. So, when Cameron handed it to him on his twenty-fifth birthday, he was speechless. And it was that sentimental attachment that had Malcom pulling it out of the safe. Because even though the Scorpion was a good, reliable pistol, Malcom only planned on using it just once.
He grabbed plenty of ammo and tossed it into a tan MOLLE backpack that also had a couple bottles of water and a pack of crackers inside. After giving the zippers a quick tug, Malcom reached for the tactical vest he’d taken from a gun store in town last month. He loaded up the vest with several magazines before clasping the buckles across his chest. Moving back to the master closet, Malcom glanced into the safe once more to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything worth bringing.
He hadn’t.
He left the safe door open. He no longer had a use for the weapons inside, but perhaps they would benefit some other poor soul in the future. Someone who needed them to survive... someone who wanted to survive.
Someone with hope.
Malcom stepped into the master bathroom and faced himself in the mirror he’d looked into every morning for the past eight years. His ghastly appearance was as dreadful as he felt. His dark eyes were sunken and nearly devoid of life. His brown hair was greasy, and his once-youthful face hid behind a thick, bushy beard. The permanent look of misery on his face made him unrecognizable, even to himself. In fact, with the exception of the foamy mouth, desaturated skin tones and hazy, red eyes, Malcom wasn’t all that far off from looking like one of the creatures outside his house.
The thought forced a tinge of bile to creep up his throat. He hated the infected with every cell in his body, and he’d be damned if he was going to allow one of those beasts to turn him.
With his hands resting on the countertop, Malcom sighed heavily as he battled with the guilt pecking at his soul. His shoulders slumped, and tears squeezed out from his closed eyes as fragmented memories of his family flashed through his mind.
“I’m so sorry, Cam.” His words trembled with regret as they departed his lips. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to save you.”
Malcom wanted nothing more than to wail and moan his lamentations, but he suppressed them. Instead, he leaned in close to the mirror and fogged it with his breath. He drew his finger across the glass, leaving his beloved wife one final message.
Soon.
Malcom slung the backpack over his shoulders and tightened the straps. It was heavier than he expected. He contemplated removing a few boxes of ammo to lighten the load but quickly decided against it. The ammo wasn’t about surviving some long, cross-country trek; it was about sending as many of those demons back to Hell as he could. And that was a task he planned on carrying out until his final moment came.
Taking one last glance around the bedroom, Malcom headed down the hall. He walked slowly, memorizing every detail of each framed picture that adorned the wall. Some were the typical staged family photos inside one of those shops at the mall. But mostly, the halls were lined with a collage of snapshots collected over the years, candid moments that displayed his family for how it was: imperfect, but happy. Each photo he looked at began with joyful memories but ended with the searing-hot pain of loss. The heavenly torment quickly became too much to bear.
His feet slowed to a stop at the end of the hall as his eyes lingered on the last frame. Cameron’s flawless white dress stood in stark contrast to her jet-black hair and tan complexion. Despite his tough-guy demeanor, her beaming smile and overwhelming jubilation on that day brought Malcom to tears at the altar. She looked nothing short of spectacular and only grew more so with each day that he called her his wife.
He gazed into her eyes as if she was still alive on the other side of the glass. Unable to hold back his emotions any longer, Malcom pressed into the wall and buried his face, weeping uncontrollably. He missed her… he missed all of them.
Raising his hand and placing it on the dusty pane of glass, Malcom choked back another barrage of tears. He closed his eyes and, for a moment, convinced himself that he was actually touching her again. Feeling the warmth of her breath, caressing her smooth skin. Stroking her long, black locks. Slowly, a sense of euphoria trickled through his body, consuming him, and evoking the first smile in months. But the jolt of ecstasy quickly dissolved once he opened his eyes.
“’Til death do us part,” he uttered.
’Til death indeed.
“I love you, Cameron,” Malcom said as his fingers slid down to the bottom of the frame, leaving a streak of oil in their wake. “I’ll see you soon.”
Turning away from the gallery of memories, Malcom made his way to the front door. Finding no other excuse to delay his departure, he unlocked the deadbolt and stepped out into the cool, morning air. It didn’t take long for the first one to notice him. Within seconds, there were seven pairs of cloudy, red eyes fixated upon Malcom, each one sprinting toward him from all over the neighborhood.
They greeted him with shrieking cries and gnashing teeth.
Malcom greeted them with vengeance—147 grains at a time.
Chapter Three
3 – Indian Hill, Ohio – May 24th
Sitting on a green, artificially aged barstool that complemented the crisp, white granite countertops, Tessa Manning stared blankly at the large refrigerator on the other side of the kitchen. It was one of those “smart” fridges that connected to the Internet and had a high-definition, touch-screen display in the middle of the door. No one in the house had ever actually used any of the features that made the kitchen appliance cos
t two thousand more than a normal fridge, but as one of the top cardiac surgeons in the nation, Tessa rarely concerned herself with price tags.
Whatever she wanted, she got.
Tessa was the complete package—an accomplished doctor, a faithful wife, a loving mother, and a damn good cook. And though she was never too concerned with her looks, she saw herself on the cover of the New England Journal of Medicine last year and knew she could still turn quite a few heads with her dark-copper beach curls and deep brown eyes. And she did at nearly every medical conference she attended. It was rare for her to go to one without having at least a dozen different men—and occasionally women—trying to snatch the spare keycard to her room. Though always flattered, she would simply flash her wedding ring along with a sympathetic, “Sorry, I’m married,” before walking away. That usually did the trick, but some of the more tenacious men would laugh off the comment as they displayed their own wedding bands with a shrug of the shoulders. Tessa always responded, “Believe it or not, some people are actually happily married.”