The Mutation
By A.L. Masters
Copyright © 2021 A.L. Masters
All Rights Reserved.
Content Warning
This book contains foul language (sometimes excessive), graphic violence, apocalyptic themes, and some romantic situations.
Chapter One
The Attack
Jared
The world was strangely silent as Jared drove. He couldn’t stop thinking about the nuclear sirens, the fire in the sky, and the fact that his sister was in a heavily populated major city. He didn’t know if Nashville was targeted. He didn’t even know how he would find out.
He could hear Anna comforting Stewart in the back seat. Stewart was one hardcore motherfucker. Jared wasn’t sure he would be quite so self-contained if he had a chunk taken out of his leg. He glanced over at Bradley; the man was frowning fiercely. He was obviously thinking hard about something.
“So, we need to find a shelter, right? Underground?” he asked.
“I think that would be best. Honestly, I don’t know if those missiles were nuclear-armed or not. I’m not familiar with nuclear weapons. The only training I ever had on the subject was the quick class in the desert, and that was mostly concentrated on chemical attacks,” he said.
He gritted his teeth. The world was really screwing them over. The damned governments couldn’t just be satisfied with just releasing some fucked-up virus that turned people insane, they had to go ahead and add nukes on top of everything else. They should have never been allowed to go so far.
Too late now. It was all too late.
“I have a feeling that those were our own missiles that hit us,” Bradley said. “I think they were trying to take out the cities with the densest clusters of biters.”
“Our own people are bombing us?!” Anna said from the back. He thought he heard the slightest waver in her voice.
Jared looked in the rearview. She looked shocked, pale…and scared. He tightened his fists on the steering wheel.
His feelings for her were overwhelming sometimes. He had hidden them for so long, so damned long. The fact that she had been living in a state of almost constant fear this last week ate at his heart and made his gut clench. He had spent the last two years trying to make her happy at the office. He was the joker, the clown. He made jokes to cover up his feelings and to make her laugh. Her smile could light up a room, and her laugh was like a drug. The truth was that he hadn’t felt that he was good enough for her. He wasn’t a good man.
He knew she was lonely and sad sometimes. He had gotten close to her the only way he could, as her friend. He had wanted it to be enough.
Then life had thrown them the biggest fucking curveball in existence. None of that mattered now. She didn’t need him to be a good man; she needed a strong one, a capable one. He could be that for her.
“I’m sure they warned people,” he told her.
Liar.
She nodded, and the little line between her eyebrows faded. He couldn’t bear to put more grief on her shoulders. She was a fighter, and she would have to fight more, but he would take away whatever pain he could.
“What about the chickens?” she asked.
That was so her, thinking of the welfare of the animals.
“I think they’ll be fine. They’ve got that trough of water and enough bugs and stuff to eat,” he said.
“Chickens?” Fletch asked. His young face was tired and drawn. They all looked like they had been through hell.
“There was a flock at the place we got this SUV,” Anna told him.
“The place where the biter was?” Bradley asked.
“The place where the mutant biter was,” Jared clarified.
“That worries me,” Bradley confessed. “I’m thinking there are more of those things than we thought. Stewart and I saw two on the interstate, at a pileup. They were crouched up under an overpass. We were going too fast for them to get us, but man…they were fast.”
“I’ve been thinking about something, maybe it’s stupid…” Anna said, leaning toward the front.
“Babe, there are mutant people running around that can camouflage their skin. I don’t think anything you can say regarding them would be stupid.”
“Well, I was thinking about them gathering around the armory at night, and then going away in the day.” She paused and Jared glanced over at her.
“Go on,” Bradley said.
“I think they are...maturing or developing.”
“What do you mean “maturing”?” Fletch asked.
Jared was pretty sure that he knew exactly what she meant.
“I think they can see in the dark, like…like an owl or cat or something.”
“Oh, wow.” Fletch sat back in silence.
Jared considered the ramifications of those mutant things developing the ability to see in the dark.
Their eyes…
“Their eyes,” he said aloud.
“What about them?” Bradley asked.
“Nocturnal animals have different eyes. Owls and cats, for instance, they have bigger pupils which helps them see really well at night. But these things don’t. They have—”
“Snake eyes,” Anna interrupted.
Bradley swore. “You know what that means, right? It means that if they are similar to snakes, then they can sense heat signatures. They can see us in the dark, even when we’re hiding.”
“That’s horrifying, but I think we need to stop talking and let Jared drive faster now,” Fletch said from the back.
“Why?” Bradley said, suddenly alert.
“Because Stewart has a high fever and there’s a storm coming.”
◆◆◆
Jared concentrated on the highway, letting off the accelerator on the curves, and punching it again on the straightaways. They needed to get Stewart home, and they needed to get everyone in the basement.
He looked in the rear mirror again, bypassing Stewart’s pale face, and looked out the rear window. It was tinted, but the clouds gathered, black and furious in the distance. What he wouldn’t give for a weather radar app right now. He figured the internet could possibly still be up, but his cell phone was long gone. Probably left at the office.
He knew general weather patterns. Air currents and direction of travel were easy, but he didn’t know how far any fallout would travel, or how long they would have to batten down the hatches, so to speak.
“The rain is going to clear the radioactive particles from the air,” Bradley said to him quietly.
“Yep.”
“They’re going to come down on us.”
“Yep,” Jared answered again.
“How long do we have?” Anna asked. He hadn’t known she was listening.
He met her eyes in the mirror before looking back at the road. They would be coming to the overrun town soon. He had to slow down now.
“A few hours maybe, depending on which cities they hit. We don’t know if there even is any fallout, remember that we’re just being safe.”
She nodded and turned to look out the window.
Jared saw the old ramshackle barn in the distance; it marked the boundary to town. So far it was clear.
“Take it through slow and steady,” Bradley said.
Jared raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. As if he needed anyone to tell him how to drive through an infested town. He’d been sitting up in the armory for days. He and Anna were the ones doing all the traveling. It wasn’t the time for smartass comments though. He’d save them for later, when they were home.
The town looked virtually the same as when they had plowed through the first time. Except for the body parts on the ro
ad.
“Watch the femurs,” Anna said with a hint of a smile.
“What about the ulnas?” he joked.
“Watch those too.”
He swerved gently around the few bones that were left lying in the road and wondered where everyone was.
“Oh shit!” Fletch yelled. “Tangos! Three o’clock!”
It took him a second to figure out what Fletch was talking about. He looked to his right, down a small side street and tamped down his panic. There was no reason to panic. They weren’t blocked in.
Yet.
“Oh my God! There are so many of them!” Anna cried out from the back. He could tell by the higher pitch of her voice that she was freaked out. He didn’t blame her.
The pack of biters they had left here before were nothing compared to the hoard of mutants headed toward them now. For one thing, their numbers had swelled. For another, they had changed.
In twenty-four hours? Or are these new ones?
He caught a glimpse of them as he drove, but he needed to keep his eyes to the front. If they wrecked, they would all be dead for sure.
Alone, they were bad enough, but in a cluster…they were truly frightening. Teeth bared, mouths gaping, they ran toward the SUV. Their skins were strangely mixed, some blending in with those behind, and some gleaming, dully gray in the overcast sky. Their clothing flapped behind them, some tattered and some still serviceable. He swore he saw one dressed as a surgeon, which was creepy as fuck.
They vibrated with anger, twitching so rapidly and jerking so violently that he wasn’t sure how they managed to stay on their feet. It made their movements unpredictable, and more dangerous. It gave them an odd, flipbook illusion.
They sprinted abnormally fast, inhumanly fast. Their long fingers scrabbled in the air, as if they were already envisioning tearing them apart. Stewart moaned then.
“Go Jared! Go faster!” Bradley yelled.
“I am! I’m trying to get us home in one piece!” Jared shouted.
“Not…funny,” Stewart moaned from the back.
“I wasn’t making a joke!” he said, incredulous.
Anna took her attention from the mutants chasing them to raise an eyebrow at him skeptically.
“What? I really wasn’t!” he insisted.
“Watch the corner!” Bradley yelled as they approached the corner where Aunt Mollie used to peddle her pies.
A small cluster of normal biters ran out into the road, and he couldn’t avoid hitting them. Jared gritted his teeth as the SUV collided with the bodies. It felt like hitting three deer at once. That couldn’t be good for the truck. They bumped over the corpses, and Stewart cried out at the jolt.
“They weren’t even trying to get at us,” Anna said, confused. “They just ran into the road.”
Jared gunned the engine once again, glad to be out of the little town. Now they just had to get through Oak Grove quickly. The drive back through the long, deserted highway was less eventful than their first trip. The SUV didn’t overheat, and he didn’t see any more biters, mutant or otherwise.
“That was your truck?” Bradley asked as they passed his old pickup.
“Yep, radiator hose is shot.”
“Did you get everything out of it?”
“Yeah.”
“Except the seventy-three oatmeal cookie wrappers under the seat,” Anna murmured.
Jared squinted at her threateningly in the rearview mirror, but she just raised her chin in the air, a little grin at the corner of her mouth. It was good to know that the threat of nukes hadn’t stolen her sense of humor. That was one of the things he loved about her. She just got him.
He started slowing down when they reached the very outskirts of Oak Grove.
“Why are you slowing? We need to keep moving, man. The wind is kicking up,” Bradley said.
“We could keep going, but I’m pretty sure the Viking snipers would take us out long before we smashed into their dump truck,” he told Bradley.
The look on Bradley’s face was priceless. “Are you… okay?” Bradley asked.
Jared jutted his chin out to the front and Bradley followed his gesture.
“Ambush?!” Fletch called out from the backseat.
“No, just a barrier,” Anna said. “They let us through last time.”
Jared stopped. Men and women did not materialize from the woods this time. They waited. Jared anxiously tapped the steering wheel. He hadn’t expected this. He peered carefully into the trees, wondering if there was anyone watching them.
“Jared…?”
“I don’t know where they are,” Jared said in response to Anna’s unspoken question.
“What are you guys talking about?” Bradley said, exasperated.
“The people who live here. They moved the dump truck last time. I don’t see them.”
Jared made a quick decision. He jumped out of the SUV, leaving the door open and running to the dump truck. He expected a gunshot with every step.
“Jared!” he heard Anna call out. He didn’t stop. They didn’t have time.
He climbed up into the forty-year-old truck and looked at the ignition. The keys weren’t there.
Son of a bitch!
He popped open the glove compartment and rustled through the old papers. Keys! He snagged them and thrust the likeliest looking one into the ignition. When the engine turned over, he slammed the transmission into reverse and backed out of the road enough so they could get through. He turned the truck off but left the keys in the ignition for Sten…wherever he was.
He left and ran back to the SUV. The wind blew in his face, and he heard thunder off in the distance. It was faint, and it was far away still, but it was there…and it was coming.
He took off again, peeling out around the front of the dump truck and hoping no kids were in the street beyond.
He needn’t have worried.
When he got beyond the dump truck, he saw that nobody was out. The roads were empty of pedestrians and animals. No kids roamed the yards. No mothers carried babies around on their hips. No armed men that he could see. He wondered if they had a bunker somewhere. Maybe they heard a siren and holed up underground.
He hoped so. He didn’t want to think that something had happened to all the people here.
He drove over the chalk-covered roads, straining to see anything that may leap into his path. The gas station and markets were closed up tight. He could see Bradley’s curiosity, but it would have to wait.
“This is the…Viking community?” Bradley asked.
“They aren’t really Vikings,” Anna said. “Jared just likes to call them that.”
“Actually, they are,” Jared said to Bradley, dismissing Anna’s comment.
“They’re regular people, Jared.”
“Are you saying Vikings aren’t regular people? That’s pretty racist.”
“No, but—”
“They are heavily armed. They are descendants of Norwegians. They wear Viking jewelry. They carry battle axes!” Jared argued.
“It was one axe! One,” she said.
“They all have long hair and beards!” he said.
“So do you,” Anna retorted.
“You can’t change my mind,” Jared said.
She huffed and he gave her a wink.
“I don’t know why I put up with you,” she said.
“Because you love me?”
She sighed. “True.”
“You done now?” Bradley asked.
“Yes. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Alright,” Bradley said warily.
“Get me the radio out from under your seat.”
Bradley bent down and shuffled his hand under the seat. He came up with the radio and handed it to Jared. Jared set it in his lap.
“What is that for?”
“The RHCDL gave it to us. I want to warn them when we get into range,” Jared said.
“They probably already know.”
“I just want to make sure.”
Bradley nodded.
Chapter Two
Going Underground
Anna
“Well, town still exists,” Jared said as they made it to the intersection. “At least until Jimmy Don breaks into the rock quarry and finds the dynamite.”
She rolled her eyes and checked Stewart again. He was still burning up. She had been wetting a piece of cloth and wiping his forehead and neck, but he was barely responding. They needed to get him home soon. She looked around as Jared attempted to make contact with the Rolling Hills Civil Defense League.
“Captain Anderson, this is Hercules. Over.”
Jared and his freaking radio callsign obsession…
She bit back her sarcastic comment and they waited. She felt her pulse race as the seconds sped by.
“Captain Anderson, this is Hercules. Over.”
No response.
Jared sighed in defeat. “Okay, okay. Captain Anderson, this is Jared. Over.”
Silence.
“I really thought that would do it,” Jared said.
“Do you think something happened to them?” she asked him.
“I think it’s likely that they went underground. If they are as prepared as you say,” Bradley added. “Probably don’t have an antenna up yet.”
“Yeah. Well, we can’t wait around. We have to go underground too,” Jared said.
She licked her lips. They were dry and she really wanted a drink, but she just gave Stewart the last of it. “Do you think it’s weird that Sten’s people and the Rolling Hills people are gone?”
“No, I think it’s weird that we aren’t,” he replied.
They were back on the road and only a few minutes from Jared’s. She was suddenly aware that they hadn’t gotten Kate and brought her back. The whole reason for the mission, and instead of bringing her back they were bringing his mother bad news.
It felt like she had been awake for days, weeks.
They rolled up the driveway and she was relieved to see that everything looked exactly like they had left it. Jared’s house was still safe.
“Get Stewart down to the basement, then come to the garage,” Jared told the men. Anna got out and followed him in. He unloaded the little gear they had left in the SUV into the laundry room floor, where the interior door was. She got a bottle of water from the dark fridge—it was barely cool— and noticed the mess.
The Salvation Plague | Book 2 | The Mutation Page 1