Also by Jacqueline Druga
The Flu Series
The Flu
The Flu 2: Healing
Sleepers Series
Sleepers 1
Sleepers 2
Sleepers 3
Sleepers 4
Sleepers 5
Sleepers 6
Sleepers 7
The Violet Letters
A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK
ISBN: 978-1-68261-842-4
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-68261-841-7
Sleepers 8
© 2020 by Jacqueline Druga
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by Christian Bentulan
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.
Permuted Press, LLC
New York • Nashville
permutedpress.com
Published in the United States of America
Contents
Chapter One: Sonny Wilson
Chapter Two: Alex Sans
Chapter Three: Mera Stevens
Chapter Four: Sonny
Chapter Five: Alex
Chapter Six: Mera
Chapter Seven: Sonny
Chapter Eight: Alex
Chapter Nine: Mera
Chapter Ten: Sonny
Chapter Eleven: Alex
Chapter Twelve: Mera
Chapter Thirteen: Sonny
Chapter Fourteen: Alex
Chapter Fifteen: Mera
Chapter Sixteen: Sonny
Chapter Seventeen: Alex
Chapter Eighteen: Mera
Chapter Nineteen: Sonny
Chapter Twenty: Alex
Chapter Twenty-One: Mera
Chapter Twenty-Two: Sonny
Chapter Twenty-Three: Alex
Chapter Twenty-Four: Mera
Chapter Twenty-Five: Sonny
Chapter Twenty-Six: Alex
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Mera
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Sonny
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Alex
Chapter Thirty: Mera
Chapter Thirty-One: Sonny
Chapter Thirty-Two: Alex
Chapter Thirty-Three: Mera
About the Author
ONE
SONNY WILSON
My head pounded. For some reason I was hit with an instantaneous headache. It could have been hunger, dehydration, any number of things. We had left Javier’s new lab and headed back to Haven Two. Both Javier and Alex were acting strange. A part of me believed it was simply because Alex discovered that not only did Javier have Sleepers, but I was the one getting them. Plus, Javier let it be known that the cloaking serum had stopped working, or at least it had on Miles. On me, it still worked.
We returned to base, and Alex immediately went to meet Beck. Once they were separated, Javier returned to his normal self.
“Sonny, I need more Sleepers,” Javier said. “I can hit them all with various viruses, but with the infective rate so low, I need more than a half dozen.”
With Alex knowing about the Sleeper experiments, I didn’t foresee a problem with me looking for them. When I put my mind to it, I was pretty good at finding them. Internally, I believed when we entered that home, that there would be Sleepers. There had been…but they left.
That scene was disturbing. Besides, a half-eaten deer on the dining room table, there was a newborn. A child that probably didn’t even experience the first cry.
There was something about it all that didn’t sit right with me. It warranted a second look. Were the Sleepers setting up house?
I recall Mera telling me that when they entered my home, before they found me, my own parents were sitting in the living room, staring at a blank TV while eating raw flesh from plates.
Were the Sleepers holding on to part of their past lives? Their civility? If so, was this the reason that they were able to live and in the future, overcome us?
I didn’t speak to anyone, not even Beck, I simply took off again, dropping Javier off at the lab to get tranquilizers and prepare for incoming. Not only did I want to find some Sleepers for him, I needed to go back to that house. As hard as it would be, I needed to look around and see if that cannibalistic table scene was the only thing those Sleepers were doing there.
I shouldn’t have gone out alone. We never went out alone, but something inside of me told me it was all right. I would be fine. For some odd reason, since moving to the base, I sensed Sleepers. Not that I was a tracking device, but I knew when they were in an area.
I could see them in my mind, smell them.
Years of being around them either helped me to tune in, or, as frightening as the thought was, it was possible the serum made from Michael’s blood I’d been given had allowed me to develop a sixth sense about them.
I drove out to Brock Street and to the little neighborhood cul-de-sac not far from base. All the small housing plans were the same. Rows of upscale looking townhouses, all from the same model, five or six in a row. I imagined the whole area was for families living in transition while a loved one trained.
I pulled in front of the townhouse that Alex and I had been living in. After tying a cloth over my nose and mouth, I closed my eyes and convinced myself that I was strong enough to go back in there. Yes, the dining room scene was horrendous and sickening, but I was there for more than just that, I was there to see why the Sleepers set up a demented Norman Rockwell dinner.
Was there even a reason, or was it completely random? I found it hard to believe that it was random, considering they’d used plates.
I’d avoid the dining room unless I absolutely needed to go in there.
The smell was just as strong when I walked in and I tried not to breathe through my nose. To my left was the living room. The cushions on the sofa and love seat were off. Bloody fingerprints and handprints decorated the fabric.
In the center of the living room floor was a huge pool of dried blood. On the edge of it was what looked like a rotting piece of meat, but it wasn’t—it was a placenta. Part of the umbilical cord was still attached to it. That was where the Sleeper woman had given birth.
She had delivered the child and wasted no time eating it.
With my gun in hand, I went back into the hall and walked up the stairs. At the top of the stairs was a bathroom. It looked untouched, as if the Sleepers hadn’t even walked in there. In fact I was pretty confident the Sleepers hadn’t gone upstairs, until I saw the open bedroom door.
The dresser drawers were open, clothes strewn out, but more upsetting was the bed.
The sheets were half off and dirt, there were streaks of blood and dirt.
On the night stand was a remote control, covered in dried blood.
They were digging within themselves, trying to find a part of who they used to be.
It gave me chills and not in a good way. Unlike other Sleepers, they weren’t wandering around aimlessly. But were they other Sleepers? Did we ever look into their behavior? Maybe if we did, if we understood them more, fighting and beating them would be easier.
When Alex and I had first arrived, in typical Alex fashion, he’d made a sarcastic comment that we were Goldilocks and they were the Three Bears.
He was right.
The Sleeper couple did just have a child there, eat there, and possibly sleep in a bed. They were se
tting up house.
Like the Three Bears, the couple would return. I went downstairs to wait for them.
TWO
ALEX SANS
“Truck’s gone,” Miles had told me when I started the quest of looking for Sonny.
“Is it important that he’s here right now?” Beck asked.
“No, but I’d like him to be,” I replied.
Beck got on the radio and reached out to the guard out front, who confirmed Sonny had taken off.
“Where the hell did he go?” I asked.
“Why is this important right now? Let’s talk about the situation at hand,” Beck said.
“It’s important because Sonny was voted on council.”
“But he’s not leader anymore, you are,” said Beck. “We have a situation.”
I wanted to blast “well, no shit”, but I didn’t need to add the sarcasm. We had working radar. My big concern was, originally, any major storms coming in from the east, not a wave of Sleepers coming from the west.
The other radar showed a strong signal. A slow moving blip. Since I was completely sure it wasn’t a monster, we had only one option as a guess.
Sleepers.
“When do the fifty soldiers arrive?” I asked Beck.
“End of the week.”
“Five days.” I stared at the radar. “They’re about two hundred miles out. Now, Sleepers gotta…sleep. If they walk steady we’re looking at three days. But they won’t, they’ll stop. My guess is they just followed us from Ohio. Which makes sense—walk, stop, sleep. Two weeks.”
“So you’re saying they’ll cross paths.”
“Pretty much.” I ran my hand down my face.
Miles pulled forth a map. “Think they’re smart enough to take the long way?”
Beck leaned toward the map. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Miles pointed. “They gonna take a straight shot. If so, the bay will stop them. They’ll have to veer north at some point.”
I shook my head. “Sleepers don’t move like that. They’ll try to swim and drown.”
“We can’t take a chance they aren’t thinking,” Beck said.
“What do you propose?”
“Surveillance,” Beck said. “Do an assessment of how many, how close they are grouped. If the group is just a couple hundred we can take them out and we should do so before they get any closer.”
“Shoot them?” I asked.
“Blow them up. There’s enough here on base to do so.”
I nodded. “We can head out tomorrow. Take a look, come back and plan. Until then, just keep an eye out.”
“And check to see what we have.”
“So idealistically, we want them dead day after tomorrow.”
“Yep. Can’t get them any closer.” Beck looked up when the door opened.
I thought at first it was Sonny, until I saw Danny there. “Damn it,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t call you. I should have.”
“It’s okay,” Danny said.
“What brings you here, then?” I asked.
“Don’t know how you guys are gonna handle this. I’ve been looking everywhere…” Danny winced. “Where’s my mom?”
THREE
MERA STEVENS
I had lost two years worth of memories. Every single second. My life paused with the final fading memory being the dirty, post event emergency room staring at the dead body of a pregnant woman and picked up staring at faces surrounding my hospital bed.
Two years had passed.
I lost the memories. The emotions and feelings that were bred from different things were etched in my being but I didn’t know why or how they came to be.
Until…
Until I turned around and saw him.
At that second I muttered out the name, “Daniel”, lost my balance stumbled into the counter and tried to breathe as every one of my memories blasted into me like a title wave. I would have to decipher them, sort through them.
We had moved to the small training military base not two weeks earlier. It was a good place, comfortable, I was adjusting. My first venture off the property after two weeks was to seek out the mysterious man across the bay. A man who lived alone, took his boat out every day and spoke to no one. From what Stacey told me, he had access to milk.
I needed to find him, speak to him, talk about milk for my baby.
Then she told me his name was Peter.
Not long before, my son, a grown man, visited from the future. Phoenix, going by the name of Ed, told of a man named Peter. Someone I would meet and he was the backup if Ed didn’t make it back to the future. I was to give Peter the future device.
Suffice to say, with the news of the milk, combined with his name, I was anxious to cross the bay.
It had to be the same Peter, I thought, it had to be.
There was no malice in my visit. When I walked into his home it was not to start trouble. I was frightened when he called my name, but when I turned around, when I saw him, I was barreled over.
Not only by the instant memories, but by the man himself.
Peter, the man across the bay, stood in front of me.
When I saw him I swore it was my husband Daniel. The face was the same, the eyes, the hair, that small beauty mark mole just under his right eye, even that cowlick that made the front left portion of his hair stick up. Daniel’s hair always stood on edge when it was short. That was why he always grew it long. Like Peter.
When his hair was long, it was more brown. But in the summer when he cut it short and cropped it was blonde…like Sonny’s.
Peter wore his hair neck-length, curly and bushy, and it covered his ears…just like Daniel’s.
“My name is Peter,” he said. “You’re Mera, right?’
That was right. He knew me. He said my name and that he was waiting on me and wasn’t expecting me for years.
What was going on?
I nodded. “Yes. Yes I am.”
“You’re shaking. Here.” He reached into a cabinet, grabbed a bottle and poured a small glass for me. “Drink.”
My hand trembled as I took the glass. “I’m sorry. You look like my husband, Daniel. I mean, I thought you were him. A ghost or something.” I took a sip. The bourbon was smooth and I closed my eyes as I swished it around my mouth. “But you aren’t him. I saw him get sick and die. I saw….” I finished my drink and the memories flashed in my mind. “His remains.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not him,” Peter said.
“How…how do you know me?”
He exhaled and smiled. “My mind is spinning right now. This is a shock.”
“Yours?” I shook my head.
“Maybe we should sit down and talk?” He grabbed the bottle and splashed some more in my glass.
“Yeah, that’s a great idea.” Seeing that it was only a splash, I took the bottle, added some more and followed him to the kitchen table where we both sat down.
I wanted to hear what he had to say, how he knew me, why he was shocked to see me. But before I could fully listen and comprehend what he had to say, I had to get it together and remind myself I wasn’t sitting with Daniel. How could I be?
FOUR
SONNY
Papa Bear and Mama Bear had a name. At least I thought they did. While waiting for the Sleeper family to return, I started looking around.
I found old mail and pictures in a kitchen drawer. Calvin and Marissa. A couple that looked in their thirties with two small children. The kids probably passed away with the first event.
Processing what could be happening with the Sleepers was mind boggling, the evolution or transformation, whatever it was called.
They went from murderous sauntering beings to one that tried to assimilate a life they once had.
They ate, had sex, gave birth.
Healthy, normal non-Sleeper women were still giving birth to the ivory statue babies, yet, the Sleepers had a baby unaffected.
Stacy brought up the fact that for a woman in her group, the baby was fine until it was born. Maybe they should deliver babies early.
That made me think of Mera. Hope was born early by accident. Had that not occurred, would Hope have been another causality of the Sleeper virus?
I didn’t understand my recent infatuation with them. My secret, or rather past secret mission to capture them for Javier probably led to it. I was collecting them for him to kill or infect.
Maybe even cure, though that wasn’t possible.
Once a Sleeper, always a Sleeper.
I hadn’t been back at the townhouse long when I heard them arriving, Their footsteps dragging across the concrete outside, reminded me of all the times my one foster mother kept telling me, “Quit dragging your feet, Sonny.”
I used to think she was speaking metaphorically, that I was not doing something I should have been but no, I was dragging my feet and wearing down the bottoms of my shoes faster than I should have.
The front door was slightly ajar, just the way Alex and I found it and I stayed in the kitchen, tranquilizer gun in hand…waiting.
They walked in, making some sort of noise, almost as if they were communicating with each other.
I could see them from where I stood in the short hallway between the kitchen and the living room. They stopped and they knew. They knew someone was in the house.
Chins tilted upward, the sniffed like dogs, trying to catch the scent in the air above them.
They were pathetic, locked in some kind of smell dance. Alex would have laughed.
I just didn’t want to waste any more time.
It would still take time to get them from the house and into the truck.
Whether they were Calvin or Marissa, I didn’t know. It was hard to tell. They were pale and emaciated. Marissa was a mess. She was covered with blood, her over engorged breasts hung from her shirt and her belly was still swollen.
Sleepers | Book 8 Page 1