The Oklahoma Wastelands
The Complete Box Set
Kate L. Mary
Contents
The Loudest Silence
Prologue
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
Bonus Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Acknowledgments
The Brightest Darkness
Prologue
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
Acknowledgments
The Sweetest Torment
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Bonus Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Acknowledgments
Also by Kate L. Mary
About the Author
The Loudest Silence
Book One in The Oklahoma Wastelands Series
Contents
Prologue
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
Bonus Content
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Acknowledgments
Published by Twisted Press, LLC, an independently owned company.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to person, living or dead, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Kate L. Mary
Cover Art by Kate L. Mary
Edited by Lori Whitwam
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is dedicated to the city of Altus, Oklahoma and the people living there.
“City with a future to share”
Hopefully, that future doesn’t involve the zombie apocalypse.
Prologue
The thud of footsteps drew my attention from Matt’s raspy breathing. Someone was in the hallway. My body felt like a rock as I waited for whoever it was to appear. Heavy and cold. It was the shock of everything. I knew it, but I still blinked like I thought I might be imagining things, but I was painfully aware that everything I’d experienced over the last few days was real.
Kellan stopped in the doorway, and his brown eyes moved over me before focusing on Matt. When they did, sadness flashed in them that felt chillingly out of place. The teenage boy in front of me wasn’t usually a cold person. He smiled and laughed, and poked fun at me enough to make most people think we were related even though I was nothing more than his best friend’s pesky younger sister. But those were the normal emotions of a teenage boy, while the despair currently in his eyes wasn’t. It ran too deep. It was a pain that had no right existing in the eyes of someone so young.
Kellan was still staring at Matt when he moved further into the room. “How is he?”
“It won’t be long,” I said through tears. “Mom died yesterday. Dad the day before.”
My words were little more than a choked whisper. Sadness had wrapped its fingers around my throat, making it hard to make a sound. I’d not only had to watch my parents die, but I’d had to take care of them all on my own, too. Matt had tried to help, but within hours of Mom getting sick, he’d come down with symptoms himself. After that, the responsibility had been completely on my twelve-year-old shoulders.
The chair I was sitting in was pulled up to the side of the bed so I was close to my brother in case he needed me, and when Kellan stopped, he was right at my side. I had to tilt my head back so I could see his face, but his focus was on Matt. As I watched, Kellan blinked a couple times, and I found my gaze drawn to the moisture on his lashes. Was he crying? He couldn’t be. Kellan was fifteen and strong. He didn’t cry.
“My parents are dead, too,” he said, his gaze staying on Matt’s face. “I think everyone is.”
I swallowed and whispered, “Why do you think that?”
Kellan tore his gaze from Matt so he could look at me, and I saw his eyes weren’t just wet. They were rimmed with red. “It’s so quiet outside. No cars. No planes. No sounds of any kind. It’s like the whole world vanished.”
“I haven’t been outside.” It was all I could think to say as my gaze moved from Kellan to Matt.
His eyes were open and focused on me.
“Matt.” I half stood as I reached for him, taking his sticky hand in mine.
His grip was weak, his fingers oddly bony considering just a few weeks ago he’d been the tough fifteen-year-old who’d spent his days playing every sport imaginable.
“Hey, butthead.” He gave me a weak smile, but his eyes showed how much pain he was in. “Can you get me a drink?”
“Yes.” I didn’t want to let him go, but I had to when I realized the glass on his nightstand was now empty. “I’ll be right back,” I said as I got to my feet.
Once I was out of t
he way, Kellan took my place in the chair. When my brother’s friend reached out to take Matt’s hand, it did something to me that nothing else had. These two teenage boys shouldn’t be holding hands. They were too tough for that. Yet they were, and neither one seemed even a little ashamed.
“You’re okay?” Matt coughed when the words scratched their way out of him.
“I’m okay,” Kellan murmured.
In the hall, I headed for the bathroom so I could refill the glass, not looking at the closed bedroom door at the end of the hall. If I didn’t look at it, I wouldn’t have to think about my parents’ bodies. Wouldn’t have to think about how my brother would soon be joining them.
In the bathroom, I paused before turning on the faucet, taking a moment to lean against the counter. My legs and hands shook, and my heart pounded twice as hard. I felt on the verge of dying. I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t do this by myself. Couldn’t be alone.
In the other room, I could just hear the soft voices of my brother and his best friend talking.
“You have to watch out for her,” I heard my brother say between raspy breaths that made my heart hurt. He was in so much pain.
“You know I will. Just like I always have.” Kellan’s voice was louder, but as shaky as my legs.
“Like we did at the lake that time,” Matt said. “Remember?”
“Yeah.” Kellan let out a little laugh that sounded sad. “Those older boys kicked down her sandcastle so we chased them off.”
“Scared them so bad they wouldn’t leave their mom’s side the rest of the day,” Matt replied.
“No one is allowed to pick on Regan except us,” Kellan said.
They laughed. Kellan’s laughter was mixed with tears while Matt’s cut off only a second later by a cough that seemed to go on and on.
“It’s okay,” Kellan said. “It’s okay. Regan, water!”
“I’m coming,” I called, my words sounding more like sobs.
I filled the glass in my hand, my eyes too full of tears to really see what I was doing. By the time I’d made it back into the room, Matt had stopped coughing, and his eyes were closed. It looked like every breath hurt.
When Kellan looked my way, his eyes were full of fear. This was it, and we both knew it. This was the end.
Kellan moved from the chair, and I took a seat at my brother’s side. “I have your water.”
Matt’s eyes opened, but he didn’t reach for it. “I love you, Regan.”
“No.” My body shook when I started crying again, and water sloshed from the glass in my hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t say that.”
Kellan eased the glass from my hand so he could put it on the table. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “We’re going to be okay.”
“I’m not. I don’t want to be alone.”
When I shook my head, my brown hair fell over my forehead and I had to shove it away. It was greasy and stringy. When was the last time I washed it? I couldn’t remember.
Matt reached for me, and I took his hand. “You won’t be alone. Kellan is here.”
With my hand still in my brother’s, I turned to his best friend.
“You aren’t alone, Regan.” Kellan’s eyes were on me, big and brown and as sad as I felt. “I’m with you. I’ll watch over you. I promise.”
Before I could say a word, Matt started coughing again. This time it was followed by a gasp that made it sound like he couldn’t fill his lungs.
Kellan and I moved at the same time. He helped Matt sit while I patted his back. My brother coughed, his gasps getting worse as his face turned red. His eyes were huge and full of pain and terror. It felt like a knife slashed at my heart. Tears filled my eyes as I beat on his back, over and over, but it didn’t help. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.
“No, Matt,” I gasped between tears. “No, no, no.”
It was all I could say. I wasn’t ready to tell him goodbye. I wasn’t ready for the last member of my family to die.
It was over in a minute. Matt’s gasps for air stopped. His eyes were still wide, his mouth open as he tried to take in a breath, but he couldn’t. He jerked, and his face got redder. His lips turned blue. Then I blinked and he was gone.
Kellan lowered him to the bed while I flopped back in my chair. Tears fell down my cheeks, and I wanted to run out of the room, out of the house, but I couldn’t. All I could do was cry.
Kellan pulled me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. “It’s okay.”
It was the first time my brother’s best friend had ever hugged me, but it didn’t feel weird. Not after everything that had happened. Just like me, he was crying.
“What do we do now?” I said against Kellan’s chest.
“I don’t know.” He held me tighter. “I just know that I’m here. I’m going to take care of you, Regan. I promise. You aren’t alone.”
Clinging to him and his words, I closed my eyes. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t alone. Kellan was going to be here for me no matter what.
It was the only thing that could have comforted me at that moment.
1
Nine years later
Kellan sped down the road, leaving a trail of dirt in our wake that reminded me of the dust storm that had swept through last summer. From the passenger seat I watched the barren landscape fly by, brown and almost blinding in its brightness. The road, now nearly buried by the sandy Oklahoma terrain, was cracked and peppered with holes from age and neglect, and I tightened my grip on the door when the tires thumped over a particularly deep fissure. My elbow poked out of the open window, slowly getting scorched by the sun’s rays while sweat beaded on my upper lip. When I licked my lips, the salty taste of sweat was accompanied by an earthy grit I had long ago gotten used to. The drought had been going strong for five years now, but even before the earth had turned to dust beneath our feet, the violent winds had made it impossible not to get covered in sand when you went outside. Especially when you were speeding down the road the way we were right now.
“Look,” Kellan called, raising his voice to be heard over the roar of the wind rushing through the car.
He kept his hands on the steering wheel as he nodded toward something in front of us. I leaned forward, squinting so I could see through the dusty goggles I wore. Thanks to the sun shining down on the landscape, it took a few seconds to make out what he was pointing at, and even then I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to see. It was a truck, pulled off to the side of the road with its doors wide open. Nothing new, really. Abandoned vehicles were common. It wasn’t like there were mechanics around every corner.
Kellan eased his foot off the gas, and the car slowed. He didn’t stop completely, though. His eyes, barely visible behind his goggles, were focused on the truck. “It wasn’t there last time I came out.”
“So?” I didn’t have to yell to be heard since he was driving slower than before.
Kellan’s mouth turned down in one corner and he shook his head. “Look at it, Regan.”
I rolled my eyes behind my own goggles before ripping them off. Kellan still hadn’t stopped the car, but he was driving slowly enough that I was able to get a good look at the truck as we rolled past it. Blood, reddish brown against the off white paint, was smeared across the open driver’s side door.
My hand went to the gun strapped to my hip. “Zombies?”
I was already scanning the landscape, not bothering to put my goggles back on. There was no sign of the dead, but that didn’t mean a thing. They could have attacked this poor asshole then wandered off, drawn away by another sound, maybe.
“Look at it, Regan.”
Kellan had that tone. The one that ruffled my feathers. The one that made him sound patronizing, like he was my father or even an older brother. He was neither, which was what pissed me off.
My back stiffened and I shot him a glare, but he just nodded to the truck again. It was behind us now, so I had to twist in my seat and stick my head out the window, but when I did, I saw what he meant. I
tems littered the ground around the truck like everything had been pulled out and thrown around. As if someone had searched the interior for something useful. Even worse, there was blood on some of the items.
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 1