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Remnants Copyright © 2021 by Jason D. Morrow
Book design and layout copyright © 2021 by Jason D. Morrow
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Variant Publications.
1st Edition
Remnants
Book 1 of the Fallen Earth Series
Jason D. Morrow
Contents
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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
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Epilogue
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Chapter One
Leland’s eyes shot open when he heard the 10-98 code over the radio.
Did I hear that right? 10-98?
It wasn’t a common code. He knew what it was, but he had never heard it used. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and his hands gripped the side of the mattress while he listened for the call to come through again.
“Attention, all available units, we have a 10-98 out of Lone Oak. Suspect is considered dangerous and likely on foot.”
Which way is he headed? Have they seen him?
Leland looked at the clock next to the radio.
11:58.
He dreaded a night like this. A 10-98 was a code he had never heard used, but it was the one he knew the best because he feared it the most. With Lone Oak Prison just five miles up the road, it was only a matter of time until he would have to deal with an escaped convict.
His cell phone rattled on the nightstand and he flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Leland, did you hear the dispatch?” It was Dan from State.
“Yeah,” Leland said. He cleared his throat. “How long since they noticed he was missing?”
“Too long,” Dan said. “Might be a good idea to patrol Hope. You’re the closest.”
Leland didn’t have to be reminded of his town’s proximity to the notorious prison. The place was filled with the worst of the worst. Murderers, rapists.
“I’m on it,” he said, then he flipped the phone shut and made for his closet. He pulled on his uniform and jacket, then grabbed his gun belt. He wasn’t far from the office, so he planned to go there and see what report had been emailed to him and if there was some information to go off of.
He went to the bathroom and splashed some water on his face, then stopped for a moment to compose himself. Easy does it. Nothing good ever came from rushing into things.
He stopped by the door at the end of the hall and peeked into his daughter’s room. There was no sound, but he could see the shape of her sleeping soundly under the covers. Hopefully, this would be quick. Leland was just another body on the streets to make sure nothing happened to his town. It was the prison and state police that were in a frenzy at the moment. A small-town sheriff such as him had little to do with large chases or the affairs of Lone Oak. First, his daughter, then his town. Those were his priorities.
He stepped softly away from her doorway and slipped out into the night.
Chapter Two
Sheriff Leland West sipped his coffee from a white styrofoam cup as he sat in his cruiser watching Fristo’s gas station from a gravel lot across the street. The coffee was cold and bitter since it was left over from the previous morning. He wasn’t picky. All he wanted was for it to make his lip curl when the liquid got to the back of his tongue. It seemed the more bitter it was, the more caffeine it had. He didn’t know whether this was true or not, but his eyes felt alert despite the late hour. He looked at the clock on his dash.
12:42.
He looked at the printout of the fugitive. His name was Henry Tash—white, male, twenty-three years old, about six feet tall, shaggy brown hair. The mug shot was fuzzy on the paper, but Leland was sure he would recognize him if he showed up at the gas station. According to the report, Tash was the only convict to have made it out of the prison, which was a relief to Leland. He didn’t know anything about this man, but there were some well-known inmates in Lone Oak who could keep Leland up at night.
Leland figured if Henry Tash had just escaped Lone Oak State Prison, he wouldn’t have made his way to the nearest town. If he was smart he would have stuck to the woods, and if he had needed food or water he would have made his way to the edge of the county and hit up Fristo’s. Leland wasn’t sure if he should have counted on the inmate being smart.
A lot of the people in Hope, Wisconsin didn’t like that there was a maximum security prison just five miles down the road from them. Leland didn’t like it either, but he didn’t dwell on it.
Leland had made a choice in his search for Tash. He could have stayed in Hope, five miles north of the prison, or he could have traveled toward the county line five miles south of the prison.
He’d chosen south, and he wasn’t sure about his bet.
Hope was a nice little town, undeserving of its close proximity to a prison full of murderers and thieves. Crime was low, but so was the population, with fewer than a thousand people. The people tended to be friendly, though their seclusion got the best of them sometimes. News spread quickly when an outsider visited Hope. The further away the outsider was from, the more interesting the gossip. So little happened in Hope that if anything interesting occurred, people were quick to spread the story to their neighbors. There were few secrets in Hope. Leland wished there was a way to keep news of the fugitive a secret, but it would get out. It would be on the news in the morning and most within town would be frantic, thinking he was coming to get them. No one would be safe. No one should leave their homes. Leland would have to explain to them that if they hadn’t spotted the fugitive by morning, he was likely far away from Hope, but it wouldn’t matter. Not for weeks.
If Leland w
as right, however, and he was about to make a big arrest, then Hope would talk about that for years. They still talked about one arrest he had made in particular—one from five years ago. He’d been on the news and the town threw him a big party, but he didn’t like the attention. Catching a criminal, a murderer, didn’t feel like something to celebrate. It made him think about the human condition, the terrible things people did to one another. The world was a rough place and it was Leland’s job to protect a tiny portion of it.
It was a job, not a reason to celebrate.
Arrests tended to bring him more trouble than applause, however. For instance, sitting in his jail back in Hope was one of the McClure boys. Leland wasn’t sure how many people were in that family—seven? Eight? He had arrested Bryson McClure for disturbing the peace. The twenty-year-old had an annoying habit of revving his truck engine downtown. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t turned around, revved it again, and again—all just to make some old folks on Cherry Street angry. It was always that kind of thing with the McClures, and Leland had decided a night in jail might stop some of that, though he had a feeling he was just throwing rocks at a hornet’s nest.
He sipped his coffee, snarled, then took a deep breath. The cruiser was parked in the shadows behind a couple of large metal garbage bins, but he could see the gas station clearly between them. It was a decent hiding spot, especially since the streetlight above him was out.
He didn’t know how long he would stay and wait, particularly since this was a crapshoot. A hunch.
But Leland usually trusted his gut. His hunches didn’t always work out for him, but tonight was different. Maybe it was how the wind blew. Or maybe it was how well-rested he’d felt when he woke up the morning before. Maybe it was the convict in the khaki prison jumpsuit making his way on foot to the gas station entrance.
One of those things was telling him his gut was something to trust.
He waited only a few seconds as a commotion started in the gas station. Then he sipped the last of his coffee, snarled again, unlatched his seatbelt, and got out of the cruiser.
Chapter Three
Henry Tash hadn’t been ready for the night to get so cold. Even running through the woods for five miles straight hadn’t been enough to keep him warm. His skin itched, his mouth was dry, and he needed to get out of this jumpsuit.
He hated Wisconsin. It was barely October, and the cold chill of night had to be dipping into the low thirties.
He had known where the gas station was before he escaped Lone Oak. Getting there around this time of night had been part of the plan, though it was as close to civilization as he was willing to be. He needed new clothes, but if he couldn’t find them here, he could at least get food and water.
When he got to the edge of the woods, he stopped and looked around. There was one car parked on the side of Fristo’s, which was probably the worker’s. He couldn’t imagine why there would be a twenty-four-hour service station in the middle of nowhere like this, but he wasn’t going to complain.
He took a deep breath and crossed from dry, dead leaves, to gravel, to cracked concrete. His legs felt numb and his arms and chest were shaking under his thin uniform.
He didn’t slow down as he pushed open the glass door and made his way to the counter. The warmth of the indoor heat made his eyes water, and he was pleased to see that the man on the other side of the counter looked to be about his size.
The man, who was wearing jeans and an oversized green hoodie, was staring at his phone and didn’t look at Henry as he stood behind the cash register.
“Welcome to Fristo’s.” He sounded bored, absent.
Henry stood at the counter, letting the warm air blanket his body. “Do you have a gun behind the counter?”
The man looked up from his phone, and his eyes traveled all over Henry’s khaki uniform. They finally rested on Henry’s face and his jaw fell an inch. “I…uh…I…”
Henry didn’t wait for the answer. He reached forward, grabbed the man’s hoodie, and slammed his head down against the register in front of him. The man flopped to the floor, clutching his head, throwing blind curses in every direction.
Henry hopped the counter, scanned for a rifle, a pistol, anything. He grunted and kicked the attendant in the side, then grabbed his thickly gelled hair and pulled back his head so their eyes met.
“I need your clothes.”
“You can’t have my clothes!”
Henry kicked him in the head this time. The man wasn’t knocked out but he fell limp, then groaned as Henry yanked off his hoodie, shirt, and pants.
This was taking too much time.
He scrambled to get the clothes over his jumpsuit. If the cameras in the corners of the store still worked, he knew this would all be on the news later, scaring the local residents to death.
He was a lifer, after all.
A murderer.
That’s what they would lead with. Fear would keep people glued to the television. Fear would make the media money.
Once the news reported that Henry was out, people who didn’t lock their doors would start to, and they would be looking at every face with suspicion until he was either caught or faded from their memories.
He hopped the counter again and stormed the aisles, stuffing small pouches of food in his pockets. He got to the cooler and snatched two bottles of water and a canned energy drink.
The gas station attendant stood at the register rubbing his head, his skin raised with goosebumps from the sudden exposure.
Henry shot him one last look before throwing open the exit door. The attendant came running behind him, but Henry didn’t pay him any attention. He was more concerned that there was a police officer walking toward him with a hand on his gun.
Chapter Four
Leland had left his coat in the passenger seat. His eyes were alert and his right hand held his pistol. He didn’t feel nervous. This was rookie stuff compared to his early career when he lived in Texas. He had grown accustomed to a slower pace, though. His prevailing thought was why didn’t Henry Tash try to escape earlier so I didn’t have to drag myself out of bed in the middle of the night?
The gas station attendant burst from the doors yelling, “You thief! I’m calling the…”
Henry Tash and the attendant stopped when they saw Leland.
The prisoner had apparently stolen the attendant’s clothes, and instead of remaining where he was, the idiot had decided to charge after the fugitive in his boxer shorts. Leland could see the fugitive’s face clearly. It was Henry Tash, no doubt about it.
“Evening, gentlemen,” Leland said.
White vapor blew from the fugitive’s mouth as he stared wide-eyed at Leland.
The gas station attendant fumed. “He assaulted me! And he didn’t pay!”
“For the clothes, or the food bulging out of his pockets?”
Henry Tash was ready to bolt, Leland could see it in his eyes. Leland tapped the badge on his uniform with his left hand.
“Name’s Sheriff Leland West. As I understand it, you’ve had a pretty big night, but I’m afraid it’s over. I’d really appreciate it if you would take your hands out of your pockets.”
The inmate’s jaws clenched and Leland raised the gun, though he kept it pointed to the side. He didn’t want Henry Tash to feel any more threatened than he needed to be, but Leland didn’t want to be careless either. If the escapee was able to get new clothes, he could have gotten his hands on a weapon, too.
“I don’t want to shoot you, but if you move a muscle I have every right to. If you run, I’ll aim for your legs for the first few shots, but if I miss I’ll aim for a bigger target. You get what I’m saying?”
“You talk a lot.”
“You’ll have about three seconds of running and eight chances. If after all that you’re still lucky, I have half a mind to let you keep going.”
“I’m not going back to prison.”
“It’s that or the hospital, then prison. Or the grave. It’s u
p to you.”
Neither of them moved.
“Take your hands out of your pockets.” Leland’s voice was more commanding this time. He could feel his heart starting to thump louder.
“You mind if I call you Henry? Hank?”
Henry looked at Leland like the sheriff was insane.
“I’m willing to think you’ve only got peanuts and Doritos in there,” Leland said, “but if you don’t pull your hands out and prove it to me, then things are gonna get ugly real quick.”
Henry studied him for a moment, then he made a gamble. Instead of giving up, or running to either side, he charged Leland.
Now, this kid is either dumber than a box of rocks, or he’s a genius...
It was a quick thought, but it completed about the time Henry’s shoulder rammed into Leland’s chest. He hadn’t expected such a bold move, but it made sense. The gas station attendant had been directly behind Henry. He might have known Leland wouldn’t shoot in his direction because he wouldn’t have wanted to accidentally hit a civilian.
Fallen Earth | Book 1 | Remnants Page 1
