by Olah, Jeff
Owen pushed their clothes onto the floor and then leaned in to kiss her. Her lips were wet and she tasted like strawberry lemonade. She kissed him back, hard, and with a hint of pent up aggression.
He liked it.
Almost too much.
The world faded, and with it the voices in his head. The voices he had almost forgotten were there, the voices that used to control his every thought and his every action. They were still there, but now they were buried beneath the release of endorphins that had flooded his body as well as his mind.
They made love with little care for the world beyond. It was better than it had been in as long as he could remember, connecting in a way he thought they’d forgotten how. Just the two of them, everything else falling away behind the locked door of their makeshift bedroom.
“Hey,” Owen said, struggling to catch his breath, “I love you too.”
Natalie now lay by his side, her face on his chest. She was quiet for a long time, but then glanced up at him. “Where do you go?”
“Uh, what?”
“What is it, how have you been able to shut it off? I know it can’t be easy for you, but I just wanted you to know that I can tell.” She paused to kiss him. “Whatever it was, whatever you’ve had to do, it looks like it’s working. These last few months, you just seem … I don’t know, somehow better. I don’t think I’ve seen you like this in years.”
It was faint, but they both heard it. Owen’s name came over the radio. It didn’t sound urgent, but it sounded as though he was needed.
He began to pull away, but then looked at Natalie and laid back down. “How about that date night?”
40
There were three quick knocks at the door and then nothing.
Owen pulled Natalie’s face to his and kissed her one last time. “Must be something important, Ethan wouldn’t come all the way down here without a good reason.”
“Dad?”
Natalie shifted onto her side and pulled up the sheet. “Noah?”
Owen was out of bed and had his pants on before his son could answer. “Yeah buddy?”
“Dad, they need you. Mr. Ethan told me …” His voice trailed off, sounded like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to say. “Uh …”
Owen slipped on a t-shirt, reached for a ball cap, and opened the door. His son looked at him first and then around him at Natalie. “Dad, they need you.”
“What is it?” Owen rested his hand on Noah’s shoulder and peered out over the second level of the former shopping mall.
Noah reached for his hand and tugged him away from the door. “Come on, you have to hurry.”
“Noah.” Natalie draped the blanket around herself and stood from the bed. “What’s going on, is there trouble?”
The ten year old shook his head. “I don’t know, Mr. Tom and Mr. Bryce went out to the gates. Lucas said he thinks there are some people out there.”
“People?”
“At the gates?”
Owen moved back inside, slipped on his boots, and turning toward Natalie, reached for the two-way radio. “Get ahold of Ava and call me.” He held out his hand for Noah and stepped into the hall. “We’ll find out what this is and come right back, please stay here.”
With Noah tucked behind his left arm, Owen broke into a slow jog, his head on a swivel. “Where are they?”
“Who?”
“Ethan, Travis, Devin?”
“Uh …” Noah hesitated, looking toward the opposite end of the second floor. “I think over there.”
Owen saw it at the same time. There had to be at least two dozen people standing outside the former mattress store. He spotted Ethan at the door and a few others he didn’t recognize. A tall man with a thick dark hair stood out among the others, his voice carrying the distance. “I told you, we don’t know, we lost him a few hours ago.”
Past the escalator and moving in and out of the crowd, Owen came up behind Lucas. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“How many?”
“Seven or eight,” Lucas said. “Four women, and three or four men. I think Emma and Gentry have one of them inside.”
“Injured?”
Lucas nodded. “Pretty badly I think.”
The man with the dark hair had moved off to the side. He continued to talk with Ethan, the volume in his voice again increasing. “Yes, I already told you.”
Owen turned to Lucas. “You and Noah stay out here. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay.”
Owen scanned the faces of the crowd as he moved through, counting five that he could confirm he’d never seen. He came up behind the dark haired man as he eyed Ethan. “Whatta we got?”
The dark haired man turned from Ethan to Owen and then back. He looked confused, like he hadn’t slept in a week. His face was dirty, his cheeks drawn, and his eyes were circled in charcoal rings.
Ethan motioned toward the former mattress store. “You’re not going to believe this.”
The man with the dark hair stepped in front of Ethan. “Are you going to help him?”
“We’re doing what we can.”
Ethan opened the door and waited for the dark haired man and Owen to follow. He ran his hand over his face, paused a moment and then motioned toward the bed in the corner of the room. “He’s in bad shape, but he’s breathing.”
Owen shook his head, was still a step behind. “Who?”
Ethan looked to the man between them. “This is Randy. He and his friends showed up out front an hour ago.”
“Who’s in the bed?”
The dark haired man ran his hand over his face. His chest was full and he was fighting back tears. “His name is Mason Thomas. He was attacked out on the road.”
Gentry moved around the left side of the bed, giving Owen a clear view of the injured man. There was blood, but not anything that seemed to be cause for concern. His eyes were closed, although his chest rose and fell at an even cadence. His clothes were dirty and torn, covered in dried blood, but that wasn’t uncommon in this new existence.
It wasn’t until Gentry moved away from the side of the bed that the full picture came clear. From where he stood it appeared that the man had lost the ring and pinky fingers of his left hand. The wound looked fresh, thick black blood slowly running from his wrist to his elbow. It was shocking to look at, but still didn’t appear to tell the whole story.
“What happen, other than the obvious?”
Ethan didn’t respond, neither did the man he now knew as Randy. They just stared at each other waiting for Gentry to make his way over.
“Where’s the kid?” Gentry wiped his hands as he looked up at Randy.
“Sean?”
“Yes,” Gentry said, “Sean Lockwood, I need him here.”
The dark haired man started back toward the doors. “I’ll get him.”
Owen waited for the man to exit the room before turning back toward the bed and shaking his head. “What’s going on, what aren’t you saying?”
Gentry continued wiping the blood from his hands, but didn’t speak right away. When he finally looked up, he turned first to Ethan and then slowly to Owen. “We aren’t sure just yet.”
“You’re not sure, about what?”
Gentry took a step back. He glanced at the bed and then the door. “We think that man was infected earlier this morning, possibly only a few hours before we helped his friends pull him from the side of the road.”
Owen was forming his next question, although Gentry continued. “But I’m not sure we should tell the others, not just yet.”
“Tell them what exactly.”
“That man, Mason Thomas, he might be the one.”
“The one?”
Gentry paused a moment, finally resting his hand on Owen’s shoulder. “That man may end up saving what’s left of this world. He might just be your needle in the haystack.”
Epilogue
Day five hundred...
Owen Mercer sat in a folding chair along the edge of th
e east wall and stared off toward the horizon. His replacement would be along in less than ten minutes, but at the moment he was in no hurry. The purples and yellows that bled together against the early morning sky had him contemplating what the next few weeks would hold. He didn’t like having to leave his family, and Natalie liked it even less.
But this was the only way.
“Hey you.”
Her voice was quiet, morning quiet. Like she was trying not to wake the dead. He laughed at the thought. It was the same as it was yesterday and then the day before that. The same as it had been for the last three weeks.
He waited to respond until he could hear her shoes against the makeshift staircase. “You again?”
Natalie blew gently into his ear as she kissed the side of his face. “You expecting someone else?”
He looked back, but only out of the corner of his eye. “Travis, you’re early. I told you Nat would be here any minute, we have to keep this quiet.”
Natalie smacked the side of his head, stepped around him, and sat in his lap. “I knew it. The way the two of you look at one another, the long glances across the food court, it was just a matter of time.”
Owen pulled her into his chest and kissed her forehead. “You know you didn’t have to come all the way out here, I would’ve been in, in like fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah.” She now stared off toward the same horizon. “But I wanted to be the first.”
Owen smirked, but after a few seconds he realized he had no idea why. “The first?”
“You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Uh … I don’t think I—”
“I was right.”
“You were?”
“Yeah, I was sure you had no idea last night, even with all the hints.”
Owen scratched at the three day growth along his chin. “I’m guessing I missed an anniversary or maybe a birthday.”
Natalie sat up, turning to face him. “You really have no idea what day it is?”
“Uh, Thursday?”
“Okay, how about the date?”
He thought it was early to mid-summer, but had given up counting the days a few months back. “June … uh …”
“Close.”
He was at a total loss and could only stare back at her.
“Really, no idea?”
“Really.”
Natalie kissed him again. “I think you’ve probably just got a mental block on it.”
He was getting that feeling he usually got right before he realized he was in trouble. “On what?”
“The big four oh.”
“Wait … that’s today? No way.”
“Yep,” Natalie said. “You exited your thirties last night at midnight.”
“No way I’m forty.”
“Sad, but true. You feel any different?”
Owen laughed. “Not different, just kinda slow.”
“You mean no different at all?”
“Very funny.”
“So … on your birthday?”
It was in her voice. She didn’t need to say it and he didn’t need to ask. He knew what was coming, and just hoped it would go better than it did in the many scenarios he had played out in his mind over the last twenty-four hours.
“You know we have to do this.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
He wanted to convince her to see it his way, but knew that wasn’t ever going to happen. “We’ll be out and back in three days. We’re only taking the cleared highways and have plenty of protection. We’ll be in more danger from sheer boredom.”
“Why is it that I don’t believe you?”
“Is that really a question?”
She didn’t answer.
“Once we get Mason to the Berkeley campus and get everything wrapped up, we’ll radio down and let you know when we’re heading back. Easy peasy.”
“Is this really the last time?”
Owen nodded. “The former Governor from Iowa is making the trip. They’ve pulled together every available resource to make this happen.”
“And it absolutely has to happen?”
“You know we can’t keep it all to ourselves, there are people out there who need our help. Getting Mason to that school is the start of something new, a real life way to get the world back to the way it was.”
She looked off toward the morning sun once more. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Just promise me one thing.”
“Sure.”
“Promise me that even though the world might someday get back to the way it used to be, that you and I won’t.”
“What?”
“I like the new us. The new you, and especially the way the new you makes the new me better.”
Owen leaned back, taking her hands in his. “Better?”
“Don’t get me wrong, our old life was good. We had everything we could possibly want, maybe even more than that. And this new world sucks, but somehow in this new world, here with you, with the kids, I feel different … better. I felt like I was just going through the motions before, like a robot with no real purpose. I took most everything for granted. But now, at the end of everything, I feel like a human again.”
“Yeah?”
“I know it’s dumb, probably just over-emotional, but—”
“It’s not dumb,” Owen said. “I feel the same way sometimes. I don’t like the way we have to live now, but I feel like we’ve been through the worst of it.”
“I hope so.”
Owen hugged her tightly and kissed her one last time. “I do too.”
As they parted, there was the sound of footsteps again at the base of the wooden staircase. And then a voice. “Hey old man, happy birthday.”
Owen turned slightly in his chair. Travis was already halfway to the top. “How the hell did you know?”
“Everyone knows, except you I’m guessing.”
“It would appear that way.”
Travis offered Natalie a quick smile. “Hey man, your wife told us we needed to keep it quiet.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“Well, happy birthday all the same. I hear fifty is a tough one though.”
“And you’re what, a few years younger than me?”
Travis held his hand to the side of his face. “Don’t tell anyone, but we’re only three months apart.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, we can go looking for retirement homes when we get back.”
At that, Natalie looked from Owen to Travis and back. She didn’t say anything, although her eyes started to glass over and it was obvious what was coming.
Owen pulled her in again and held her. He looked to Travis and forced a smile. “The others ready?”
Travis looked out beyond the gates. “They’re coming around now.”
“Alright then.”
Travis started back down the stairs, motioning Bryce over from the loading docks. “We’re good.”
“Three days,” Owen said, staring into the eyes of the only woman he ever really loved. “It’ll be like I never even left.”
A tear slowly glided down Natalie’s cheek. “Please come back to me … to the kids … please.”
“Nat, this isn’t the life I wanted for us, but we are all still here and we’re together. I know it’s not perfect, but it will get better, one day at a time. And trust me, after all we’ve been through, there’s no way you’re getting rid of me. Not now, not two weeks from now, not ever.”
Natalie only nodded.
“I promise, seventy-two hours. And Nat … I love you.”
“I love you too, Owen Mercer.”
What’s Next?
THE NOVEMBER PLAGUE
DRIFT – (Book One)
An All New Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller
COMING SOON!
To be notified the moment it becomes available, be sure to join the “New Releases” mai
ling list at: www.JeffOlah.com
Also, if you’d like a sneak peek of the two best-selling post-apocalyptic series The Last Outbreak and The Dead Years simply turn the page. (And … they were created in the same universe as The Next World)
Enjoy!
Sneak peek of The Last Outbreak
PROLOGUE
Exactly ten minutes early, Emma Runner strode into the twenty-thousand square foot privately owned hanger of BXF Technologies. Sitting in silence, a pair of Gulfstream G280s waited to usher her away from the city. Moving quickly across the red and white polished concrete floor, she avoided eye contact with the pilot, now staring down at her from the cabin door. She instead moved toward the black, Italian leather sofa situated along the rear wall, dropped her bags, and reached for her phone.
Entering her pass code, she glanced back at the pilot and held up an index finger. He nodded and disappeared back into the jet. Returning to the backlit screen, she stared at the message icon and shook her head. And because her OCD would eat her alive if she dropped her phone back into her bag, she opened the app to confirm there were no new messages. “Come on Ethan.”
Before closing out her messages, she re-read the most recent and swallowed hard. Why would we need to leave tonight? Why at four in the morning, and why back to the West Coast? They’d only arrived a week earlier, and she’d just gotten used to the new time zone. However, these were questions she’d have to keep to herself. After hearing the story about the last person to interrogate the man running this company, she didn’t need another reason to continue down that path.
Running on less than two hours of sleep, she was exhausted. Even the four cups of superheated caffeine were making little headway in reviving her from last night’s client dinner. She was initially nervous to meet the businessmen from the other side of the continent, and for the first few hours, she only spoke when absolutely necessary.
. . .
The men were introduced as Maxwell Amador and Gerald Fienberg. All she was told was that they helped fund the new project she’d be assigned to, and that they were given only base-level information, and promised a five-hundred percent return once the end product hit the battlefield.
