The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2: Books 4 - 6 (Ashes, Eden Rising, & Dream Sky)

by Brett Battles

  “Where are we going?” one of the kids asked.

  “On a field trip,” Miss Collins told her.

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see when we get there.”

  “This way,” Brandon said, opening the door.

  With him in the lead and Miss Collins bringing up the rear, they headed out. They were only halfway to the SUV when a voice called out, “What’s going on here?”

  Brandon stopped in his tracks and twisted around. Mrs. Trieb was standing at the far end of the parking area near the dorms, staring at them. He knew in his gut that if he hadn’t disturbed her sleep, she would have never gotten up.

  She sniffled and ran a hand under her nose. “I asked you a question. What the hell’s going on?”

  “Get them in the truck,” Miss Collins whispered toward Brandon. She then turned toward her boss. “Alicia, look at yourself.”

  “Keep going, everyone,” Brandon said, getting the kids moving again.

  “You’re sick,” Miss Collins went on. “You’ve got the flu.”

  “Sick? What are you talking about? I’m not sick. It’s a headache, that’s all.” As if to emphasize the point, Mrs. Trieb touched her temple and winced. “Get those children back to their beds.”

  “You are sick,” Miss Collins told her. “And it’s not just you. These kids are the only ones who aren’t. I have to get them out of here before they get sick, too. You would do the same. If you don’t believe me, go back to the dorms and listen to the coughs.”

  With another wipe of her nose, Mrs. Trieb started walking toward the group, her balance far from perfect. “Everyone, back to your beds!”

  “Alicia, please!” Miss Collins shouted, moving to keep herself between Mrs. Trieb and the others. “If you get too close you’ll expose them, too! I know you don’t want that.”

  Brandon ran the last few feet to the Suburban and threw open a side door. “Everybody in. Quick.”

  The ones closest to him piled in, but those in back looked unsure of what to do as they glanced between him, Miss Collins, and Mrs. Trieb.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Loni said, urging the younger ones along.

  After the last of them was in the car, Vincent and Carter followed.

  “You, too,” Brandon said to Loni.

  “What about you?”

  “Just get in and keep them calm. I’ll be right there.”

  Reluctantly, she climbed inside.

  “Hey!” Mrs. Trieb yelled as she altered her course toward Brandon. “You get them out of that car right now!”

  Miss Collins repositioned herself in front of her boss again. “Alicia! Stop! You don’t want to do this!”

  “Shut up, bitch!”

  Mrs. Trieb was fifty feet away from the Suburban, Miss Collins twenty feet in front of her.

  “Get in the car,” Miss Collins said to Brandon.

  He hesitated a moment before climbing into the front passenger seat. As soon as the door closed, Miss Collins turned and ran for the SUV. When she reached the truck, she circled around the front to the driver’s side door.

  Unfortunately, Mrs. Trieb had also picked up her pace. Though she wasn’t as fast as Miss Collins, she was able to round the hood just as the younger woman pulled on the door handle.

  “You’re not going to make it!” Brandon yelled.

  Miss Collins looked over at her colleague, and realized Brandon was right. She let go of the door and ran around the back end of the truck. Brandon reached over and pressed the door lock button. There was a loud clunk as all the locks engaged. Behind him, many of the kids started to cry.

  “It’s okay,” Loni said. “We’re going to be fine.”

  Brandon hopped over the center console into the driver’s seat.

  “What are you doing?” Vincent asked.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing?”

  Brandon moved the seat as far forward as it would go, helping his foot reach the pedals.

  “You know how to drive?” Carter asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Brandon started the engine.

  “I don’t believe you,” Vincent said. “Who taught you?”

  “My dad,” Brandon said. “Now be quiet so I can pay attention.” He moved the transmission into Drive and sped forward.

  “What about Miss Collins?” Loni asked.

  Brandon didn’t answer. Before he reached the end of the parking area, he turned the truck back around and stopped there as he scanned the area for Miss Collins.

  “Where is she?” he asked. “Do any of you see her?”

  “I don’t know,” Loni said.

  Mrs. Trieb had once more changed directions and was now heading for the cafeteria entrance.

  Brandon rolled down his window and yelled, “Miss Collins!” When she didn’t appear, he honked the horn and called her name again.

  Mrs. Trieb turned to look at the truck, twisting her whole body as if the muscles in her neck no longer worked.

  “Miss Collins!”

  A door slammed somewhere. Not near the cafeteria, but in the direction of the dormitories.

  “You kids get out of there,” Mrs. Trieb yelled, her voice barely audible above the Suburban’s engine. “Go back to your cabins.” Miss Collins seemingly forgotten, she lurched toward them again.

  Movement to the left caught Brandon’s attention. Two of the older boys were coming down the path from the dorms, one holding a hand over his mouth as he coughed.

  We have to get out of here, Brandon thought.

  “Miss Collins!” he yelled again. “Where are you?”

  A head poked out from behind the far end of the cafeteria—Miss Collins, looking nervous and scared.

  “Everyone hang on,” Brandon said as he rolled up his window.

  He switched his foot from the brake to the accelerator, and drove in a wide arc around Mrs. Trieb over to the cafeteria. As he neared the logs that marked the back of the lot, he tried to do one of the tricks his father had shown him, slamming on the brakes as he whipped the wheel around.

  The Suburban tipped violently to the left, the wheels on the passenger side all but leaving the ground. Almost everyone in back screamed. The truck rocked back to the right, then left, then right again before settling back down.

  “Whoa!” Vincent said. “Your dad taught you that?”

  Brandon lowered his window again and yelled at Miss Collins, “Hurry!”

  She broke from the building and ran around the back of the truck. Just as she got to the passenger door, Brandon pushed the Unlock button. She yanked the door open, and jumped into the seat. The second the door was closed again, Brandon relocked everything.

  “You want to drive?” he asked.

  She shook her head, her face strained with fear. “You seem to be doing fine.”

  Brandon did a quick look around. Mrs. Trieb was a good thirty feet away, still heading toward them. The two boys who’d come out of the dorm were standing near the end of the path, and a few others had staggered outside to see what was going on.

  “Get us out of here,” Vincent said.

  Not needing further encouragement, Brandon gunned the engine, slalomed around Mrs. Trieb, and raced out to the road that would take them away from Camp Kiley.

  Twenty-Three

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BELINDA RAMSEY

  ENTRY DATE—DECEMBER 27, 2:00 AM

  THE ONLY THINGS I can get on TV now are infomercials and movies. Most of the stations are no longer broadcasting. Either they have a logo just sitting there or the channel has gone completely dark. In a way, that’s even scarier than when they were showing what was going on.

  So far, no one has tried to get onto my floor. Thought I heard a noise in the stairwell earlier in the evening, but if it was someone, they didn’t come up this high. I think that’s probably my best safety feature. Anyone who’s sick won’t have the energy to climb more than a floor or two, and if what the news had been saying is correct, then pretty much everyone is sick.

  The
thing that’s been worrying me the most has been the elevator. It’s the easy way up. I had blocked the entrance, but it wouldn’t take much to get through my barricade. I finally decided I needed to take a chance and do something a bit more drastic.

  I hunted through some of the other rooms, and found a rain slicker that went down past my knees, some rubber boots, and a pair of skiing gloves. (By the way, if for some reason everything goes back to normal, I’m probably going to be on the hook for the cost of the door to Kendal’s room. I just figured it would be cheaper to bust into hers, since she’s our resident advisor, and find her master keys than to break through all the doors.) I also took one of the medical masks out of the floor’s first-aid kit, and my roommate’s swimming goggles.

  When I put everything on and pulled the hood over my head, I’d created what would probably be a pretty good Halloween costume. (No, I didn’t think that at the time. I’m trying to be clever in hindsight. It’s helping me to keep my sanity.)

  I dismantled my barrier, and, well…I don’t know how long I stood in front of the elevator dressed like that before I finally pushed the button to call up the car. I knew it was risky, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep very well until I was sure the elevator was out of service.

  I moved back as far as I could while still able see inside the elevator when the door opened. My biggest fear was that there would be someone in the car. Dead or not really didn’t matter; either would probably mean my death. But if you had asked me at that point which I preferred, I would have said a dead body. The sight of someone stepping out, coughing and sneezing, might have been enough to give me a heart attack.

  Thankfully, the car was empty. I had intended to race over right away, then use Kendal’s elevator key to put it in fire mode, which, if I remembered correctly, would send the car back to the first floor, where it would stay unless another key was used to reactivate it. But when the door opened, I froze.

  “Come on,” I told myself after it closed again. “You’ve got to do this.”

  I willed myself back to the call button and pushed it again, which wasn’t easy. I don’t think my hand had ever felt that heavy. As soon as the door reopened, I stepped inside, and pivoted around so I was facing the control panel. The key slipped right into the slot, but I turned it the wrong way first and all the lights inside went off. After cursing at myself, I flipped it in the other direction.

  Immediately, the lights turned back on and the door started to close. I nearly panicked, thinking I was going to be trapped inside. Without thinking, I threw my arm in between the doors and broke the electronic beam. I can’t even describe the relief I felt when the doors opened again.

  I jumped out, but kept a booted foot pressed against the door so it would remain open. With the alarm inside beeping, I stripped off my homemade protection suit and threw it piece by piece into the elevator car, gloves and boots last. The gear would have been nice to hold on to, but I figured I should be able to scrounge up another set if I need it, and I didn’t want to take the chance that any of the Sage Flu virus had transferred to the other stuff I was wearing.

  As soon as the door was freed, it closed all the way, and the car descended back to the main lobby.

  Now I am truly alone but, hopefully, safe. If that means I’m going to be the last person on Earth, I’m not sure how I feel about that. But I have to believe that if I’m able to survive, others will, too.

  Of course, survival is contingent on staying away from the virus. What I don’t know—and there probably won’t be anyone who can tell me—is will I ever be able to leave the building? At some point I’ll have to, but will the virus still be active then?

  I’m sure starting to wish I’d majored in biology instead of English. I tried looking for more information on the Web, but the Internet connection here at the dorm stopped working around dinnertime. I still have a Wi-Fi signal; it’s just that the main modem isn’t able to connect to anything. We’ve had problems with that modem before, so I think it probably just needs to be rebooted. The Internet should still be out there. Whether there’s any new information being posted anywhere is a whole other question.

  I think the modem is located on the floor below mine. If I can work up the courage, I’ll go try to reboot it. I really need to get it working if I’m going to put together an accurate timeline of what’s been happening. I’ve been writing as much about the pandemic as I can up to this point, but most of my information has only come from what I saw on TV. I need more.

  Maybe no one will ever read my history of events, but someone has to write it, right? And it’s not like I have a lot of other things keeping me busy.

  To be totally honest, there’s actually a second reason to get the Internet going again. If there are other survivors, I might be able to find them online. Even if they’re halfway around the world, it would be nice to know I’m not completely on my own.

  Sleep now, though. In the morning, when it’s lighter (if I can get my courage up), I’ll tackle the modem.

  Twenty-Four

  OUTSIDE MUMBAI, INDIA

  3:24 PM INDIA STANDARD TIME

  SANJAY STEPPED WITH care as he approached the back of the building. Dozens of birdcages lined the pathway, two or three chickens in each, some dead, others looking well on the way. It wasn’t the flu that was taking their lives, not directly, anyway. It was the fact they had not been fed in at least a couple of days, their owners gone.

  Sanjay was tempted to pour some feed into their cages and give them fresh water, but the building needed to be checked before anything else.

  “Maybe I should go in first this time,” Kusum whispered behind him.

  He glared at her to let her know he was more than capable of doing it himself. She merely rolled her eyes and smirked.

  He couldn’t help but smile a little. He loved her smirk. He loved her eyes, rolling or not. He loved everything about her. Which was a good thing since she was now his wife. The roadside ceremony the day before had been brief. Sanjay had expected Kusum’s father to protest, but with death all around them, maybe it wasn’t so surprising that his new father-in-law actually blessed their union.

  The back door was unlocked. When he pulled it open, he braced himself for the now familiar stench of death, but there was none. Either whoever lived there was still breathing, or they had died somewhere else, a promising possibility.

  He stepped across the threshold. “Hello?” he said. “Hello, is anyone here?”

  As he moved farther inside, Kusum followed.

  “Hello?” he said again. He was just turning back to her to say he didn’t think anyone was there, when they heard the sound of movement coming from somewhere deeper in the building.

  “I will check,” Kusum whispered, pushing past him.

  “No.” He tried to grab her, but she slipped by. If he could have used both hands, maybe he would have stopped her, but his left arm was still wrapped to his chest, keeping the shoulder he’d dislocated four days earlier as immobile as possible. “Kusum. Come back.”

  He knew the second he spoke he shouldn’t have wasted his breath. Kusum had changed since the outbreak started. Her good qualities were all still there: her playfulness, her smile, her kind words. But she was no longer the somewhat timid person he’d first met. She saw herself now as his equal, and acted as such. That wasn’t the way things had been in the world they’d grown up in, where it wouldn’t have mattered whether she was actually his equal or not. Stupid times, he knew now. In this new world they had entered, they couldn’t afford to continue old, useless customs. She was his equal, and he was glad for it.

  This, of course, didn’t mean she should have gone first.

  The building was a maze of rooms and hallways, some piled high with boxes and others with desks and beds. The sign on the road leading to the property had indicated it was a school.

  The night after Sanjay had been reunited with Kusum and her family—and, surprisingly, with the group of survivors her family ha
d collected on the way—they had discussed the need to find shelter someplace away from any large population center. There, they could wait out the outbreak and make plans for what they should do next.

  Finding the right place, though, was the problem. They drove farther inland, away from Mumbai, in the truck Kusum’s family had arrived in, thinking they might be able to find a farm or small village they could essentially take over. Unfortunately, everywhere they checked was already occupied by those who’d succumbed to the virus.

  Though each member of their group had been inoculated with the vaccine Sanjay had stolen, no one was ready to move the dead to free up space. What they needed was someplace empty.

  It was Jabala, Kusum’s sister, who’d come up with the best idea. “Most schools are on winter break. And if we can find a boarding school, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it?”

  So for the last two days, they had concentrated on schools. Most of the ones they found were for local children and didn’t have any extra housing. While they could’ve sufficed, Sanjay and the others weren’t ready to give up on the idea of finding actual beds.

  They had come across the first boarding school the previous afternoon, and a second one that morning. The first had been taken over by another group after the virus had been released, but the flu had not passed them by, and while only a few were already dead, the rest were well on their way.

  The school from that morning had been empty, but the condition of the buildings and the furniture inside indicated it hadn’t been used in years. They had decided if they could find nothing else in the next day or two, they would come back.

  They had found the bordering school where they were now—the fourth one—because of a sign they’d seen along the highway. It was built out in the countryside, with a private, gated road. There were several buildings, probably containing classrooms, a dining hall, and perhaps even a gymnasium. There was a single English-style house near the center that was probably home to the headmaster. The dormitories were located along the back. Since that was most likely where anyone who might still be around would be located, that’s where Sanjay and Kusum, as the self-designated search party, headed first.