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

by Brett Battles

  “Perhaps we should leave all of this alone and go back to the school,” Prabal suggested.

  “If you want to return to the school, you can,” Kusum said. She looked at the others. “Any of you can. But Sanjay and I will not leave these people in danger if there is a chance we can stop it.”

  “Do not worry,” Darshana said, shooting a look at Prabal. “We are all coming with you.”

  “I was not saying I would not come,” Prabal said. “It was merely a suggestion.”

  “Maybe you should keep your suggestion in your head,” Darshana said.

  “If anyone else has something to suggest, say it now,” Kusum told them. “Once we go, you need to be quiet.”

  When no one spoke up, she led them out of the factory onto the street. From there, she kept to the same route she’d used on her trip to the camp.

  She could tell the silent city was having its effect on the others. The looks on their faces were often wide eyed and shocked, as if this couldn’t really be Mumbai but perhaps a replica or a movie set they had somehow wandered onto.

  Their path took them through a dense residential section that had once been teaming with life, each place they passed no longer a home but a tomb.

  “Please tell me we don’t have to walk through something like that again,” Prabal said, after they came out the other side.

  Darshana twisted around and shushed him.

  “No more like that,” Kusum whispered. “But we are getting close now, so we need to be extra careful.”

  She led them down the street, keeping them tight to the buildings.

  The roar of the motor seemed to come out of nowhere—one moment silence, the next a car engine revving to life only two blocks away. Kusum jammed to a stop, and pressed up against the shop they were passing. The others followed suit. Down the street, headlights popped on, pointing in their direction.

  She glanced back the way they’d come. The businesses lining the street were smashed together, in a continuous wall with no breaks between them for at least a hundred meters. No way she and the others could make it down and around the end without being seen. Most of the entrances to the stores were flush with the wall, providing no place to hide.

  Swinging her gaze back around, she focused on the cars parked at the curb only a few feet away.

  “Down,” she said, pointing at the ground near the vehicles.

  As they ducked behind the cars, she was sure it was too late. The car with the headlights was already heading in their direction. She could almost feel the light touch her skin.

  “Listen,” she said quickly, and gave them an address. “That is the building we are supposed to meet Sanjay in. Third-floor apartment, number sixteen. Say it back to me.” They each did. “If we have to split up, go there.”

  From the increasing growl of the vehicle’s engine, she knew it was almost abreast of them. For a second, she thought maybe their luck would hold and the car would drive by, but a squeal of brakes and a drop in RPMs told her the problem was not going away so easily.

  A clomp, clomp, clomp of feet hitting the road, but no sound of doors opening. Strange.

  “Please come out,” a male voice said. “We know you’re there. We are here to help you, not hurt you.”

  Kusum looked back at her three friends and mouthed, “When I say run, run.”

  They stared back at her, all three looking as scared as anyone Kusum had ever seen.

  “It will be okay,” she whispered.

  “Come out now, please. If you are ill, we can treat you. If you are not ill, we can vaccinate you so that you will stay that way. We’re here to help.”

  Kusum could see a question forming in Prabal’s eyes, that perhaps whoever was out there was not as evil as Kusum and Sanjay thought they were.

  “Stay down,” she whispered, emphasizing her words by patting her hand against the air.

  When she felt confident they would do as she said, she stood up.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  Three armed soldiers stood in front of a roofless Jeep, the barrels of their rifles pointed at the ground.

  “There were others with you,” the nearest soldier said. From the sound of his voice, she knew he was the same one who’d called out a moment before.

  “No. Only me.”

  “I saw others.” He started walking toward her.

  Kusum moved around the car and onto the street. “I’m the only one here.”

  She could see hesitation in his eyes, and knew he wasn’t sure if he’d really seen anyone else.

  “It would be a mistake to lie,” he said. “We’re only here to help.”

  Trying to sound both desperate and relieved, she said, “You are the first people—I mean, living people—I have seen in three days. Tell me, do you really have a vaccine for the flu?”

  “Yes. It’s back at the survival station.”

  “I did not think it was possible.”

  “If you’ll come with us, we’ll take you there,” he said.

  The last thing she wanted to do was get into the Jeep with them, but she didn’t see how she had a choice. She was sure if she said no, they would force her to come anyway, and they’d probably search around the car to make sure she hadn’t been lying. The only way to save Darshana, Arjun, and Prabal was to sacrifice herself.

  She donned a relieved smile, and parted her lips to say, “Yes, thank you,” but the words never left her mouth.

  PRABAL KNEW HE was probably about to die. The men standing in the street were surely armed, and if what Kusum said was true, then the men would consider it no big deal to kill four more people after they’d already murdered millions, maybe even billions.

  “Stay down,” Kusum whispered.

  Stay down? Of course, he was going to stay down. Standing up would be suicide, would be—

  —exactly what Kusum was doing.

  No! For a second he wasn’t sure if he’d only thought it or said it out loud. He knew Kusum whispered something more, but he didn’t hear what it was. In fact, he was having a hard time hearing anything other than the blood rushing past his ears.

  Kusum, not content to make herself merely a stationary target, moved around the front of the parked car and out into the street where the men were. Again Prabal wanted to shout, “No!” as the voices of Kusum and the man who’d called out to them mixed together into an incoherent drone in Prabal’s head.

  You have to get out of here. You have to get out of here.

  He tried to concentrate, to hear what was going on, but the warning booming through his mind was too loud.

  You have to get out of here!

  A hand clamped down on his shoulder. He jerked, thinking one of the men had sneaked up behind him, but it was Darshana. She was holding a finger to her lips, her face tense.

  What did she mean? He wasn’t making any noise. He’d be the last to make any noise.

  You have to get out of here!

  The voice was right. No matter how quiet he kept, the soldiers—they had to be soldiers, right?—were going to find him.

  You have to get out of here! You have to get away!

  Yes, away.

  Now!

  He ripped Darshana’s hand from his shoulder, jumped to his feet, and began to run.

  “Hey! You! Stop!”

  Prabal didn’t hear that, either, but it wasn’t the blood in his ears that was masking the shouted words. It was the sound of his own scream.

  THE YELL SURPRISED Kusum as much as the soldiers. Instinctively, she glanced over her shoulder.

  Prabal was racing down the sidewalk away from them. Why he hadn’t stayed hidden, she didn’t know, but at the moment the answer was unimportant.

  “Run!” she shouted. “Run!”

  As soon as she saw Arjun and Darshana jump to their feet and take off, Kusum whipped around and started to run in the opposite direction.

  “Stop them!” the main soldier yelled to his colleagues, pointing after Darshana, Arjun, and Prabal. Inst
ead of going with them, though, he headed after Kusum.

  Putting her head down, she sprinted to the next intersection and turned left, away from the survival station site.

  “Where are you going?” the soldier yelled, still behind her. “We’re here to help!”

  If they had really been there to help, Kusum was sure that instead of chasing her and her friends, they would have remained by their Jeep, dumbfounded that anyone would flee their assistance.

  The soldier must have realized the same thing, because he gave up the argument after another try, and focused his efforts on cutting the distance between them. Though Kusum was young, in good shape, and a better-than-average runner, she knew if she couldn’t shake him quickly, his better stamina would win out.

  The slums were the answer. All she had to do was race into the maze of cobbled-together homes and she could lose her pursuer. Unless her sense of direction was completely off, it would be to her left.

  As she took the next corner, she heard the man’s voice again, but it wasn’t loud enough for her to make out his words.

  Forget about him. Just run!

  PRABAL DIDN’T REALIZE he’d been screaming until he turned onto the empty block and heard his own voice. He cut off the sound so abruptly that he swallowed spit down the wrong tube, and fell into a coughing fit until he was finally able to breathe halfway normally again.

  The spasm had slowed his pace and caused him to momentarily forget why he was running at all—a reality that came rushing back in a flash as Arjun suddenly sped past.

  “Keep going!” Arjun said. “They are right behind us.”

  Prabal took off after his friend.

  “Darshana…Kusum…where are they?” he asked between breaths.

  “Do not know,” Arjun said. “Thought Darshana was behind me.”

  Prabal checked over his shoulder. No Darshana, but the two soldiers were a ways back, running after them.

  “We have to hurry,” he said. “They are only—”

  Prabal’s foot plunged into a basketball-sized pothole, his shin slamming into the side of the ripped asphalt, spilling him to the ground. While his chest and shoulder took the brunt of the impact, his forehead knocked against the pavement, opening a cut above his right eye.

  Hands grabbed him under his arms and tried to pull him up.

  “We have to keep going,” Arjun said.

  On his feet again, Prabal took a step and nearly fell back to the ground, the ankle that had gone into the hole howling in pain. Seeing his condition, Arjun tucked himself under Prabal’s arm and swung his own around his friend’s shoulder.

  “As fast as you can,” he said.

  With Arjun’s assistance, Prabal hobbled forward, but they both knew there was no way they would outdistance the soldiers now.

  Arjun looked around, then said, “Over here.”

  He helped Prabal into an alley just wide enough for a car to pass through. About twenty feet in was a pile of rubbish—bags and loose trash and who knew what else.

  “Hide in there,” Arjun said, nodding at the waste.

  “What?”

  “Just hide. I will lead them away, then come back for you after I lose them.”

  The idea of crawling into the trash disgusted Prabal, but he didn’t see how he had any other choice.

  Arjun half carried him to the pile. “You can do it yourself, yes?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. Stay quiet. I will be back.”

  Before Prabal could say anything, Arjun took off down the alley.

  Knowing he had very little time, Prabal dropped painfully to the ground and pulled several big pieces of trash on top of him. When he heard the soldiers’ footsteps right around the corner, he stopped moving, hoping he was covered enough.

  A particularly strong wave of pain rushed up his leg as the soldiers entered the alley. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut to fight off the sensation. As the throbbing subsided, he realized that while he could still hear the men’s running footsteps, they were already past the rubbish pile, fading away.

  They hadn’t seen him.

  He was safe.

  He wouldn’t be taken away.

  He wouldn’t be killed.

  He wanted to fling the debris off then and there, but what if the soldiers came back this way? Best, he thought, to stay as he was until Arjun returned, no matter how unpleasant the smell.

  Between bouts of stinging pain, he listened as best he could for any approaching noise. For the longest time there was nothing, and then somewhere down the alley he heard something scratch or, maybe, tap the ground. He’d almost convinced himself it was just the breeze when he realized it was getting close.

  Scratch-scratch-scratch. Pause. Scratch. Pause. Scratch-scratch-scratch.

  Very close, actually.

  When the odd sound was only a couple meters away, he realized what it must be.

  He shoved the garbage away and jumped to his feet. His ankle screamed in pain, but he was too freaked out to pay any attention to it.

  The scratching retreated several meters, but not far enough away that he couldn’t see he’d been right.

  Rats. Two big, ugly ones.

  A shiver ran up his spine. If he hadn’t moved, he was sure they would have tried to make a meal of him.

  “Get away,” he whispered through clenched teeth as he took a threatening step toward them.

  The rats backed off another half meter, but apparently saw no reason to go into a full retreat.

  Prabal took a breath and looked around. Where the hell was Arjun? More than enough time had passed for him to lose the soldier and return.

  Had something happened to him? Had he been caught? Or maybe killed?

  Prabal looked both ways down the alley, as if expecting soldiers to round each corner and close in on him like a vise. But except for the rats, he was still alone.

  They’ll be back, he thought with sudden certainty. I can’t stay here.

  Without a map, it would be hard to find the address Kusum had made them all memorize, but he knew it was close to the new UN compound—or, rather, fake UN compound. He wasn’t excited about going in that direction, but his only other choice was to head out of town and try to find his way back to the boarding school.

  Though Prabal could be an ass sometimes, he could, on occasion, pull himself together and do the right thing. It was why he’d volunteered to come on the mission in the first place. Sanjay would need to know what happened, and Prabal might be the only one left who could tell him.

  He repeated the address once more, and then limped toward the end of the alley.

  AFTER SANJAY HELPED Prabal up to the third-floor apartment, he listened to the man’s story. As concerned as he had been before Prabal showed up, it was nothing compared to now.

  “You do not know what happened to the others?” Sanjay asked.

  “No.”

  “Not even if any of them were taken?”

  “I am sorry. I wish I knew, but I do not.”

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  “I am not sure. I must have lain in that alley for at least thirty minutes waiting for Arjun to return before I left. As you could see, I cannot walk very fast. I do know it was still very dark when I started.”

  Outside the sky had lightened with the imminent sunrise.

  “One hour? Two hours?” Sanjay asked.

  “I do not know.”

  It was clear Sanjay wouldn’t get anything else of use. “All right. I want you to stay here in case someone else shows up,” he said. “Can I trust you to do that?”

  “Of course, but where are you going?”

  “Where do you think?”

  Eleven

  MADISON, WISCONSIN

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BELINDA RAMSEY

  ENTRY DATE—JANUARY 1, 7:07 AM CST

  I WOKE UP two hours ago to a freezing room. My first thought was that maybe I had inadvertently brushed against the thermostat and turned the heat of
f. I wrapped myself in my blanket and walked over to check. The slider was set at 72º where I always leave it.

  I stepped out into the hallway, thinking I could warm up there, but the hallway was just as frigid. It seemed the heating problem wasn’t limited to my room. My first thought was that something had happened to the heater, and I would have to go down to the basement and try to fix it. Never mind that I don’t know the first thing about heating systems or, well, pretty much anything mechanical. We all have our things, I guess. That’s not one of mine.

  I was so focused on the heater itself that I almost didn’t realize the cause of the problem was right there in front of me. For safety purposes, a few of the hall’s lights are always on. I have a feeling it’s probably some kind of OSHA rule for dorms, or maybe apartment buildings—those kinds of places. You can’t have residents tripping around in the dark. Only now, my hallway was exactly that. Dark.

  I reentered my room, and saw that the digital clock on my desk had gone blank. Already fearing what I knew was going to happen, I flipped the switch for the room light. Nothing.

  My floor had lost power.

  Hoping that was the limit of the outage, I hurried down to the common room, and looked out at the dorm wings across from me.

  Every day since I’d found out what was going on, I could see the flicker of televisions in many of the common rooms. For the first time, all the rooms were dark.

  In the interest of telling the full story (though I don’t know who I’m telling it to, will anyone ever read this?), I lost it there for a little bit. I guess at some point I sat down on the floor, because when I finally got ahold of myself, that’s where I was, leaning against the window, my face cold and wet with tears.

  I finally walked back to my room. I had this insane notion that if I just crawled into bed and shut my eyes and forced myself to sleep, when I woke again everything would be as it was. Not pre-plague; I couldn’t hope for that much. But like yesterday and the day before that, when I was still alone but the power was on.