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

by Brett Battles

  By the time I reached my door, though, I knew I couldn’t afford to ignore the reality of my situation. The first thing I did was dress as warmly as I could. (Layers are your friend! That’s what Mom always said.) I ate two cans of cold ravioli one of the other girls on my floor had left behind when she’d gone home for Christmas. Not the best breakfast in the world, but without the microwave to heat up some oatmeal, I couldn’t be too choosy.

  When I finished, I sat down at my desk and opened this journal. My thoughts have turned to what I should do now. The one thing I know for sure is that I can’t stay here. This place is already unbearable enough. Another twenty-four hours of no heat and I’ll probably be dead of exposure.

  The easy answer (using the word easy very loosely) would be for me to find a house nearby that, hopefully, still has power or, better yet, a generator. At the very least, one with a fireplace and a supply of wood that will last awhile. Here in Madison, that is/was pretty much a prerequisite for home ownership.

  The harder answer is Chicago.

  I can’t help thinking about the UN survival station there, and that if I don’t start heading for it soon, I’m liable to be snowed in here until spring—if I survive that long. The problem is, the trip to Chicago could be just as dangerous. I could still freeze to death or run out of food or, I don’t know, get attacked by a pack of dogs? (I’ve seen a few passing by the buildings.) But the prize at the end is so much better than the prize of staying here would be.

  What’s also tipping things in Chicago’s favor is that yesterday’s storm passed through sometime during the night, and this morning the skies are blue and the wind is pretty much nonexistent. If I am going to go, today would be a good one to start.

  It’s a 150-mile trip. In a car, less than three hours. But without the roads being plowed, that’s not really an option. So that means walking. I have no idea how long it would take. Days? A week? A month? Best probably not to have any goal in mind. Just walk what I can, rest when I need to, and get there when I get there.

  I guess my mind’s made up, isn’t it? Better to die alone searching for others, than to die alone where no others may ever come again.

  Work to do now. More later.

  SHERIDAN, WYOMING

  6:19 AM MST

  BRANDON WOKE TO the sound of someone walking by the door to his family’s motel room. He sat up and looked around. Both his father and Josie were still asleep. Given the last evening’s excitement, he knew he should be, too, but he was done sleeping.

  After changing into the cleanest clothes he had, he found a pad of paper in the drawer of the nightstand and jotted down a quick note:

  I’m right outside.

  Brandon

  He left it on the nightstand, tiptoed to the door, and let himself out.

  Though it was still dark, he could easily make out the clouds hanging over the town. The good thing was the storm seemed to have tapered off, only a few scattered flakes still falling. In fact, it had dissipated enough that he could now easily see the building on the lot next door, where all the action had been.

  Hours earlier, when he’d scrambled to the top after Chloe, he hadn’t even thought about its size, but this morning it looked huge. Pre-plague, Brandon probably wouldn’t have climbed it in the dark, with a rifle, no less. Post-plague, Brandon would not hesitate to do it again, or whatever it took to protect his family and friends, even if it meant shooting someone else.

  Rick, it turned out, was Ginny’s cousin.

  “My dad and Rick’s dad were brothers,” Ginny had told them once they were all back at the motel. Matt was the one doing the questioning, while several others—including Brandon, Josie, and their father—looked on. Rick was in another room having his missing finger treated by Lily while Dr. Gardiner finished with Chloe. “They owned Thorton’s Equipment together.”

  “What happened to your parents?” Matt asked.

  Ginny bit her lip, fighting back tears. “Mom and Dad, they…they died quick, day after Christmas.” She paused for a second. “Uncle Jerry held on for a couple more days. He’s the one who gave us the rifles. Told us to protect everything.”

  Brandon couldn’t help but ask, “From what?”

  “Looters,” she replied. “Bad people. People who would make us sick.”

  “Did you ever have any looters?” Matt asked.

  She shook her head. “We saw a few people walk by, a couple cars, but that was it. No one even tried to come through the gate.”

  “When was the last time you saw someone?”

  “Before you?”

  “Yeah.”

  She thought for a moment. “Three days ago…no, four now.”

  “So when you heard us…” Matt left the sentence unfinished.

  “Rick thought you were type of people Uncle Jerry warned us about. He thought that if we shot in your direction for a while, we could scare you off. I wasn’t so sure who you were. I was just…” Her tears started to flow. “We were only…I’m sorry.”

  Matt put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s all right. I understand. We all do. You were doing what you thought you had to.”

  She looked like she wanted to believe him but was having a hard time. Brandon knew he should do something, but didn’t know what. Josie didn’t seem to have the same problem. She walked over to Ginny and put her arms around the girl.

  I should have done that, Brandon thought at the time.

  And now, as he remembered what Ginny had told them before they’d all finally gone to sleep, he had the same thought again. He wasn’t sure why, but somewhere in the middle of her story, he had started to feel protective of her. Maybe it was because she was about the same age he was, or maybe it was because she’d done the same thing he would have done if their roles had been reversed.

  He entered the motel lobby and walked over to the door behind the counter. Carefully, he opened it a few inches. There was just enough light for him to see the cellophane wrapper he’d shoved in the room the night before. While a few crumbs had been left behind, all the crackers were gone.

  The cat whined.

  Brandon nearly snapped the door shut in surprise. The animal was much closer than he expected, not more than a few feet behind the door. He reached into his pocket and found he still had a couple sticks of the string cheese he’d been snacking on during the drive yesterday. He peeled back the wrapper on one, but instead of tossing it inside as he first intended, he held the stick out so that it protruded beyond the edge of the door.

  The cat made a sound that was part whine, part meow. Quiet for a moment, then the sound again, much closer.

  “Come and get it,” Brandon said. “All yours.”

  A low, audible whine, as if the cat really wanted the cheese, but couldn’t bring itself to close the remaining distance.

  “It’s right here. All for you. Come on, kitty.”

  A silent standoff.

  Finally, a nose topped by long tan fur peeked around the door. A sniff was all it took for the head to follow. The cat looked at the cheese, and then at Brandon. Another meow.

  Are you going to give that to me, or what? That’s what it sounded like to Brandon.

  “Sure,” he set the cheese stick on the floor and let go.

  The cat looked at it again before taking two hesitant steps forward. It lowered its mouth, and nibbled at the end of the stick before it seemed to remember Brandon was there. It clamped down on the cheese and dragged it away from the door, out of sight.

  Brandon pulled out the second stick, but before he could open it, he heard Josie’s voice. It wasn’t quite a yell, but it was plenty loud enough for him to hear his name. He pulled the apartment door closed so that whatever heat was still in there would remain, and headed for the door. When he stepped out onto the pathway, he saw Josie looking in the other direction.

  “Brandon, where are you?” she said.

  “Right here.”

  She twirled around. “Why did you take so long to answer me?”
/>   “Because I just heard you.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Why is that important?” While there was really no reason not to tell her, he didn’t like the tone of her voice.

  “I’m…because…never mind. Dad wanted me to get you.”

  “You could have said that first.”

  The door near the far end opened, and Matt stepped out. “You two done waking everyone up?” he asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” Brandon said.

  “Sorry,” Josie chimed in. “I was looking for my brother.”

  “It’s all right,” Matt said, laughing. “It’s time we all got up anyway. Do me a favor and spread the word—meeting in my room in fifteen minutes.”

  BUTTE, MONTANA

  6:54 AM MST

  WHEN SIMS AND his team reached the junction of the I-90 and I-15 outside Butte the night before, there was no reason to set down. If any tracks had been left showing the direction the others had taken, the storm had completely obliterated them.

  He ordered the pilot to continue on to Butte, where they found shelter for the night in a large house near the outskirts of town. They removed the bodies inside—a task that was nearly second nature at this point—and fell asleep on mattresses arranged around the fireplace.

  Upon waking in the morning, Sims checked outside to get a sense of the weather. It was still snowing, maybe a tad less than the night before, but not by much.

  “Dammit,” he said under his breath.

  It would be hours at the earliest before they could get underway again, and if the storm kept up like this, they might not be able to leave at all.

  He pulled out his phone, knowing it was time to update the principal director.

  Twelve

  WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA

  APPROXIMATELY 9.65 MILES SOUTHWEST OF ELY

  7:10 AM PST

  RACHEL HAMILTON LEANED against the wall of the communications room, exhausted. Unlike the comm room in the Bunker back in Montana, the one at the Resistance’s alternate headquarters, hidden in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, was a confined space where only three people could fit comfortably. At the moment, five were present.

  If Rachel hadn’t been the one in charge during her brother’s absence, she would have slipped out into the comparatively fresh air of the narrow corridor. But since that was not currently an option, she ignored as best she could her growing sense of claustrophobia by focusing on the terminal Leon Owen was manning.

  “There,” Leon said, pressing the left side of his headphones closer to his ear. With his other hand, he tapped one of the arrow keys on his keyboard several times. “Got it. Much clearer now.” He flicked another button, and suddenly static burst from a set of speakers on his desk.

  Rachel leaned forward but it all sounded like white noise to her.

  “There it is again,” Leon said.

  The other three nodded.

  “Yeah,” Crystal agreed. “Sounds like coordinates.”

  “Or a phone number,” Dennis suggested.

  Rachel frowned. “I don’t hear a damn thing.”

  “It’s very faint,” Crystal said. “It took me a few seconds to pick it out.”

  Rachel smirked. “What you’re really saying is that I’m old and my hearing sucks.”

  “You’re not old,” Paul said.

  “Thanks for that.”

  The other four focused once more on the speaker, and Leon began jotting something down on the pad of paper by his keyboard. When he finished, they all looked at what he’d written.

  Rachel tapped Dennis on the back. “May I see?”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, and moved to the side.

  Written on the top sheet was a twelve-digit number.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you need two sets of numbers for coordinates,” she said.

  “No, you’re right,” Leon replied. “This is the only one they’ve been repeating. I’m sure of it.”

  “So was Dennis right, then?” Rachel said. “Is it a phone number?”

  Leon brought up a list of country codes. The number he’d written down started with 881, but the only codes on the list that began with 88 were 880 for Bangladesh and 886 for Taiwan.

  “No 881,” he said.

  “Maybe you wrote it down wrong,” Paul suggested.

  Leon looked at him, annoyed. “Neither zero nor six sounds anything like one.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a lot of interference,” Dennis countered.

  “Be my guest, then.” Leon brought up the phone application on his screen and held out his headset.

  “I’m just trying to look at all the angles,” Dennis told him without taking it from him.

  “We should at least try, don’t you think?” Rachel said. “Leon, give it a go.”

  Leon didn’t exactly scoff as he put the headset back on, but he came close. He dialed the number using the 880 Bangladesh prefix. It took only a couple of seconds before a series of tones came out of the speakers. These were followed by a message informing them in heavily accented English that no such number existed.

  He tried 886 next. This time there was a delay of several seconds, but the number turned out to be another dead end.

  Crystal’s terminal began emitting a soft bong-bong-bong. She checked her screen. “It’s Matt,” she said as she donned her headset and clicked the ACCEPT button. “Hey, Matt. It’s Crystal…she’s right here. Hold on.”

  She gave her headset to Rachel.

  “Are you back on the road?” Rachel asked her brother when the headset was in place.

  “Not yet,” Matt replied. His voice sounded as tired as hers must have sounded to him. “Had a little incident last night.”

  “What kind of incident?”

  He gave her a quick rundown of what had happened.

  When he finished, she asked, “Is Chloe going to be all right?”

  “Just a few bruised ribs and a sprained wrist. Physically, she’ll be fine.”

  “Physically?”

  He hesitated a moment before replying. “Something happened to her while she was up there. I don’t know how, but I think she’s starting to remember.”

  Rachel almost asked, “Remember what?” when she realized what he meant. “You’ve told me yourself that’s not possible.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  My God, Rachel thought.

  She caught sight of Leon and the others. They all had their eyes on her, no doubt trying to figure out what Matt had said. “Hold on,” she said into the mic, then put her hand over it. “Can you guys give me the room for a moment?”

  Crystal looked at her terminal, obviously not comfortable with the thought of being away from it.

  “If a message comes in, I’ll come get you,” Rachel assured her.

  “Okay,” Crystal said. “Sure.”

  “No problem,” Dennis said.

  Leon stood up. “If you need us, we’ll be right outside.”

  “Thanks,” Rachel said. “Shut the door on the way out.”

  Leon looked disappointed, but he nodded and followed the others out.

  Once alone, she said, “So what has she remembered?”

  “Nothing definite. It’s, well, the girl we found last night—she’s about Brandon’s age. Her name’s Ginny. I think that might have triggered something.”

  Though Ginny was not Jeannie, the name was very close, and if the girl was Brandon’s age…

  Oh, Lord.

  “What did she actually say?” Rachel asked.

  “Nothing, really. It’s more that she knows there’s something there to remember.” He paused. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine. I’ll keep a closer eye on her.”

  “My God, Matt. If she remembers, and starts to ask questions—”

  “We’ll deal with that if that happens.”

  “You need to keep me informed.”

  “I will, but like I said, it’s going to be all right,” he said. “Tell me where we are with the inte
rventions.”

  She gave herself a moment to lock away her concerns about Chloe, and then said, “We’ve identified seven more groups overnight. And have told them we’ll bring them vaccine, so most have agreed to stay where they are for at least another twenty-four hours.”

  “Can we get people to all of them in that time?”

  “We think so. It’ll be tight. One of the groups is in Nova Scotia. They’re really itching to get over to the survival station in Montreal. I have a plane that can get to them after a stop in Pennsylvania, but I’m concerned the Nova Scotia group won’t stick around.” She paused. “Matt, people are really buying into the whole UN angle. A couple times we’ve even had to pretend we’re with the UN, too. I don’t like lying like that. Could be a problem for us later.”

  “If that’s what it takes, then it’s a problem we can live with,” Matt said. “Have you heard anything from Tamara and Bobby?”

  “She checked in yesterday,” Rachel said.

  “And?”

  “They found the NSA monitoring facility.”

  “Thank God. Can they pull it off there?”

  “Tamara says Bobby thinks so. He’s got some of the equipment running, but he’s having problems with the uplinks.”

  “He’s got to get it working, and it needs to happen now.”

  “I know how important it is. They know how important. They’re doing everything they can.”

  “I realize that, but it’s….Listen, tell them the minute they’re ready to go, they shouldn’t wait for the okay from us. Just do it.”

  “All right. I’ll tell them,” she said. “How long until you get here?”

  “The storm has really messed things up. We were able to tap into a NOAA satellite a little while ago. We’re not getting hit too hard here anymore, but it’s still pounding the Rockies and continuing to head south. I’m thinking we’re going to need to dip down into New Mexico to get across, and it’ll probably still be pretty slow going even then. If we can get to Nevada in three days, it’ll be a miracle.”

  Rachel frowned. “Don’t lie to me, Matt. I know what you’re thinking.”