The Rule of Three (Extinction New Zealand Book 1)
Page 1
All Rights Reserved
Originally published by Amazon Kindle Worlds in 2016-2017
Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Design
Edited by Laurel C Kriegler and Alison Robertson
This book 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 or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
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Also by Adrian J Smith
Extinction NZ:
The Rule of Three
The Fourth Phase
The Five Pillars
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Prologue
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Epilogue
Glossary
About the Authors
Dedication
This book is for my mother,
who encouraged me to read from an early age
Thank you for the gift of imagination.
Also, to all those who experience bullying.
Hope is being able to see
That there is light despite
All of the darkness
–Desmond Tutu
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to again take this opportunity to thank Nicholas Sansbury Smith for encouraging me to write in his Extinction Cycle world. You continue to amaze and inspire me every day. Thank you so much.
To Frances, thank you for your words of encouragement and reading every single draft.
To Nathan, for reading an early draft and making some vital suggestions, thank you.
To Rodger for your humour and keeping me sane. Barbara and Phyl, thank you for reading the first draft, and for your encouragement.
To the Street Team, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for your friendship.
To all my Beta readers, Lisa, Bill, Michael, thank you. To Col (Ret) Olson and author Steve Konkoly for your invaluable military RT input, and Susan for your medical advice. If you find any mistakes, they are entirely my fault.
To Laurel, you deserve a huge thank you for taking a rough pile of notes and turning them into something readable.
Most importantly, thanks to the readers for taking a chance and reading my novel set in the Extinction universe created by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. I wanted to tell a story from a New Zealand point of view set in this world and I tried to imagine what would happen if an everyman and everywoman were caught up in an apocalypse.
We are a small nation with a small, but determined and proud, armed force. We have stood by our British, Australian and American brothers in times of war. As a whole, we don’t have a lot of firearms readily available, but they are there, mainly for hunting purposes.
Because this book is set in New Zealand, I have used UK spelling and there are some Kiwi phrases. If any of them confuse you, please email me for an explanation.
All the place names and locations in this book are real, and I encourage you to look them up on Google Maps. Or better yet, come and visit our beautiful country. Perhaps I’ll take you hiking.
Fate is a theme in this book, and it is indeed a funny thing, because it was fate that led me to the Extinction Cycle via another book in 2015. Reaching out to Nicholas led me to a great friendship and his amazing books. Which has now led me to write my first book.
I would be eternally grateful if you could leave an honest review when finishing the book. Doing so will help me develop as a writer.
Thanks again for reading. Be sure to look out for the next adventures of Jack, Dee and Boss.
Cheers
Adrian
Foreword
by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
Dear Reader,
Thank you for picking up a copy of The Rule of Three by Adrian Smith. This is the first of a planned trilogy documenting Jack Gee and his struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic New Zealand. Originally published through Amazon’s Extinction Cycle Kindle World, The Rule of Three became a reader favourite in the Extinction Cycle series side stories, and transcended to far more than fan fiction. Unfortunately, Amazon ended the Kindle Worlds program in July of 2018 with little warning. Authors were given a chance to republish or retire their stories, and I jumped at the chance to republish The Rule of Three through my small press, Great Wave Ink. Today, we’re proud to offer The Rule of Three in paperback, audio, and to readers outside of the United States for the first time ever.
For those of you that are new to the Extinction Cycle storyline, the series is the award winning, Amazon top-rated, and half a million copy best-selling seven book saga. There are over six thousand five-star reviews on Amazon alone. Critics have called it, “World War Z and The Walking Dead meets the Hot Zone.” Publishers weekly added, “Smith has realised that the way to rekindle interest in zombie apocalypse fiction is to make it louder, longer, and bloodier… Smith intensifies the disaster efficiently as the pages flip by, and readers who enjoy juicy blood-and-guts action will find a lot of it here.”
In creating the Extinction Cycle, my goal was to use authentic military action and real science to take the zombie and post-apocalyptic genres in an exciting new direction. Forget everything you know about zombies. In the Extinction Cycle, they aren’t created by black magic or other supernatural means. The ones found in the Extinction Cycle are created by a military bio-weapon called VX-99, first used in Vietnam. The chemicals reactivate the proteins encoded by the genes that separate humans from wild animals—in other words, the experiment turned men into monsters. For the first time, zombies are explained using real science—science so real there is every possibility of something like the Extinction Cycle actually happening. But these creatures aren’t the unthinking, slow-minded, shuffling monsters we’ve all come to know in other shows, books, and movies. These “variants” are more monster than human. Through the series, the variants become the hunters as they evolve from the epigenetic changes. Scrambling to find a cure and defeat the monsters, humanity is brought to the brink of extinction.
We hope you enjoy The Rule of Three and continue on with the rest of the Extinction NZ series, and the main storyline in the Extinction Cycle. Thank you for reading!
Best wishes,
Nicholas Sansbury Smith, NYT Bestselling Author of the Extinction Cycle
Prologue
Three weeks without food…
Jack’s fevered mind chanted i
t like a Buddhist mantra, over and over. The proverbial rule of three. Problem was, Jack had no idea how long he’d been here.
When they scampered around, their bones and joints made strange, popping sounds. And when they came to harvest their human captives, their weird mouths made a sucking, smacking noise, like a child eating an ice cream on a hot day. Jack hated that sound. And the stench they exuded was disgusting, a rotten fruit smell. It reminded him of the Durian fruit he had tried once in a Thai market, in a happier time before hell had descended on Earth.
Three days without water…
The agony of the deep gash in Jack’s thigh kept him semi-conscious with moments of lucidity. Occasional screams cut through the warm damp air, jolting him fully conscious. His eyes would snap open and blink rapidly as he hoped that his predicament had changed, but the surrounding darkness and environment remained the same.
Jack was stuck fast to a wall with some sort of gluey membrane. He struggled against it in sheer terror and panic. He could only move his arms and legs a few measly inches, no matter how hard he fought. Each time he managed to stay awake for a few minutes, he would strain against his bonds, but whatever it was that held him, it had the strength of steel.
Three hours without shelter…
A humming sound in the background reminded Jack of high-powered electric lines, while the cold, damp hardness of concrete pushed into the back of his legs and head, chilling him to the bone. The constant scurrying, and the smacking sounds the creatures made, haunted his fragile psyche, making him flinch whenever he heard them. Never a religious man, Jack found himself praying to any higher power he could think of. There are no atheists in a foxhole. Well, what about down here in the dark?
Three minutes without air…
Twisting his left arm back and forth, and scraping skin off in the process, Jack could almost reach the valve of his water bladder. Miraculously, his hiking pack was still on his shoulders. With a final effort, Jack grasped the valve in his hand. Bending his arm and pushing his head as far forwards as he could, Jack was agonisingly close to that life-saving liquid. He bellowed in frustration.
A popping sound alerted Jack to the monsters’ approach. He cursed at his stupidity. Holding his breath and keeping his body rigid, Jack squeezed his eyes shut.
Not me not me not me not me…
The rotten fruit smell lingered as the creatures carried out their grotesque task. Jack kept his eyes closed and forced himself to breathe in shallow breaths. He listened as he heard a tearing sound, followed by the sickening thud of a body hitting the ground. The monsters clicked at each other in some sort of communication. Jack gritted his teeth and screamed in silent terror as the popping of their joints faded away.
Not me not me not me…it’s not me…it’s not me this time.
— 1 —
Jack gazed up at the stars, captivated by the serenity and majesty of the little pinpricks of light. As many times as he looked at the Milky Way, he never grew bored with it. He would spend hours searching out the constellations he knew, trying to name them.
Scorpius.
Canis Major.
The Southern Cross.
And a cluster of stars New Zealanders liked to call “The Pot”. Jack had been meaning to find out what its correct name was, but he’d never got around to it. Recently he had learnt about Pleiades, or what the Maori called Matariki, but he didn’t bother searching for that cluster of stars now. It only appeared from late May or early June.
He inhaled deeply, the fresh forest scents lacing the chill air. He loved it up here in the mountains, away from the rat race. As much as he loved technology, with its smartphones, flat screen TVs, computers, and all conceivable gadgets, all to make humanities wander through time easier, the wilderness was where he felt at peace, at home. Jack smirked. An eternal conflict.
When he thought about it, it was the silence he liked. That, and being able to see the galaxy spread across the night sky. In the wilderness, it was just him and nature. Nothing but the echoes of the stars. For three days he had enjoyed being off the grid. For three days he had let his mind wander. He had played out his favourite movie scenes in his head. Laughed. Cried at memories as he stepped one foot in front of the other. Through mud. Over tree roots. Often Jack had to duck under branches and squeeze through fallen trees. For kilometre after kilometre he had been at peace.
His wife, Dee, would often ask him why he liked to hike alone. The only answer he could ever come up with was: It’s like being a nomad again. Being one with yourself.
When he’d arrived at the hut earlier in the evening, he’d resisted the urge to make contact with Dee for as long as possible. He sighed and stretched out his knotted shoulders. He took one last look at the stars. Digging reluctantly into his pack, he pulled out his phone. It was time to reconnect and let her know he was okay.
Immediately after booting up, it alerted him to several messages. Looking at the screen, Jack saw that they were all from Dee, the first sent three days ago. He spent a few minutes scanning through them.
Jack. Call me…
Please call me it’s urgent…
For Pete’s sake Jack!
Something weird is going on. Please call…
Jack frowned. He opened the last one.
Jack there’s been a virus outbreak in America. It’s spreading fast. Please call me and tell me you’re okay. I’m worried baby. This sounds serious. xoxo
He gasped. Really? A virus? Is this a joke?
Pushing the phone icon, he held his breath as the phone rang. It sounded distant and garbled. After what seemed like minutes, Dee answered.
“Jack? Thank God!” Without letting him answer, she continued, “Listen, it’s all over the news. They’ve closed all the airports, all the ports, everything is closing or closed down. You need to get home now, please, Jack. It’s horrible, it’s crazy, it’s…”
“Dee, slow down. What’s going on?”
“It’s some virus in the States. It started in Chicago. It’s already been reported in London, Paris, Sydney…everywhere!”
“Okay, so we go to the cabin and wait it out. We prepared for this.”
“It gets worse, Jack.”
“How?”
“There are rumours about it turning people into monsters.”
From the panic in Dee’s voice, Jack knew she was serious.
“Monsters? How?”
“Who knows. All I saw was blurry footage on the news. They want everyone to stay inside. Lock your doors.”
“What about Civil Defence?” Jack said, his eyes scrunching together. “What are they saying?”
“Same thing. Stay indoors. Wait.”
Jack pulled the phone away from his ear and looked out over the dark mountains.
Had they had finally done it? What so many people had imagined? Had they killed the world?
Whoever “they” were.
Was it true? Had the end of the world come? A virus outbreak? Monsters?
So many thoughts swam through his head. He loved movies, comics and sci fi. Jack had daydreamed about this sort of thing happening plenty of times. He had even convinced Dee to get an isolated cabin in the woods for this kind of eventuality.
But that was just a fantasy, right? This sort of thing doesn’t really happen, does it?
“Jack? Are you there? Babe!” Dee’s voice cut through his thoughts. “You have to come home. I need you.”
He looked at his phone, struggling to grasp what was happening. He took a couple of deep breaths, letting the air out of his lungs slowly. Finally, he held the phone back to his ear. “I don’t think the city will be safe for long. If the virus reaches New Zealand, it’ll turn bad, and fast. What about our cabin?”
“I think it’s already here. Th…There’ve been conflicting reports of it in Auckland.” Dee paused. Jack could just picture her running a hand through her hair as she sat on the couch, her legs tucked under her petite frame. “Come home, baby. We’ll pick up your mother and head
to the cabin.”
“Okay. Good idea.” He was thinking fast now. “Call her and let her know what’s happening. Fill up as much water as possible into any available container, get our bug-out bags, and gather as much food as you can.” Jack smiled. “Dee?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Love you too, baby. Hurry!”
“Okay.” Jack’s phone crackled. “And lock up!” He spent a few seconds watching the reception bars on the screen, waiting for them to come back on, but they remained blank. After a moment, the ‘no signal’ icon flashed.
Jack pivoted and looked over to Mt Te Aroha. It was only four kilometres away and he could clearly see the tall communications tower that dominated the skyline. He should have perfect reception.
Grumbling to himself, Jack slipped the phone into his pocket.
Emptying out his pack, he found his headlamp. His heart pounded in his chest, and he could feel the tension building, like a violinist playing strained and suspenseful music. He hurried over to fill his water bladder up at the basin, catching his reflection in the mirror as he did so. He ran a hand through his dark hair and couldn’t help but notice the worried look in his blue eyes.
Pack light, for we travel far and swift.
Glancing over his trail map one last time, he decided to take the shorter but steeper track down to the car park. This is going to be a tough hike, thought Jack as he slammed the hut door behind him.
Jogging down the trail, he thought back to the day he and Dee had met.
It was the height of summer. A hazy glare bounced off the trees in the valley, and Jack could see and smell the pollen coming off the poplar trees. Taking a breath, Jack heard two excited voices coming up the trail, the roar of the waterfall and the gurgling of the stream no match for the high-pitched excitement. Looking, he saw her for the first time. Petite, pixie-cut brown hair, bright blue eyes and a gorgeous smile. And when she turned towards him, he could see a tattoo of flowers creeping up her arm.