The Next World Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Olah, Jeff

  Owen stepped in close, Zeus still on his hip, teeth exposed. “Let’s go.” He grabbed Declan by the shirt and placed the scorching barrel against the back of his head. “You stop, even to take a breath, and that’s going to be the last thing you do.”

  It looked like Declan was expecting to be walked back toward the others, as he reluctantly started in that direction; however Owen pushed him right. “Keep going.”

  He walked him toward the edge of the highway, not a word spoken as the area again fell into a pure silence. When they reached the two-foot guard rail, Owen stopped him and leaned over the side.

  A twenty-foot drop to the roadway below. The fall alone would have probably been enough, although as he’d seen before entering the highway, the streets below were overrun by the dead, a gargantuan horde of at least three hundred, probably more.

  Owen stepped back, turned Declan around to face him, and moved the barrel to his temple. “Good bye.”

  Declan opened his mouth like he was going to respond, the corner of his lip curled in what looked like a snarl. But before he could push forth even a single syllable, Owen lowered the Glock, shot him in the other leg, and pushed him over the edge.

  85

  His first thoughts were of the approaching horde, the hundreds of walking corpses that would overrun his friends and his family in only a matter of minutes. Turning away from the railing, Owen bent at the waist and ran his hand over Zeus’s head. The German Shepherd sniffed at his hand, wagging his tail slowly as he nudged him forward, and then barked twice.

  Owen stood up straight, the voice of Natalie pulling him back to present. She was running toward him, Ava and Noah at her side.

  “OWEN, THEY NEED HELP, PLEASE.”

  Still shaking free of the rage coursing through his every cell, Owen tried to rein in his focus as he read the look of absolute terror on their faces. It was something he’d never seen in his wife, not even over the last few days.

  He hurried to them, now halfway between the Mustang and the Bronco he’d driven onto the highway not thirty minutes before. “Lucas, is he—”

  Natalie reached for his hand, as did Ava. They were pulling him. “No, Lucas is okay. It’s Cookie. Come on, she needs help.”

  Around the rear of the 4Runner, Lucas lay in the spot he’d fallen. Travis was at his side, Kevin next to him. There was a long sleeve t-shirt wrapped around the teen’s neck, although neither of the men were focused on him.

  Two feet away, Harper had her grandmother cradled in her lap. She had a blood-soaked towel pressed into a wound just above Cookie’s right hip. Her face was wet and she avoided looking at the others, crying softly and using her free hand to wipe away the tears.

  “Owen.” Natalie had her hand on his back. “We have to help her, we have to do something.”

  He didn’t know where to start, but knew he didn’t have the time to think it through. “We have to go back. Paul and his family left behind some supplies, we can—”

  “Owen, we have company.”

  He didn’t turn to look, having already made a mental adjustment for the approaching horde. “Yeah, let’s get them inside and then get turned back around. We’ve got maybe another five minutes before that ramp’s too crowded.”

  Natalie gripped his shoulder, appeared to be losing herself. Her hand shook as she looked to the opposite side of the highway, toward Kevin, and then back to him. “No.”

  Owen was already down on one knee, gently sliding in alongside Harper when he looked up. “What?”

  She placed her hand over her mouth and moved away from him. She stepped around the others and broke into a jog, beginning to cry as she ran.

  Owen turned first to his son and his daughter, and then to Kevin, his frustration starting to boil over. “We’ve got to get them back there, get them some help.”

  Kevin wore a look Owen didn’t recognize. It was made of something resembling grief, but he was also fighting back a smile. He wiped his meaty right hand across his face and looked like he might cry. “Yes,” he said, “help is here.”

  Natalie slowed as she came to within twenty yards of the center divider. She turned and motioned for Owen to follow. He couldn’t see past her, although the anxiety behind her eyes had him more than a little concerned.

  He was moving before he knew what he was running toward. As he approached, she ran her nose over her sleeve, moved aside, but was only able to manage one word. “Gentry.”

  The man was slight, maybe five-seven, one-hundred-fifty pounds soaking wet, unassuming, dark hair and nearly the same expression as Natalie. He walked with a limp and when he reached the divider, he nearly toppled to the ground.

  Natalie ran to him and pulled him up, Owen followed. “This is him.” And then to Dr. Dominic Gentry she said, “How’d you find us, how’d you know?”

  Owen came in beside Natalie and helped Gentry over the concrete divider. The small man dragged his right leg behind, sucking in a breath and curling up his face as he dropped it back on the ground.

  “Natalie …”

  She looked back over her shoulder, motioned toward the others, her devastated look carrying as she spoke. “We have friends, a few of them are in bad shape. One was shot through the stomach, we can’t get the bleeding to stop.”

  Gentry nodded. “I’ll do what I can, but we’ve got to go.” His eyes drifted to his wounded right leg. “I’m not sure how much time I have.”

  Owen stepped back, his eyes narrowing. He looked from Gentry, to his wife and then back, his hand ready to go for the Glock in his waistband. “Are you …?”

  “No, not bitten, but they got me pretty good. I don’t know what’s going to happen, only ran into this a few times.”

  “Ran into what?”

  Gentry pulled up his pant leg.

  It looked like four nail marks, but much deeper than Owen had ever seen. He thought he could see fatty tissue and muscle, but couldn’t be sure due to all the blood.

  Owen decided not to pass judgement and instead to keep an eye on the man his wife said could save the world. They didn’t have many options and were out of time five minutes ago. He turned to Natalie, his expression hard and emotionless. “Let’s get them into the cars and get out of here.”

  Gentry reached into his waistband and handed his weapon to Natalie. “If I’m going to help your friends, we need to get somewhere soon.”

  “Yes,” she said, “we know of a place back in the city that—”

  “You won’t make it, it’s too far.”

  Owen slipped under Gentry’s right arm and helped him walk. “Okay, what do you suggest?”

  Travis had helped Lucas into the back as well as Harper and Cookie. The seventy-three-year-old had lost consciousness, but was still breathing. The others climbed in behind, Gentry following Owen and Natalie to the Bronco.

  Slowly sliding down into the passenger seat and buckling himself in, Gentry turned. He greeted Ava and Noah, finally eyeing Natalie. “You ever hear of a place called the Foundry?”

  Natalie’s eyes moved to the rearview mirror. She stared at Owen, and then reached over and grabbed Noah’s hand. She looked like she was contemplating her answer, but then remembered their current situation. “Yeah, I remember the Foundry.”

  “We can get there. It won’t be easy, but Goodwin and his men have vacated, and it’s got what I need to help your friends.”

  Owen looked back at Natalie through the mirror. “You good with that, is that the call?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, if we can get there. It’s got walls and not much around it, it’s actually perfect.”

  Owen reached for the walkie and keyed the mic. “Travis, you there?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Stay on my bumper, and don’t stop for anything or anyone. We’re going somewhere safe, somewhere we can get help, somewhere we can finally stop running.”

  86

  Day Twenty-Seven...

  Owen sat just outside the front doors, on a bench that faced the yard. The b
uilding was a flat single-story rectangle, cool grey block walls without the benefit of windows and only a front and rear entrance. The grounds, although a few weeks overgrown, looked to have been at one time well-maintained. Six foot by six foot concrete patches formed a checkerboard pattern with the lawn that ran the width of the building and then wrapped around both ends. The parking lot near the gates had exactly sixteen spaces, eight on either side of the ramp that led to the frosted glass front doors.

  The massive iron gates at the center of the driveway were framed by an eight-foot block wall, covered top to bottom in a dense creeping fig. The wall then ran along the property line, surrounding the four-thousand square foot structure, providing at least a bit of privacy from the former sanitation plant to the south and the four-level parking structure to the east.

  “Hey Dad!”

  Noah kicked a soccer ball toward the gate and without pausing, broke into a sprint, chasing it down. When he got to the ball, he quickly turned back to see if Owen had been watching.

  “I think it’s official.”

  Noah brought back his leg again to kick, but then stopped and looked up at Owen. “What’s official?”

  “You might just be faster than me. I thought I still had a few years, but now I’m not too sure.”

  “Dad, I was already faster than you.” Noah laughed as he kicked the ball back toward the other end of the lot. “You just didn’t know it.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”

  Noah caught up to the ball, and turning back to Owen, his eyes drifted past him. “Hi Mom.”

  Natalie stood at the front doors. She looked out over the yard and then started along the paved walkway toward Owen. “Hey buddy, why don’t you go inside and find your sister, they’ve almost got lunch ready.”

  Owen slid to his left. “You wanna sit?”

  “No,” she said, “I’ve been sitting for the last two hours” She rested her right foot up on the edge of the bench and rolled her neck. “But it’s finally done.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah …”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s not in any pain, but she won’t last another week without food.”

  “She’s still refusing to eat?”

  “She doesn’t want to be here.” Natalie bit into her lip and slowly shook her head. “She just doesn’t want to fight anymore, and I really don’t blame her.”

  “How’s Harper?”

  “She’s okay with it. She knows that Cookie would be better off, but she’s going through hell watching her deteriorate.”

  Owen dropped his head and folded his hands into his lap. “How about Lucas, he still avoiding her?”

  “They talked earlier today and she told him again that he wasn’t to blame for what happened.”

  “Okay?”

  She reached for his chin, looked into his eyes. “And neither are you.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “That man, he wasn’t there because of Lucas and he wasn’t there because of you. So you need to stop blaming yourself—you need to understand that it is because of you that we are all still here. Your children, your friends, me, none of us would have made it off that highway if you hadn’t done what you did.”

  Owen had been trying to tell himself that for days, but for whatever reason it didn’t seem to stick. He was thankful beyond measure that his wife and his children weren’t hurt and that there weren’t more injuries, however he didn’t like what this world had become, even less what he was becoming.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Natalie tilted her head and cut her eyes at him. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

  “Not sure, why?”

  “How about you head inside, get something to eat, and lay down for a while. I can watch the gate as well as you can, and Travis said that he and Kevin wouldn’t be back for a few hours anyway.”

  “What about Gentry?”

  “There’s nothing left to do for him at this point. He helped me to get the IV started, told me to wake him up tomorrow afternoon, and had already showed me how. If this doesn’t work, we might need to see about getting to that research facility in the mountains.

  “Blackmore?”

  “He said if Lockwood is there, we’ll have a chance at fixing this, fixing everything.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Yes.”

  Owen looked away from her, ran his hands over one another, and then pushed away from the bench. “Okay.”

  She stopped him, took his hands in hers. “What is it?”

  He took in a breath, let it out slow. “I’m not sure we should go. Not all of us anyway.”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but if it doesn’t keep us all together, my answer is no. We need to stay together, all of us.”

  He didn’t like what he was thinking either, but he’d grown tired of all the talk, and although he knew it wasn’t ideal, it was their best chance at survival. And waiting around for Gentry to fix himself before fixing the world didn’t feel like the right thing to do. If he was going to save his family, he wasn’t going to ask for permission.

  “You’re right,” Owen said. “I do need to get some rest. Make sure you get me up in a few hours. I need to talk to Kevin and Travis.”

  87

  He’d been walking for what felt like months. He couldn’t remember the last he’d eaten anything and his head had gone numb just before the sun came up. Looking down at his leg, he didn’t remember when the bleeding had stopped or how the makeshift tourniquet got there. There were many details of the last fourteen days that were hazy. And while he didn’t think he had been bitten, he was fairly certain he had sustained a broken arm and at least one of his legs still carried a nine millimeter slug.

  One foot in front of the other. That had been his mantra for the last two weeks. Just lift one foot and then lift the other. The pain was now mostly gone and it was just him against the screams echoing in his mind, the ones telling him to give up.

  But as he stood twenty feet from the entrance to the building, he was beginning to wonder if it was all worth it. His former home looked abandoned, as did every single structure for the last three miles. It was as if a nuclear bomb had been detonated, and he was standing at ground zero.

  Another three minutes and he was finally standing at the curb. He reached for his pant leg, noticed he was also missing his shoes, and then lifting his right foot up onto the sidewalk, something moved in his periphery. It couldn’t have been a Feeder, the movement was much too quick.

  He instinctively reached for a weapon, although the momentum of his right arm coming up and around forced him off balance. His leg also failed and he toppled to the sidewalk, rolling onto his back.

  The world turned grey and then as it had multiple times over the last several days, began to fade into black.

  Now there was nothing but the smell of death riding the cool breeze of early morning and the low hum filling his ears.

  And voices. One female and two male.

  The woman said, “Come on, hurry, over here. I think he’s still breathing.”

  “Be careful, is he bitten?”

  “I don’t know, hold on.”

  “Okay, roll him over.”

  “He’s in pretty bad shape, but it doesn’t look like he’s infected. Let’s get him inside.”

  “Wait a second.” It was the woman again. Her voice was different, slower. Like she was working through something. “This can’t be, it’s impossible.”

  “What, what is it?”

  “I think this might be Jerome Declan.”

  End of Book Two

  The Next World

  Book Three

  RESURGENCE

  88

  Miami Florida

  Seventeen Days before the Outbreak …

  Devin Fletcher stood in the hall outside the Administrator’s office. He was trying to block out the voice of the man with the heavy accent when patient zero cr
ashed through the front doors of Shady Creek Assisted Living Facility. He couldn’t quite recall the exact details of what happened next, as it all seemed to come so fast. However, there was one thing that was certain. The day he buried his grandmother was one he wouldn’t soon forget. But not for the reasons one might think.

  It came in parts.

  Waves.

  Each escalating in intensity and aggression.

  First there was the ground-shaking detonation that pulled his attention away from the office across the hall. It sounded as though an eighteen wheeler had been driven right through the front doors of the senior living facility, all heads whipping back and to the right.

  “What the hell was that?” The woman in the blue turtleneck seated on the bench eight feet away dropped her purse and leapt to her feet. She quickly turned back, now eyeing Devin like he knew something no one else did.

  There was something that told him it wasn’t an accident, but her pointed question had him at a loss. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  The man with the accent pushed around Devin and started toward the end of the hall. He was walking fast, his arms swinging strangely out of sync with the rest of his body. And as he drew to within ten feet of the bend in the hall, he stopped on his heels. It looked like he was trying to dig them into the checkerboard linoleum.

  “RUN!”

  The man’s voice echoed back through the hall. He looked for a moment like he was going to continue forward, but then turned around and began waving his arms. Not back and forth like he was calling for attention, but in a forward throwing motion, both arms at the same time. “GOOOO!”

  The woman who’d dropped the gold-trimmed purse had dropped to her knees, but looked up as she read the alarm in the man’s voice. She was staring at the side of Devin’s head. “What, what did he say?”