The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 1: Books 1 - 3 (Sick, Exit 9, & Pale Horse)

by Brett Battles

  She waited until they passed, then silently moved out from her hiding place and onto the road behind them.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  All three jumped, the smaller of the girls letting out a brief scream. As they looked back, Kusum could tell they wanted to run.

  “Don’t move,” she said, showing them the knife.

  “Please don’t hurt us,” the smaller girl said.

  “Then tell me why you’re following us.”

  The girls exchanged a glance. The tall one, who Kusum could now see was a few years older than the other, said, “We’re not following you.”

  “You’ve been following us for the last hour and a half.”

  “We’re just using the same road. You can’t stop us from doing that.”

  Though the girl was smaller than Kusum, she had donned a tough front, going so far as to move in front of the other two.

  “Where are you going?” Kusum asked.

  “To visit our family,” the girl said quickly.

  It was a transparent lie. Kusum was sure they’d grown up in the streets, and doubted they even knew who their families were. She didn’t even think any of the three were related to each other, as none shared any similar physical traits.

  She stared at the older girl for several seconds, then put the knife back in the sheath and held it at her side. “When was the last time any of you had anything to eat?”

  “We ate just a few hours a—” the older one began.

  “Yesterday,” the boy said. “In the morning.”

  Kusum frowned. “Come on, then.” She walked through the middle of them, and started down the road toward her family. After a moment, she looked back. “I said, come on. Unless you’re not hungry.”

  The boy was the first to move, but the girls weren’t far behind him.

  With that simple invitation, Reva, Induma, and Adesh joined Kusum’s family.

  They would not be the last.

  Thirty

  MONTANA

  2:14 AM MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

  LIZZIE DREXEL KNEW they were out there. She could feel them watching her house. She’d seen one of them fifteen minutes earlier, peeking around a tree. And where there was one, there had to be more.

  She barely thought about the boy anymore. He’d been gone since the day before. To her, that was a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then. The world, as Owen had always told her it would, had gone to shit.

  “You were right, big brother. You were right,” she muttered.

  Aren’t I always?

  For hours, she’d sat mesmerized in front of her computer, watching the news. Everywhere it was the same—death being delivered in dull metal boxes. That no one had died yet didn’t mean anything. It was going to happen. She knew it would, like she knew why the men watching her house were there. Owen had told her.

  Those boxes would be wasted out here, his voice had said. Those are for the crowds. People like you and me, they’ll come for us individually.

  He told her how they planned to do it—break in, hold her down, and swab the bug in her nose.

  Too bad for them they’ve come to the wrong house, Owen said.

  She smiled. “Yeah, too bad.”

  Lizzie wasn’t about to die from the killer virus, but she was willing to die if it meant taking with her those who were trying to give it to her.

  She went into the bedroom and opened the secret panel in the closet. Her sweet brother had prepared so much for a world he didn’t live long enough to see.

  Oh, I’ll see it, he said.

  She nodded. “Right. I just meant—”

  I know what you meant. Now do what needs to be done.

  Owen’s big concern had been a civil war. He hadn’t been clear what form it would take—race-based, religious, or class driven—but that wasn’t important. He just knew it was coming. And while he wasn’t interested in joining any of the sides, he wasn’t about to let anyone take what was his.

  He had two main means of preventing that from happening. The first was the four sniper nests he’d created under the eaves of his house. All he would have had to do was crawl from corner to corner to cover the whole house. He’d even lined the otherwise unfinished attic with steel plates for protection.

  The problem with this option was that Lizzie was not the marksman her brother was, nor would her bad hip allow her to move around the attic in any kind of useful fashion. That left the second option—setting off the Semtex explosive that was built into the house right above the basement retaining wall, and in the garage along the base.

  All she would have to do was wait until the killers approached the house, then boom.

  She felt a bit sad that it had come to this. She’d come to love the house, but she was not about to die in it from some painful, draining infection.

  Uh-uh. Not her.

  She flipped the switches that turned the system on, removed the remote control from its clip, and carried it to the dining room window where she could watch and wait for the exact right moment.

  THE HOUSE SAT near the edge of a clearing, a detached garage off to the side. They would have passed right by it if Miller hadn’t noticed there were fewer trees in its direction, then found the broken twigs indicating a spot where someone had sat and watched the building like they were now doing.

  Could it have been Brandon? Ash had wondered. Was his son right now inside the home, sleeping?

  Both buildings were dark, and there was a faint whiff of smoke in the air, hinting at a dying fire in the fireplace. Someone was definitely home, but at this hour they were undoubtedly asleep.

  Ash was tempted to walk up and knock on the door. It was only a warning relayed by Miller from Christina at the base that kept him from doing it.

  “A survivalist,” Miller said, summarizing what he had been told. “Or was. He died about a year ago and his sister moved in last August.”

  When Ash looked at him, surprised, Miller told him that the Resistance kept detailed notes about its nearest neighbors. The current occupant, Elizabeth Drexel, apparently led a very quiet life. She was an account who did all her work via the Internet, and since taking up residence, had only twice driven the thirty-five miles to town for supplies. Where she fell on the whole survivalist thing, they had not yet been able to determine, and that was the problem. Survivalists were a notoriously paranoid lot, and not fond of people knocking on their door. Especially at two in the morning.

  “Did you see that?” Ash said.

  “See what?” Miller asked.

  “The window facing us, something moved along the edge.”

  Miller studied the window for several seconds. “There’s nothing there now.”

  “There was.”

  Ash closed his eyes and played the movement back in his mind. It had been a curtain, but not flapping like what might happen if a burst of air rushed past. It had been more…subtle, controlled. Like someone pushing the curtain away from the frame so they could look outside.

  One way to find out, he thought. He rose from his crouch. “I’m going in.”

  “Whoa. You’re going to scare the crap out of her.”

  “I’m just going to ask her if she’s seen Brandon.”

  “We should at least wait until the sun comes up.”

  Ash locked eyes with him. “My son is missing. I’m not going to waste time waiting for it to get lighter. I’ll knock on the door and ask about Brandon. That’s all.”

  Miller was clearly not comfortable with the decision, but he said nothing.

  “You stay here,” Ash said. “Less likely to scare the crap out of her if there’s only one of us.”

  AS SOON AS Lizzie returned to the dining room window, she moved the curtain just enough so she could create a clear spot to peek through with her night vision goggles. She watched and waited.

  It didn’t take long for her intruders to make a move.

  One moment the night was still, in the next the dark figure of a man stepped o
ut from the trees and started walking toward her house.

  You were right, little sister. They’re really here, Owen said.

  When the man passed the garage, she frowned. “Where are the others?”

  Patience.

  “Why aren’t they all coming?”

  Owen apparently didn’t have an answer for this.

  With each step the man took, she became more and more frustrated. She was supposed to take them all out, not just one guy.

  Her thumb slipped down the side of the remote. “What am I going to do?” she asked.

  Her brother still said nothing.

  “What do I do?”

  SO FAR, ASH had seen no repeat of the movement he’d detected earlier as he passed the garage and trudged across the cold, hard earth toward the house’s small porch. He hesitated in front of the door for several seconds, then raised his hand and knocked.

  LIZZIE WATCHED THE man until he disappeared from her view as he went around to the front of the house. She looked back at the woods, wondering once more where the others were, then stepped away from the window.

  Was the man scanning her house for weak points? Or would he try to break in? She walked quietly toward the door, wanting to hear the moment he attempted to pick the locks. She was only a few feet away when—

  Knock, knock, knock.

  She jerked backward, nearly falling on the floor.

  Knocking on her door was not something she expected.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Pull yourself together, Owen ordered.

  She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, and moved up to the door. The man was just a few feet away now, right on the other side. She looked down at the remote in her hand.

  “Not yet,” she whispered to herself. “Wait for the others.”

  Knock, knock, knock.

  If she said nothing, he would get his colleagues, wouldn’t he? And they would all come back?

  “Hello?” the man called through the door. “Hello? Are you home? Ms. Drexel? Hello?”

  She froze. He knew her name.

  Of course, he knows your name, Owen said. He and his friends are professional killers. They always prepare ahead of time. But there’s no way they could have prepared for what you have waiting for them.

  That brought a smile to her face.

  “Ms. Drexel, I just need to ask you a question.”

  “Go get your friends,” she silently mouthed. “Go get your friends and I’ll open the door.”

  “Ms. Drexel?”

  Knock, knock, knock.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve woken you. My son is missing. I need your help.”

  Son? What was the man talking about? His son was missing? It must be some kind of trick to get her to—

  Then she remembered. The boy. And it all became clear.

  The kid had been part of it. He hadn’t just happened upon her garage to spend the night. He’d been sent to her place on purpose, to make sure she was the only one here, and to provide information to the men now out to kill her.

  Oh, how tricky. Using a child to scout me out.

  “Go away!” she yelled, then clapped her empty hand over her mouth.

  Why had she done that? That was stupid. She should have just stayed silent.

  “Ms. Drexel, my name’s Daniel Ash. I’m looking for my son, Brandon. I think he may have come this way, and I was wondering if you might have seen him.”

  “No,” she said. “No, I haven’t seen anyone. Now leave me alone!”

  “Are you sure? He probably would have come by here yesterday.”

  “I said no!”

  The man fell silent.

  She stood as still as possible until she could stand it no more. She moved over to the window next to the door to see if he had left.

  She pulled the curtain back just an inch, but what she saw was not her empty porch.

  The man was looking in at her, right on the other side of the window.

  “NO, I HAVEN’T seen anyone,” the woman yelled through the door. “Now leave me alone!”

  Ash leaned forward a few inches. “Are you sure? He probably would have come by here yesterday.”

  “I said no!”

  He stared at the door, unsure if she was telling him the truth. He turned his head and caught sight of the window just off to the side. Thinking that if he could get a glimpse of her, he might get a better sense if she was lying, he moved over to it and positioned his eyes as close to the glass as possible.

  All he could see, though, was the back of a black curtain. There wasn’t even a crack along the side to give him a peek into the house.

  He was about to back away when the curtain moved. The woman, wearing a pair of night vision goggles, appeared directly in front of him.

  They both jumped, then—

  TWIN FIREBALLS ROSE into the sky as the double explosions of the house and garage shattered the night.

  One moment Miller was standing behind a tree, watching Ash talk to the woman through the closed door, and the next he was sprawled on the ground, a dozen feet away. He rolled onto his hands and knees, and pushed himself up.

  The two structures were gone, pulverized in the blast.

  Miller ran out of the woods and weaved around flaming debris as he raced toward the house. All he could think of was Ash. He’d been right there, near the front door.

  Miller stopped a dozen feet from where the porch had been. The only things left standing were bits and pieces of the retaining wall around the basement.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  This clearly wasn’t some accidental gas explosion. It was designed specifically to destroy everything.

  He whirled around. The ground was covered with chunks of wood and bent pipes and things he couldn’t even identify. What he didn’t see was Ash or the woman. She had been inside and Miller doubted there was much left of her. But Ash? Miller couldn’t allow himself to think the same.

  Starting from where he’d last seen Ash, he began searching. It wasn’t long before he saw the rounded tip of something sticking out from under a ten-by-three-foot section of siding that had been blown from the house.

  He grabbed the edge of the wood, and shoved it up. Ash was beneath it, his arms wrapped loosely around his chest.

  Miller pushed the siding out of the way and knelt down.

  Ash was breathing, and his pulse, though not strong, was steady enough.

  “Ash?” Miller said, tapping the man’s cheeks. “Ash, come on.”

  His efforts were greeted with a moan, but Ash’s eyes remained closed.

  Miller raised his hand to his ear to turn on his radio and call for help, but his earpiece was missing.

  “Shit!” he said. It must have fallen out when he was knocked to the ground. “Hang in there, buddy. I’ll be right back.”

  He sprinted over to where he’d been. There was enough light coming from the scattered fires that he didn’t have to turn on his flashlight. His earpiece was on the ground, not far from where he’d been thrown.

  “This is Miller. Do you copy?”

  “This is Christina. Any progress th—”

  “I need medical assistance right away,” he said. “At the Drexel house. Ash is down.”

  Thirty-One

  AFTER LEAVING THE woman’s house the day before, Brandon had continued east, knowing he would find a highway at some point. By early afternoon, he was exhausted, so he found a spot at the base of a large rock, and crawled into this sleeping bag. When he woke, the sun had already gone down, so as anxious as he was to keep moving, he’d thought it best to stay there for the night.

  He had a cold dinner of baked beans and water. Afterward, he lay awake for hours, wondering if he would ever see his family again, before finally falling back to sleep.

  It was the noise that woke him, a distant, rumbling roar that he wasn’t sure was real or part of a dream. He opened his eyes, looked around, then sat up and listened.

  If the noise had come from the real w
orld, it was gone now.

  Just a dream, then, he thought as he lay back down.

  He was able to get a few more hours of sleep before he opened his eyes and knew he was done for the night. He retrieved a couple of granola bars and ate them as his breakfast. He put everything away when he was done, donned his pack, and started out again.

  Clouds had begun to move in overhead, but in the east, where a half moon had risen not long before, the sky was still clear. Beyond the boulder where he’d been sleeping was a narrow, shallow valley. When he reached the top of the ridge on the other side, he stopped and stared.

  “You’re kidding me,” he said.

  Below him, less than half a mile away, was the thin ribbon of what could only be a highway. If he had kept going the day before, it was possible he would have slept someplace warm and welcoming.

  Walking down the hill, he debated with himself what to do if he spotted a car. His experience with the woman at the house had instilled more than a little caution. Maybe he should just stay in the trees and follow alongside the road to a town. That might be the safest option.

  As the sun took away the night and the morning made its slow journey toward noon, it looked like he wouldn’t have to worry about what to do if he saw a car. So far, not a single one had driven by.

  Around eleven he stopped for lunch. As he was eating another granola bar, he remembered what day it was. It was his mother’s favorite day of the year, the first to occur since she died.

  Christmas Eve.

  The tears started before he even knew what was happening, then the sobs followed. It was over twenty minutes before either stopped.

  Thirty-Two

  OUTSIDE MUMBAI, INDIA

  3:30 PM INDIAN STANDARD TIME

  WHEN SANJAY REGAINED consciousness, the sun was high in the sky. He started to roll onto his side, but made a poor choice of direction, and momentarily pressed his damaged shoulder against the ground.

  He clenched his teeth as pain once more shot down his arm and across his chest. It wasn’t as bad as it had been when the bone was dislocated, but it still hurt like hell. Cradling his arm so his shoulder would remain immobile, he sat up.