by Cross, Amy
Copyright 2018 Amy Cross
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.
Kindle edition
First published: November 2018
One hundred days after humanity was brought to its knees, Elizabeth Marter has joined a small group of survivors in Boston. Under constant attack from scavengers who live beyond the city limits, Elizabeth and the others desperately try to come up with a plan. But when they learn that a more organized enemy is on the way, they realize that they face a battle for what's left of their resources.
Thomas Edgewater, meanwhile, has joined up with a ragged bunch of soldiers who are on their way to Boston. As they wait for their orders, however, Thomas and Toad find themselves ordered to guard a captured zombie. By the time the hundredth day draws to a close, Thomas will have begun to suspect that the mysterious Sarah Carter isn't quite who or what she seems. He'll also have met someone who will change his life forever.
Day 100 is the sixth book in the Mass Extinction Event series, chronicling the collapse of human society through the eyes of two very different people who are gradually being drawn together. Ends on a cliffhanger.
Table of Contents
Prologue
12am
1am
2am
3am
4am
5am
6am
7am
8am
9am
10am
11am
12pm
1pm
2pm
3pm
4pm
5pm
6pm
7pm
8pm
9pm
10pm
11pm
Day 100
(Mass Extinction Event book 6)
Prologue
The impact smashes the truck's passenger side and sends the entire vehicle tipping over to the left. The engine roars and I'm sent slamming into the door, but at the last moment the truck slams back down onto its wheels and screeches along the road before bumping down into the undergrowth and finally crashing headfirst into a tree. This second impact shoves me forward, and only the safety belt keeps my head from smashing into the windshield as it shatters.
Glass explodes all around me, slicing the side of my face as I turn away, and then suddenly the immense wrecking sound stops and I'm left sitting in the ruined, smoking truck.
For a moment, I keep my eyes squeezed shut, but finally I open them and look ahead. The windshield is gone, letting rain and wind come crashing in, and all I see is a dark forest stretching ahead. When I came off the road, I must have hit the beginning of the treeline. I feel dazed for a moment, even though I'm pretty sure I didn't hit my head, and my shoulder hurts from the force of being held in place by the belt. As I start moving my hands and feet, however, I realize that I'm basically okay, even if the truck itself seems to be totally ruined.
What did I hit?
I was driving at full-speed through the rainy, stormy night, along an unlit road, and I think I'd just reached a crossroads. And then, out of nowhere, something came slamming into my side with enough force to almost flip the entire truck. I try to check the rear-view mirrors, but they seem to have been ripped off in the crash, so I reach down with a trembling hand and unfasten the belt, before trying to open the door so I can climb out.
I pull the handle several times, but either the door or the frame – or, more likely, both – got damaged in the crash. The window still winds down, though, so I start scrambling out that way, and finally I jump down and land out in the rainy night air. The only light comes from the moon high above, which picks out the edge of the road at the top of a small incline, but so far I don't see or hear any sign of whatever hit me. I wait, listening in case there's a sudden cry, and then I start scrabbling up the incline until I reach the side of the road. Even after just a few seconds, I'm once again soaked to the bone.
And that's when I see it.
There are small pieces of wrecked metal everywhere, spread out for maybe a hundred meters in each direction, and I can just about make out the rear end of some kind of car that has overturned a little way further along the road. One side of the car's front has been destroyed, but the other side looks to be mostly intact although I still don't see anything to indicate that the driver managed to get out, or even that he or she survived.
I instinctively reach down to my belt, before realizing that I don't have a gun with me. I left that behind in the truck.
I watch the wrecked car for a moment, and then I realize that I need to go over and take a closer look. If this is a trap, then it's one that looks to have left the other party in a worse state, and I tell myself that the person in the car might need my help. I start making my way out cautiously, while remaining poised to turn and run, and finally I get close enough to see that somebody's moving in the front of the car. I can hear movement now, too, as if somebody's desperately scrambling to climb out, and a moment later one of the doors opens on the car's other side and a figure slides out, letting out a pained gasp as it lands hard on the asphalt.
Rain is pattering loudly against the figure's arched back. Whoever this person is, they're wearing what looks like some kind of de-contamination suit, complete with a mask hanging loosely from the back of the neck section.
I walk around the side of the car and stop as I see the figure resting on its hands and knees, desperately trying to get its breath back. Squinting slightly in the moonlight, I try to make out the figure's face, and I realize after a few seconds that it seems to be a girl.
I open my mouth to ask if she's okay, but suddenly she turns to me and I see the fear in her eyes. She looks almost wild.
“It's okay!” I gasp, holding my hands up to show that I'm not armed. “I'm not gonna hurt you!”
She continues to stare at me, as if she can't quite believe what she's seeing. In fact, she looks so horrified, I'm starting to wonder whether she's got some kind of head injury.
“I swear I won't hurt you,” I continue, taking a step toward her. “I don't know what happened, I didn't even see the crossroads until it was too late. I didn't see you coming.” I lower my hands. “I was driving for about an hour, I didn't see anyone at all. I guess I didn't expect to, either. I'm sorry if...”
I pause for a moment, hoping that she might say something.
“Are you hurt?” I ask. “I'm not. I mean, I don't think so. My truck's pretty badly damaged, but I'm fine. Can you stand?”
I reach a hand out toward her, but she doesn't respond. She's staring at me as if she either thinks I'm about to attack her, or she's planning to attack me.
“Thomas,” I say cautiously, hoping to at least get something from her. “That's my name. Thomas Edgewater. Can you tell me your name?”
She pauses, before slowing getting to her feet. She struggles slightly and I reach out, grabbing her arm to hold her steady. Pulling away, she takes a limping step back and the she leans against the side of the car as she struggles to get her breath back.
I want to say something, but I wait, hoping that she might reply.
“Elizabeth,” she says finally.
“Elizabeth?”
She stares at me for a moment, and then slowly she reaches a trembling hand out toward me.
“Hello, Thomas Edgewater,” she says with a faint, trembling voice. “My name's Elizabeth Marter, and I've had one hell of a day.”
12am
Elizabeth
Exactly 24 hours earlier...
“Wake up.”
Opening my eyes, I realize that it just happened again. I was right on the edge of sleep, about to nod off, and then a voice reminded me to stay awake. To stay alert.
Not just any voice, either.
Hearing footsteps in the distance, I turn and look along the makeshift locker room, just as a metal door slams somewhere nearby. I don't see anyone, of course, not yet, but that's how these evening shifts always start. I hear her long before I see her, and then she always steps into view and all hell breaks loose. Sometimes I think that if she wasn't so loud, I might be able to hear my brother's voice again.
“Wakey wakey!”
Startled, I turn and look up to my right, and I see Natalie grinning down at me as she slings her rifle over her shoulder. After all these weeks of teaming-up for night-shift duty, she has the whole slacker-girl-sniper look pretty much figured out, right down to the dirt she always smears onto her cheeks and forehead. Honestly, I think getting to play dress-up is part of the fun for her.
“You are so not a late-night kind of girl, are you?” she asks with a chuckle, as she chews on something. “Even after all this time, you look like you just wanna crawl into bed.”
“I'm fine,” I reply, getting to my feet. My eyes feel sore, and after a moment my sore right ankle sends a twinge of pain rippling up the side of my leg. “I'm ready.”
“Whatever.” Rolling her eyes, she heads over to one of the lockers and pulls it open, before taking out a food pack. “I hope you've got some of your own,” she adds, “because I'm not sharing. Not tonight. Time of the week n'all, means I'm trying to squirrel some away so I can have a little private feast before the next round of rations. You have no idea how a weekly feast keeps my chin up. You should try it sometime.”
“I brought some,” I tell her, as I reach into my pocket to double-check.
“You still owe me a pack from last night.”
“I do?” I pause, before realizing that she's right. I borrowed a pack from her, but right now I only have one pack with me. “Oh. Right. Sorry, yeah.”
Taking the pack from my pocket, I hold it out toward her.
She glances at the pack, and then she laughs.
“That's the only one you brought for the whole shift, isn't it?” she chuckles.
I shake my head.
“You're a terrible liar, Elizabeth Marter. You can pay me back some other time. Preferably before my feast is scheduled, though.” She glances at the clock on the wall, then she turns to me again. “Okay, I guess it's time to get out there. And who knows?” She taps the shaft of her rifle. “If we're lucky tonight, we might even get to use these things!”
***
“Do you know what day it is?” Natalie asks a few minutes later, as we sit on a platform on the side of the building, watching the dark yard that stretches all the way to the fence.
“Tuesday?” I suggest, although to be honest I'm not entirely sure.
“It's the hundredth day,” she replies. “Since this all began, I mean.”
“It can't be,” I tell her, genuinely shocked by the suggestion, although after a moment's consideration I start to realize that she might be right. “Can it?”
“It's the hundredth, alright,” she continues, her face caught by a hint of moonlight as she watches the yard. “Crazy, huh? One hundred days of this madness. I can't decide whether it feels much longer than that, or much shorter. A bit of both, I guess. Time seems to be all out of whack.”
“A hundred days,” I whisper, staring out into the darkness.
It's insane, but I think she's right.
One hundred days ago, I guess I was in the apartment in Manhattan. I was with my brother, and we were probably just beginning to realize that something was seriously wrong. Maybe Bob Sullivan had already started bothering us, I don't remember exactly, but I do remember that creeping sense of fear as each hour ticked past and Mom and Dad didn't come home. I told Henry that everything would be alright, and look how that turned out.
I lied to him.
Well, maybe lied isn't quite the right word, but I promised everything would be okay. I promised I'd keep him safe.
“Are you still the same person?” Natalie asks.
I turn to her, although I can barely see her in the darkness.
“I'm not,” she adds. “I don't mind admitting that. I think I've changed more in these past hundred days than I changed in years before that. It's amazing what you can do when you have no choice, huh? And you've changed just in the time you've been here. Is it really only a month since that time you asked me to show you how to work a gun?”
“I guess so;” I reply. “I mean, I think so. I haven't really been able to keep track.”
“And now look at us,” she adds with a chuckle, “spending all this time as the night shift out here on the southern part of the building. We've really fallen into our little niche, haven't we?” She looks out at the land that spreads out into the darkness of night. “How many hours have we spent sitting up here, perched with our guns, ready to scare away anyone who tries to break into the stores? And how many people have we shot at?”
“We haven't shot anyone,” I reply quickly.
“Only because we're sloppy with our aim,” she says. “We've shot at people, though. We've tried to hit them, haven't we?”
I nod.
“Unless you deliberately miss,” she adds.
“Of course I don't,” I tell her. “I'm just really bad at aiming. Anyway, it's like you said that time, we're just a deterrent. And it's not like we can afford to fire too often, anyway. We don't have that much ammunition left. We're just hear so that hopefully people will realize there's no point breaking through the city perimeter and trying to steal from the storerooms.”
“There have only been three kills in the entire city this week,” she says, turning and looking back down toward the yard. “I think they're up to something with that fence. It's kind of pathetic, really, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.” She raises her rifle, as if she's imagining a target. “They're thieves. Never lose sight of that. They want what we've got, and they'll do anything to take it.”
I want to tell her that they're just people, people very much like us, people who need food. I don't say that, though, because I've said it before and I always get laughed at and called naive, and I'm sick of that. I get enough of it from my father. To be honest, that's one of the reasons I've been avoiding him for the past couple of weeks.
“There's one!” Natalie says suddenly, pointing her rifle toward the far end of the yard. “Did you see him?”
“No,” I reply, raising my rifle in the same direction.
“Son of a bitch, there's one out there,” she continues, lowering her voice now. She's got her hunting voice on, the voice she always uses when she's spotted a target. “The fucker thinks he can come here and steal our shit, does he? Like all his miserable pals before. If that fucker thinks he's got a chance against me and my gun, he's got another thing coming.”
We wait in silence for a few minutes, and I start to wonder whether perhaps Natalie's wrong. Out of all the times in the past that she's claimed to have spotted someone, maybe half those times we've actually ended up firing at an intruder. The other times she's either been wrong, or the intruder evidently had second thoughts and didn't try to reach the storage unit. They must know that we're armed, which means that they wouldn't be trying to get to the unit unless they were completely desperate. They're probably starving to death. Maybe they're trying to steal food so they can feed their children.
“There!” Natalie says suddenly. “Two o'clock!”
I look where she indicated, but all I see is the darkness of the yard. My heart's pounding, however, and I instinctively move my finger onto the trigger. I have to look ready, I have to convince Natalie that I'm prepared to fire, even though I always leave the actual killing to her. Between the two of us, we've not actually managed to kill anyone yet,
but the difference is that Natalie at least tries whereas I always deliberately aim a little distance away from the target. I'm scaring them away, is what I tell myself. There's no need to actually kill anyone at all.
“Maybe you were wrong,” I whisper.
“No fucking way.”
“But -”
“I saw the asshole clear as anything,” she continues. “He was keeping low and staying close to the wall, hoping not to be seen. He must be in the shadows over there, close to the containers. Damn, we should move those things, but nobody ever listens to me, do they? We should clear this whole yard and make it so the fuckers have nowhere to hide when they come on their little raiding missions.” She mutters something else under her breath, something I don't quite manage to make out. “If you ask me,” she adds finally, “we should exterminate the lot of them.”
“You can't mean that,” I reply.
“Why not?”
“They're people, just like us!”
“I don't care. They're thieves. We should clear those shanty settlements they've set up near the perimeter. They're not doing anyone any good.”
“My father says the Council's trying to figure out how to let them in,” I tell her. “It's just a matter of controlling the numbers and making sure that there's no disease.”
“And you believe him?” she asks. “Come on, Lizzie, don't be so -”
Suddenly she freezes, and I turn just in time to see that she's moving her rifle, as if she's trying to keep her aim focused on someone. She mutters something under her breath again, as if she's trying to give herself a pep talk.
