Flashpoint Box Set, Vol. 1 | Books 1-3

by Ellis, Tara

  The sunset was an undramatic event of small splashes of pink staining a few solo clouds high in the atmosphere. But on the horizon, to the south, she could see far beyond the protected valley of Mercy. She had to be close to six thousand feet up, maybe more. It wasn’t the terrain that Chloe found remarkable, but the sky.

  A band of orange haze stretched from east to west, as far as she could see. It was too high to be from smoke or fires. It was something else—unlike anything she’d seen before.

  Bishop moved up beside her. They stood silently for several minutes before they turned to look at each other. His face was grim, the sun and dirt aging him several years in the past three days. He sighed. “Something’s coming.”

  Chloe nodded. “Yes.” She gazed longingly at the town of Mercy, and thought of the people sheltered there, unaware that this was just the beginning.

  Chapter 27

  RUSSELL

  Wyoming State Mental Hospital, Wyoming

  Tim’s feet thrashed at the cement floor, the rubber soles leaving streaks of black like some macabre form of art.

  Russell wrapped his legs around the other man’s, halting his movement, and increased the pressure of his arm across Tim’s throat. He arched his back in response, forcing Russell to turn his face to avoid being struck, his cheek flush against the cold floor. They lay there, in an intimate backwards embrace, for several minutes as the life drained from the guard.

  Rolling out from under him, Russell gazed down at Tim, able to make out his features in the flickering light provided by a candle. It had only taken one more day to convince the man to let him out. He felt no remorse. It was because of emotions that Tim lay dead and Russell would walk free. He learned at a young age that strong emotions were messy—flawed.

  Moving with purpose, Russell removed Tim’s shirt and then slowly, methodically stripped his own off and put it on. He made a special effort to smooth out the nametag, his hand lingering over it as he took a deep breath that to anyone else might have sounded like a moan. Tim Ridgeway. He’d always thought he looked like a Tim.

  Russell never killed the same way twice so it was the first time he’d strangled someone. It wasn’t the first time he’d killed a grown man, but Tim was the largest of his victims. It had been surprisingly easy and if he was honest with himself, he was a little disappointed.

  Brushing his hands off on his slacks, Russell took one last look around the room. He would keep his own pants and shoes because of the size difference, but that wouldn’t matter. He had a sneaking suspicion that no one would be paying that much attention to detail…if there was even anyone else left at the facility.

  Without another look at the man he’d befriended for the past two months, Russell picked up the candle and stepped out into the hallway. Eddie hadn’t made any noise from his cell since the night before and based on the new smell mingling with the septic, he wouldn’t be an issue. Russell turned in the other direction and headed for the exit.

  Outside, night was falling and there was an odd glow in the sky. Curious, he looked up and immediately recognized the northern lights. He’d spent some time in Alaska for a few years and although he’d had plenty of opportunity to see them there, he knew this was something else. Something…unnatural.

  With only a slight pause in his step, Russell walked across the empty campus. There were no lights coming from any of the windows of the dozen or so buildings that comprised the facility, confirming what Tim had told him before opening his door. Everyone else had left. They’d released all the regular psychiatric patients but planned on leaving the criminals to rot.

  Russell’s teeth flashed white in the odd twilight. He headed for the administration building.

  A half-hour later, he was walking through the open, wrought-iron gate, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He hadn’t found much, just enough to keep him going for a couple of days, until he found more.

  The institute was located near a small town in Wyoming, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but that didn’t concern Russell. Beyond the gates, he looked to the east and saw a glow that had to be an immense fire some miles away. To the south, the freeway stretched into darkness, several vehicles visible and apparently empty and abandoned. Again, Tim had been telling the truth.

  Russell grunted. He had to give the kid credit for being honest, and he probably actually had good instincts. His problem was that he didn’t listen to them.

  Russell did, and what they told him now was that he already knew where he was going to go. It was all part of his reinvention. He could be whoever he wanted, wherever he wanted. He turned to the north.

  Tim Ridgeway had spent hours telling Russell about his idyllic hometown. The mountains, rivers, lakes, and animal life. After the flashpoint, he’d gone on about how it was the perfect place to be when the power went out.

  “Yes,” Russell murmured as he began walking. “Perfect.”

  Even the name was perfect, and although Russell didn’t believe in fate or luck, he did believe in creating his own destiny and, for him, that destiny was a place called Mercy.

  Smolder

  The Flashpoint Series Book 2

  Prologue

  The Earth has been impacted by a gamma-ray burst, the most powerful explosion in the known universe. With half the population killed instantly and the other half dying, those struggling to survive are slowly coming to realize the lasting consequences.

  Stranded hundreds of miles from home, we follow the converging stories of a group of survivors connected by a town called Mercy. Each of them is drawn to the small town for different reasons, but all of them want to survive.

  Danny was already questioning her role in life when the event occurred, but facing death has a way of clarifying what’s important. As she and her new friend Sam travel five hundred miles to where her father lives in Mercy, Montana, the paramedic may discover more about herself than she ever wanted to know.

  Tom and his son Ethan started their trek over a hundred miles north of Danny, but they have the same destination. The cattle ranch has been in Tom’s family for multiple generations and is the perfect refuge in the unfolding apocalypse…if they can get there.

  Back in Mercy, Mayor Patty does her best to pull the town together in the face of the world-altering event, yet even the small-town community mentality might not be enough. Fear and desperation spread quickly and the leaders of Mercy must come together and rally against it.

  In the steep terrain surrounding the mountain town, a group of troubled teens are led by well-meaning counselors on a survivalist hike when they find themselves cut off and without any means of retreat. Running low on supplies, they set out across the national forest to find their only hope of sanctuary, the people of Mercy.

  While most of the threats the survivors face are tangible, another, more insidious evil looms on the horizon. Someone else is coming to Mercy.

  Chapter 1

  ELIZABETH

  Dallas Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

  Dr. Elizabeth Grey pulled the soiled sheet up, covering the face of her patient. Jack had also been a friend, co-worker, and occasional lover. She should have felt more. The chill that had settled into her stomach and then spread through her body over the past five days as the body count rose had stolen that from her. Now, there was a hollowness that only widened and threatened to swallow her as she stood there, staring down at the unmoving sheet.

  “Lizzy.”

  Elizabeth jumped and spun around to face the dark hall behind her, fighting the wave of severe nausea caused by the movement. The voice was broken and dry, like that of someone who’d been stranded out in the dessert for days. Only her friends called her Lizzy and she’d thought they were all dead. She took the green glowstick from Jack’s bedside. He wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

  Five days. Five days since the flash had plunged them all into a living nightmare. The faint light from the glowstick didn’t do much more than cast a green hue a few feet around her, revealing a stark hospita
l hallway that had been transformed into something that was barely recognizable. Pausing, she bent over and retched onto the floor, ignoring the bloody streaks mixed in with the bile.

  Elizabeth wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and then stood for a moment, listening. Someone was moaning at the other end of the hall, and a woman was wailing in the distance. Probably from the ER. Any patients who arrived in the past two days were all outside. Those still inside had either recovered enough to leave or had died. Family members wandered around aimlessly with candles, desperately looking for loved ones.

  But she’d recognized the voice that whispered her name.

  Elizabeth had been an ER physician at the large, urban medical center for over a decade and she knew most of the staff. They were her family. Choking back an unexpected sob, Elizabeth stepped over a body and held the glowstick out at arm’s length. “Hello?” Her voice sounded foreign to her. She knew she was dehydrated, her body ravaged by radiation, and it was only a matter of time before she joined the silenced forms blanketing the floors.

  “Lizzy…are you there?”

  Elizabeth jabbed the inadequate light to her left, revealing an open door. She didn’t have to see much to know where she was. She could walk the length of the administrative wing of the hospital with her eyes closed. “Pam!”

  Pam Elliott was the Chief Nursing Director and her best friend. Pam disappeared two days earlier, after her daughter died in her arms in the parking lot. Now, Elizabeth could see she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, in the dark, holding a bag of IV fluids. She’d bitten the top off and was drinking it.

  “What are you doing?” Elizabeth dropped to her knees and grabbed at the bag. Pam pulled back, cuddling the solution to her chest. Her eyes were wild, her lips parched, and she had clearly gone over the edge. “Okay,” Elizabeth placated, falling back onto her bottom and putting her hands out in surrender. “Drink it if you can stomach it. I guess it really doesn’t matter.” She eyed the bag, as surprised to see it as she was her friend. They’d run out of them less than twenty-four hours after it all began.

  The hospital was immediately overrun after the flash, with patients ranging from car accident victims to severe sunburns, as well as injuries from the fires raging in the city. Those were the ones that could make it to the hospital on foot or be carried. Since they were in the center of a sprawling metropolis with a population of nearly one-and-a-half-million, it was a feat easily accomplished for far too many.

  The radiation poisoning symptoms began by nightfall on the first day. By then, Elizabeth had already blown through most of the supplies in the ER. They’d moved their triage out into the parking lot, both for space and natural light, and even that overflowed in a matter of hours.

  She didn’t know a lot about radiation, but it didn’t take a genius to make the connection between the event and the obvious symptoms. Whatever had caused the light, it had also unleashed some sort of radiation that had devastating effects. Most of her staff abandoned their posts the first day; Elizabeth understood why. They had families, children they had to try and get home to. Those who remained, like herself and Jack, she’d quickly dosed with IV fluids and anti-nausea meds so that they could keep treating their patients.

  If they’d had enough staff, supplies, and power, Elizabeth believed that most of the people who’d been healthy before falling ill could have recovered. As it was, by the third day, there wasn’t anything she could do for them, other than hold their hands while they died.

  They were out of water, IV supplies, any useful medications, and vomit bags. The bags were important because their disappearance marked a clear turning point. Without working bathrooms, when the bags were gone, they were out of options. Hundreds of people had defecated bloody diarrhea on the ground, as well as vomiting, threatening to spread disease on top of the radiation sickness. It was unbearable.

  Elizabeth wouldn’t have come back inside the building if it weren’t for Jack. He didn’t want to die in an anonymous pile of indistinguishable bodies in the parking lot, so on trembling legs the two of them had made the short pilgrimage to the employee sleep room. They’d shared some fond memories there in previous years.

  Elizabeth hung her head and stared for a moment at the green haze in her lap as the disorganized memories tumbled through her mind, confusing her. The light was getting dimmer but it still reminded her of one of her favorite science fiction movies. She blinked slowly, unable to focus enough to remember the name of it.

  An explosion from outside rocked the building, briefly illuminating the one window of the office in the predawn darkness. Elizabeth grunted as she staggered to her feet in the roaring aftermath and went to the window. They were on the fourth floor, so she could see the burning city spreading out for miles in every direction. It was a cityscape seared into her memory long ago, now distorted by all of the destruction.

  One of the large propane storage tanks located behind the building had exploded and flames were roaring thirty feet into the air above it. She turned away from the imagery on the ground that the light exposed.

  “Lizzy, I’ll get to see Sarah soon.”

  Elizabeth jumped at Pam’s voice. She’d forgotten her friend was there. Rubbing at her burning eyes, she was briefly tempted to ask for a sip of the IV fluids, even though she knew the saline would only make her situation worse in the end. Instead, she closed the office door, hoping to block out some of the stench during their final hours.

  Elizabeth sat down next to Pam, dropped the glowstick on the floor in front of them, and set a hand on her friend’s knee. “Yes, Pam. You can see Sarah again.”

  When Pam slumped over and put her head in Elizabeth’s lap, she gently stroked the other woman’s hair. “You’re a good mom.” Elizabeth had never had children of her own, and she regretted it.

  Looking up at the window still outlined by the fire, she wondered how long it would be before the sun came up. Maybe she’d start walking. Just…get on the freeway and walk until she couldn’t anymore. At least she’d be free of the darkness and stench of the hospital.

  Pam took a shuddering breath under her hand and became still.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and pictured the arboretum located several miles away. It was one of her favorite places in the city. She might be able to make it there. Her mother had always liked the flowers and they would spend hours guessing the names.

  An overwhelming weariness spread through her and she slid down to the floor, cradling her friend’s lifeless body. The dark chasm she’d been narrowly walking broke open and Elizabeth fell into the void with a sort of relief, the pent-up grief escaping as tears finally spilled. “You go see Sarah,” she whispered.

  Chapter 2

  DANNY

  Near Honeyville, Utah

  A blinding white light was all Danny could see. It filled her with dread as it washed out her world then rapidly faded, leaving her blinking in its wake. She was back on the plane, but something was different. Turning to look out the window, instead of planes falling from the sky, it was bodies. Danny recoiled from the scene, unfortunately not before she saw her father land on the wing of the plane with a sickening thud.

  Her breath coming in ragged gasps, Danny flailed as hands grabbed at her, pushing her down and covering her mouth. Trying to scream around the fingers, she jerked awake and almost bit the flesh between her teeth before recognizing the face hovering over her.

  “We have to go!” Sam growled, his voice urgent.

  Danny shook off the remnants of the recurring dream she’d been having every night and tried to focus on their present situation. “Why? What’s happening?” She could hear them then, at least two people moving around above them on the old rotten floorboards of the ancient barn they’d taken refuge beneath.

  “Call it a cleansing,” Sam said cryptically. He already had his pack on and held Danny’s out to her. “It’s almost morning. Are you up to riding your bike?”

  Grabbing the backpack, Danny stood with some
effort before struggling into it. Although she was careful, the strap still scraped against the bandage on her left arm, causing her to wince. “Do I have a choice?”

  The past thirty-six hours were still pretty fuzzy, but Sam had filled in most of the blanks the last time she’d been awake, earlier that day. “Is it the other guy from the pharmacy?”

  Sam grunted. “I wish. It’s a lot worse than the brother of the guy I…shot.”

  Danny understood why Sam couldn’t bring himself to say that he’d killed him. She remembered hearing the gunshots while lying on the floor of the backroom of the pharmacy. Then Grace was barking, there were screams, and then another shot. The way Sam described it, the golden retriever attacked the man who’d shot at him. Sam had then picked up the dropped weapon, just in time to see another guy aiming at him. Sam didn’t have a choice. It was either kill or be killed.

  Following Sam across the cramped space of the storm cellar, Danny’s headache made her already short patience non-existent. She glanced up as another board creaked. “Who is it then, Sam?”

  “When I went back to the park for your bike, the purge was already underway.” Sam paused at the sound of a slamming door from the structure above them, and lowered his voice. “I guess the sheriff’s plan to keep things orderly involves closing the town off and getting rid of any outsiders. From what I saw, it’s by any means necessary.”

  Unfortunately, their plan to enter the smaller town had backfired. For the same reasons she and Sam thought it would be safe, the fact that the community wasn’t totally disbanded now worked against them.

  The irony was that they had stolen from the town’s pharmacy, and in the process, someone was killed. It didn’t matter who was at fault. Danny rubbed at her healing arm. Was it worth it?