Edge of Survival Box Set 1

by William Oday

  Otis turned. Bright red blood trickled out of his nose, over his lips, and dripped from his chin to the sheets. Huge red veins in his eyes crowded out the whites. The center a black pit.

  Dark streams leaked from his eyes, painting his cheeks variations of red, brown, and black.

  He barely looked human.

  78

  The old man blinked and wiped at his eyes. The pressure burst fragile veins and fresh blood seeped down his cheeks.

  “Is someone there?”

  He couldn’t see. A small blessing.

  “Otis, it’s Mason.”

  Are you okay?

  The words almost came out, but he cut them off knowing how absurd the question was. This man was as far from okay as was physically possible.

  “What happened?”

  The old man reached for his wife’s hand, patting the blanket until he found it.

  “How is Mabel? She went quiet some time ago. She needs rest. Some time to get better.”

  Mabel wasn’t going to get better. She was gone.

  “I won’t leave her now. Not after fifty years together. Where she goes, I go.”

  Mason wondered if he knew what he was saying. Because it looked like he was dead right about that.

  “Otis, what happened?”

  The cloth dropped from his hand and he licked his lips, licking a break in the line of red dripping from his nostrils. The line continued and spilled over his lips in its continuing descent.

  “I went to pick up Mabel this morning and the hospital was a mess. Doctors and nurses running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

  He coughed and blood spewed out onto the filthy sheets. The new addition only visible by the wet sheen it caked on the older, dried areas.

  “They’d moved her and nobody knew where she was. What kind of yahoo operation does that?”

  He shook his head.

  “It took forever to get someone to help me. To find her.”

  He covered his mouth and coughed. A wet, crackling hack. Blood oozed between his fingers.

  “Such a disgrace. The way she was. Unforgivable.”

  He turned back to his wife and ran his fingers along her body until they found her face.

  He continued speaking, his words wet and mushy.

  “I brought her home. So we could be together.”

  He doubled over, hacking and spitting chunks of fibrous slime onto the sheets. A fresh wave of putridity filled the room. His arms went limp, one on each side of his wife. One final hug before going to join her on the other side.

  Beth pulled Mason back.

  He didn’t budge. It didn’t compute. Or maybe it computed too easily. He’d seen gore as bad as this in another place, another time. Mangled bodies left to rot in the streets. Bodies turned inside out like a pair of pants.

  Having endured it before didn’t make it easier now.

  This was closer to home.

  Right next door to home.

  Beth dragged him back down the hall.

  “We can’t be here. We have to leave, Mason.”

  They found Iridia at the entrance and pulled her outside. Mason closed the door, thinking that he’d never walk through it again welcomed by the delicate, rich scent of homemade rhubarb muffins. He’d never sit with Otis on a lazy Sunday afternoon and hear about how much the world had changed. Hear about the cases he’d won in his long career.

  Otis either had a perfect record or he never chose to discuss the times he lost.

  The Crayfords had survived wars, depressions, and more. And they’d done it together. Side by side through the best and the worst. As horrific as their end was, Mason was glad that they at least faced it together.

  He wondered what future he and Beth might have to endure.

  79

  His chest ached. A suffocating sadness bore down like he was breathing against double the usual gravity.

  Beth crossed over to the Crayfords’ flower bed and plucked the tallest Gerbera daisy of the bunch. Its petals shone like sunlight. She carried it back and gently set it by the front door.

  A single flower at the peak of its ephemeral vigor.

  The most pitiable meowing echoed through the closed door.

  Beth cracked it open and Mr. Piddles slunk out, his head low. He howled and sniffed at Beth’s outstretched hand.

  “What are you doing, Beth?”

  Mason had a pretty clear idea. He just didn’t know if it was a good one.

  Beth picked up the rotund cat and crossed back to their driveway. She stopped.

  “Hold up here.”

  She turned to their house. “Theresa! Theresa, come outside!”

  Theresa stumbled out a moment later in her second favorite pajamas. Beth had thrown out the ones she wore last night. This set was long sleeves top and bottom too, thankfully. Mason had never realized how much of a blessing long sleeved pajamas could be. Never realized it until his daughter woke up in bed next to a boy two years her elder.

  “Get the mop bucket and a few rags from the pantry closet. The bleach and a heavy duty, black trash bag from under the kitchen sink. And four towels from my bathroom.”

  Theresa stood there, her brows knitted together in confusion.

  “What are you doing with Mr. Piddles?”

  “Now, Theresa!”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  She reappeared a few moments later with the requested items.

  Beth pointed at a spot ten feet away on the driveway. “Put them there. Don’t come closer!”

  “Okay. What’s going on, Mom?”

  “Just do it, honey. I’ll explain later.”

  Theresa did as she was asked.

  “Get back now.”

  Theresa backed up to the bottom step of the porch.

  “Go inside, Theresa.”

  “Why?”

  “Theresa!”

  She turned and sprinted inside without another word.

  Beth turned to Mason and Iridia.

  “We need to dispose of our clothes and wipe down completely with a bleach solution.”

  “What?” Iridia asked.

  Beth started stripping down.

  “Get naked. Isn’t that what supermodels do?”

  “Often, yes,” Iridia responded without a tinge of sarcasm.

  What a strange world she lived in.

  Then again, the normal world wasn’t all that normal lately.

  Beth set Mr. Piddles on the ground. He sat back on his haunches and watched. The occasional sorrowful meow testament to his grief.

  Mason took the blanket off his shoulders and stretched aching, exhausted muscles. Sharp pain radiated from his calf and numerous places on his back.

  They all peeled out of their respective clothes, right down to their birthday suits. Mason and Beth stood awkwardly, not knowing where to put their hands. Wondering if they should or should not be covering this or that part. Their eyes darted here and there, trying to find a comfortable place to linger and being drawn to places they didn’t consider appropriate.

  Iridia looked as natural as ever. She stood with her hip cocked to the side and her hand resting on it. She was a vision. Utterly confident without a stitch of clothing on. She studied both of their naked bodies without a hint of discomfort.

  “You two keep fit for being so old.”

  Beth’s nostrils flared. “Thanks. I think.”

  She turned and piled their clothes in the trash bag and then knotted it closed. She knelt down by the bucket and measured out capfuls of bleach.

  “One part bleach to eight parts water will kill anything known. Get the hose, Iridia.”

  Iridia brought it over and Beth filled the bucket. The biting antiseptic scent filled the air.

  “We need to scrub every part of our bodies with this solution. Thoroughly. And leave it on for a few minutes.”

  “You want me to put that on my body?” She said it like the bucket contained hydrochloric acid. It wasn’t quite that strong. “That will murder my sk
in!”

  Beth grabbed a rag and swished it around in the water. Mason couldn’t help but admire the curve of her backside as she knelt there.

  Beth stood up and held a dripping rag out to Iridia. “There are very likely microbes on your skin right now that will murder you. Murder you like they did those poor souls next door.”

  Iridia gulped and her deer legs quivered. She accepted the rag.

  “You have moisturizer, right?”

  She started wiping down her chest and neck.

  “Ugh, it stinks.”

  “That means it’s working.”

  Mason accepted a soaking rag and started scrubbing his shoulders down. Water slid down his back. He winced as the solution washed over fresh wounds.

  Beth joined in the cleansing ritual.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  Theresa on the porch. Her eyes wide and jaw dropped open.

  Mason looked at himself, at Beth, at Iridia. They shouted ludicrously. They looked like a high school car wash gone old and illicit.

  “Your mother told you to get inside!”

  Theresa squeaked and flew back through the door.

  They all finished wiping themselves down. All the parts they could reach.

  Mason looked over as Iridia strained to wipe the center of her back. The rag got close but never quite hit right in the middle.

  “Let me help,” he said without thinking.

  He grabbed the rag and scrubbed her back and only when he finished did he feel Beth’s gaze burning holes in his back.

  He turned and her face was red. Her eyes practically smoking.

  “Just being helpful.”

  And it was true. It wasn’t until he’d swiped her back a few times that his eyes unconsciously dropped lower. Even then, he didn’t let them linger.

  “You’re a saint,” she said. “Mind getting my back?”

  “My pleasure,” he said with a wink.

  Gallows humor. He’d been here before. When the ugliness of the world pushed you to the edge, humor was the thing that kept your toes attached to dirt.

  Mason scrubbed his wife’s back, making certain he spent twice as long so there would be no question later.

  He finished and, for a brief moment of black comedy, wondered if he should ask Iridia to scrub his. One look at Beth told him she wouldn’t understand a soldier’s humor.

  Her lack of understanding pleased him. Normal people shouldn’t have to endure so much misery and suffering.

  The thought stopped him cold. He shivered despite the warming morning sun.

  What if the normal world no longer existed?

  80

  The Jefferson Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  DR. ANTON RESHENKO touched the ancient silver Dirham in his left pocket. Genghis Khan himself may have once held it in his hand. He rubbed the inscription, marveling at how the coin connected their souls through the ages. A popped blister on the pad of his thumb made it a painful meditation.

  He didn’t stop. Pain was an obstacle to be overcome, like anything else.

  He paced back and forth across the immaculately shined parquet floors in the living area of the Thomas Jefferson suite. The Washington Monument proudly reflected the warm afternoon sun through the open doors to the veranda. There had been many such uncharacteristically warm winter days of late.

  An elaborate chandelier hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. Tiny electric candles, one of the few concessions to a modern sensibility, cast warm light through hundreds of sparkling crystals.

  They’d tried to dump him in a deluxe suite and only acquiesced to reason after he’d threatened to leave.

  The analog clock on the wall indicated his meeting with Senator Rawlings should’ve started three minutes ago. His teeth squeaked as he ground his jaws together.

  He squeezed the coin tight and felt a stab of pain in his thumb. He drew it out and watched as a tiny rivulet of blood welled up and traced down into his palm. He clenched his hand into a fist.

  Blood would flow.

  One didn’t change the course of history with endless talk and diluted consensus.

  But he never thought that blood would flow so close to his heart. His daughter. Was she a necessary sacrifice upon the altar of his destiny? Had Genghis Khan done the same?

  Perhaps. Then again, Khan had many children. If he lost one, he had many more to garner his attention. Anton just had one. As stubborn and misguided as she was, she was still his flesh and blood. The only reminder left in the world of her angelic mother. His dear Katerina. Taken too soon. Stolen, was more accurate. Murdered, still more.

  If only his daughter had listened, none of this would’ve happened. She’d be safe with him, not trapped at ground zero of what would soon be the biggest transformation humanity had ever seen.

  Bigger even than the conquests of Khan.

  He could’ve told her that the future she dreamed of would no longer have meaning. Modeling, acting, being famous. Those were empty ideas nearing their expiration.

  But he didn’t. And so she disobeyed and went without telling him. He was too soft on her, because she was the remaining soft part of him.

  Iridia.

  His fatal flaw.

  He wouldn’t let her die, because he couldn’t.

  And that meant getting her out.

  Only, he didn’t have access to the manpower or equipment necessary to effect such an operation. Hence the meeting.

  A knock at the door.

  “Yes?”

  It opened and his bodyguard, Mr. Pike, appeared.

  “Senator Rawlings is here.”

  “Get out of my way!”

  The gray-haired Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee pushed by the much larger, much younger man. His bodyguard raised a brow, an unspoken question if he should toss the intruder out on his ear.

  Anton would have very much liked to do exactly that. He shook his head.

  “Good to see you, Charles.”

  The door closed as Mr. Pike resumed his station outside.

  “Don’t glad hand me, Anton,” the senator said. “I’m the career politician here. You don’t operate on my level.”

  That was true. Though not in the way the senator intended.

  “Why didn’t you just come to my office on the hill?”

  “I don’t come like a dog when called.”

  “Don’t get cute with me!”

  The old man unbuttoned his suit coat and loosened his tie.

  “Have anything to drink?”

  Anton waved him toward the small bar in the corner.

  “By all means, let me get it myself.”

  The senator stalked over to the bar and dug out a glass and a bottle of Jefferson’s 17 Year Old Presidential Select whiskey.

  “At least you have the good stuff.”

  He measured out two fingers and raised the amber glass with an air of appreciation. After a stiff gulp, he turned to Anton.

  “Could you please explain to me what the hell is happening in Los Angeles?”

  “Selective depopulation.”

  “People are dying!”

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  The senator adjusted his glasses, as if doing so would change what he saw.

  “The Darwin Protocol was intended to be a selective sterilization. That’s what you guaranteed. We are the United States government! We don’t murder people for no reason.”

  “Don’t you? Anyway, I did what needed to be done.”

  “And I stuck my neck out for you. You offered an acceptable solution. A solution that would safeguard the future of this great nation without also destroying the values upon which it was built.”

  “Every empire must one day crumble.”

  “Stick your platitudes up your ass!”

  Anton strode over and slapped the older man across the face. The senator’s head snapped to the side and his spectacles tumbled to the wood floor.

  “Don’t speak to me as you
do your high-priced whores.”

  The senator held his cheek, stunned to silence.

  “I have asked you here not to talk, but to listen.”

  Anton waited to see if the older man would interrupt. Wisely, he did not.

  “There has been an unforeseen complication.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  Anton glared and considered dealing out another punishing reprimand. The senator cowered.

  “My daughter, Iridia, is in Los Angeles.”

  The senator’s bushy brows lifted.

  “Now, isn’t that a peach pit of irony?”

  “You will get me the resources required to retrieve her.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because I have the cure.”

  THE END OF BOOK 1

  Turn the page for The Final Collapse, book 2 in the Edge of Survival series.

  The Final Collapse - Book 2

  1

  November 1963

  Brooklyn, New York

  A BOY grimaced in disgust as he squeezed into the crowd surrounding the newspaper stand on the corner of Union and Fourth. Cries of dismay echoed through the air. The people pushed and shoved against each other, always jockeying for better position while never realizing the underlying truth.

  Their lives were so full of wealth and yet so empty of value.

  If things went according to plan, one of them would soon find a small portion of that wealth missing. The boy drifted with the moving currents, repulsed and yet grateful for the warmth of so many bodies. He wasn’t trying to get to the front of the line because he had no money with which to purchase a newspaper. Besides, he had no interest in news. That was for these rich people.

  People with food in their bellies.

  The passing thought of food made his stomach twist on itself in agony. The sudden pain made him dizzy and he might’ve fallen over if it weren’t for the people pressing in on all sides.

  Rough, wool coats scratched his cheeks and arms. A woman passed by and her perfume momentarily masked the stench in his nose. His own stench. The relentless stink of life in the gutter.