Day Zero (The Zero Trilogy Book 1)

by Summer Lane

  Georgia was standing to the side, digging through her backpack. She removed a new package of cigarettes. It seemed like they were the only things Georgia had taken the time to salvage from the city.

  Elle pulled back Pix’s shirtsleeves and searched for open wounds on the girl’s body, but there was nothing. It looked like Pix was ill. Her eyelids fluttered open for a moment and she struggled to speak. Instead, she leaned to the side, vomited on the seat, and passed out again.

  “Gross,” Georgia muttered, frowning.

  Elle wrinkled her nose.

  “She might have food poisoning,” Elle stated. “I’ve had it before, it’s a lot like this.”

  “Food poisoning from what?” Georgia demanded.

  “Anything. We’re eating supplies scavenged from the city, and not everything is guaranteed safe,” Elle pointed out. “When I was first living in the city after Day Zero, I ate something that had gone rotten and I got sick. Almost died.”

  “How’d you get over it?” Flash asked.

  “I found some antibiotics at a pharmacy,” Elle replied. “It saved my life.”

  Elle folded her arms across her chest.

  If Pix was going to survive, they were going to have to do something.

  It would be dangerous.

  Chapter Thirteen

  2 Days Later

  Elle held her breath, crouched behind the pharmacy counter. Jay was right behind her, a bottle of antibiotics in his hand. Elle’s heart raced. Early morning sunlight filtered through the dirty windows of the looted pharmacy.

  “Where are they?” she breathed.

  “They’re coming around the back,” Jay answered.

  Elle closed her eyes and prayed for a way out.

  They’d come into town – just the two of them – in a desperate search for antibiotics from the pharmacy. They didn’t expect to find any, but Pix was fading fast. She had barely regained consciousness in two days, and her heart rate was slowing down. Elle and Jay had found an old strip mall. The standard buildings were here; former clothing outlets, fast food restaurants and nail salons. Everything was empty, and only about a mile from the freeway, where Georgia and Flash were watching over Pix.

  Everything had been fine. The strip mall was abandoned. Elle had entered the front of the pharmacy just as a parade of vehicles rumbled down the boulevard on the street. Vehicles meant trouble. Vehicles meant Omega.

  Elle and Jay had run into the building, searching frantically for the antibiotics. They had been fortunate enough to find a limited amount of medicine, but the patrols were checking the buildings. Omega men, dressed in their dark uniforms, were going through each one. What were they searching for? Elle didn’t know. She didn’t care.

  Now they were hiding in the back of the pharmacy, behind rows of empty medical shelving. The patrols were getting closer to their building. There was nowhere to run. A wide, open parking lot in the shopping center made it impossible to escape without being spotted by the patrols. The back entrance was a no-go, too. Patrols were checking the rear entrances.

  “We’re screwed,” Jay whispered.

  “We have to hide,” Elle replied.

  “Where? There’s nowhere to go!”

  Elle looked around. The pharmacy was huge, but it had been torn apart. Aisle dividers were overturned, trash littered the floor and shattered glass was sprinkled across every surface. The rumbling engines of the trucks outside rattled the walls.

  “We can climb into the air vents,” Elle said. “Come on!”

  She jumped up and rolled over the counter, staying low to the ground. The front of the store was filled with high shelving that was bolted to the wall. She swung herself up, climbing each level until she reached the top. Jay did the same.

  Elle pointed to the large air vent in front of them. They were big – about three feet wide and two and a half feet tall. “Come on,” she said. “We can fit.”

  “This is crazy,” Jay muttered.

  They worked to unscrew the vent from the duct, setting it aside.

  “Go first,” Elle instructed. “I’ll follow.”

  “But-”

  “-Just do it!”

  Jay crawled inside the vent, making an ungodly amount of noise. Elle watched him disappear into the dark passageway. She crawled in feet first, pulling the vent in behind her. She slowly backed up, farther and farther away from the opening.

  They said nothing.

  Eventually the door to the pharmacy opened and the patrols came into the store. The voices of the men were clear.

  “Find anything here?”

  “No one.”

  “Copy that. There’s no sign of militia activity here.”

  “Well, did you really think we were going to find any sign of them, anyway?”

  A pause.

  “The National Guard is heading north,” someone said, their voice echoing off the walls. “Didn’t the Colonel tell you? We captured Commander Young. They’re taking him to Los Angeles.”

  “What about the other one – Cassidy Hart?”

  “No idea where she went. I’d like to kill her myself, though. The reward is huge, enough to set me up for life.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around…”

  The voices faded into the distance as the patrols left the building. Elle held her breath, the cramped walls of the vent pressing on her hips and shoulders. They waited several minutes before crawling out.

  “That was uncomfortable,” Jay breathed, pulling himself onto the top of the shelf. “But good thinking, Elle.”

  Elle nodded.

  “Did you hear what they were saying? They were looking for militia groups,” she said. “They captured someone important.”

  “Chris Young,” Jay replied. “And Cassidy Hart. They’re both pretty well known leaders in the militia groups. We used to hear the militias talk about both of them on the radio in the bunker.”

  “I’ve heard of them, too,” Elle mused. “Sometimesthe Klan would talk about what was going on in the Central Valley. That was how I got information about the outside world.”

  They sat on the top shelf, lapsing into silence.

  “We should get back,” Jay said, clearing his throat.

  “Yeah.” Elle swung her legs over the side and climbed down. They crept to the front of the pharmacy and peeked out the window. The vehicles were gone. The coast was clear.

  Elle and Jay shared a glance as they put the antibiotics into Elle’s backpack. This was their last shot. If Pix didn’t get better, she would die. And they would have to move on without her.

  It was a harsh reality.

  It was the world that Day Zero had created.

  ____________________

  The antibiotics didn’t seem to help Pix at first.

  “We can’t move on until she gets better,” Flash said.

  “We need to get to Sacramento,” Jay replied. “They’ll be able to help us. They’ll have medical supplies and doctors there, if the rumors are true.”

  “And if they’re not? Pix will die,” Flash argued.

  Two days had passed since they had administered the antibiotics to Pix. She didn’t seem to be recovering. She was comatose, in and out of consciousness. Elle had found a gash in Pix’s left hip. It was infected, poisoning the rest of her body. Elle’s guess was that Pix had been injured since they had rescued her from the Klan, and the infection from the open wound had finally caught up with her.

  “I’m not staying here,” Elle said, leaning against the hood of the jeep. “There are Omega patrols in the area, and they could come back. And let’s not forget that there could be nomads out here. Bad people.”

  “Really?” Georgia slammed the door to the jeep, eyes flashing. “We’re supposed to be a team, Elle. You can’t just leave us. That’s selfish and irresponsible!”

  “It’s called self-preservation,” Elle replied. “We all need to move forward, no matter what is happening to Pix.”

  “Just give her some more time,”
Flash pleaded. “We can afford to wait.”

  “We’ve been here for four days,” Elle pointed out. “That’s long enough.”

  “But anything could happen out there on the road. Pix might get more sick if we try to travel.”

  “We have a jeep,” Elle snapped. “We also have gas. We can do this.”

  “Yes, we could do that,” Jay answered. “But we can also stay here. We don’t need to keep moving if we don’t have to. We can wait until Pix is better, then we can move on. At least until she’s conscious.”

  Elle stared at the sky.Jay was right, of course. They both were. They could stay here, relatively safely, and wait for Pix to regain consciousness before they moved on. Or they could keep working their way toward Sacramento.Elle hated the thought of sitting here, waiting. She wanted to be in Sacramento. She was tired of the day-to-day stress of survival. She was tired of arguing with them, tired of pointing out the obvious, only to have them ignore her advice. She wanted to be safe. She was exhausted, traumatized, shocked. She’d been through so much since Day Zero.

  Elle didn’t want to wait for a happy ending anymore.

  She wanted to grab it.

  Georgia, Jay and Flash continued to bicker, their voices getting higher and louder. Elle hated the arguing. It was stupid. To stay alive, they needed to pull together.

  “There is no reason for us to keep moving on,” Jay said, turning to Elle, his voice harsh. “When Pix stabilizes, we’ll leave.”

  “But I don’t want to stay here!” Elle yelled.

  “Then leave!” Jay snapped.

  Elle flinched.

  There was a long, tense silence. Georgia swallowed.

  At last, Elle said, “Don’t be your own worst enemy. Omega might try to kill us, but in the end, you can do a pretty good job of getting yourself killed.”

  Getting killed was easy.

  Staying alive…that was the hard part.

  ____________________

  Elle left during the night. Jay and Georgia had argued for hours. Flash had withdrawn, and Elle had removed herself from the conversation. They were being stupid and petty. All they had to do was drive, but no one could agree to move forward. There was no majority decision, just factions of disagreement.

  I can’t believe this, Elle thought.

  She had taken her share of supplies and ammunition and disappeared into the night, leaving them behind. She wanted to get to Sacramento. She wanted to do it now, and she couldn’t bear to wait any longer. The last year had been hell, and she had no intention of stretching the torture out any longer than she needed to.

  She covered mile after mile, stopping to rest when the sun rose. She ate a quick meal, drank some water, and continued. The freeway extended endlessly, but the mountains were beautiful. Elle was exposed on the highway, so she kept a sharp lookout for any unsavory characters. She avoided rest areas and roadside restaurants. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  She heard something slap against the concrete. She checked her shoelaces. Nothing. She heard it again, and this time she recognized the sound, snapped out of her daze.

  Gunshots.

  She looked behind her. A small pillar of black smoke was rising into the air in the distance.

  She froze, slowly rising to her feet.

  The kids, she thought.

  The anger was gone, replaced with concern. She started walking back, toward the pillar of smoke. She kept going, jogging. It took several hours to reach the campsite again, and by the time she did, the black smoke had mostly dissipated. She ran forward. The bush that they had been hiding behind was gone, charred to the roots. The jeep was overturned, smoking. The supplies had been grouped into a pile and the remains were smoldering.

  “Jay!” Elle cried, dropping her backpack to the ground. “Georgia?”

  She rounded the jeep.

  Pix was lying on the ground at an unnatural angle, her arm thrown to the side. A ribbon of red blood trailed down the side of her mouth. Elle dropped to her knees and checked Pix’s pulse. Nothing. Her skin was cold.

  “Pix?” Elle sobbed. “Pix, no. Please…”

  Tears streamed down her face. Pix’s shirt was stained with blood. She had been shot. Elle hugged the dead girl to her chest and rocked back and forth, weeping. She laid her body in the dirt and crawled to her feet. The world spun around her. She vomited on the gravel, clutching her stomach.

  She crawled to the other side of the jeep, away from Pix’s body. She stood again and stared at the hood of the jeep. It had been spray painted with gold stars. Georgia, Flash andJay were nowhere in sight.

  The militias couldn’t have done this, Elle thought. They would never kill innocent people. They’re meant to defend us from Omega.

  Something had happened.

  Elle looked at the freeway. Thick, rubbery tire tracks led away from the scene of destruction. An Omega Humvee was lying on its side, blown apart. A dead Omega soldier was lying on the ground. Elle didn’t move, afraid to get near the vehicle.

  A militia group must have stopped Omega, Elle deduced.

  Omega had clearly found the children. They had succeeded in killing at least two of them, until a militia group – at least that’s what Elle assumed they were – stopped them. But where were the other kids?

  Taken. The militia must have taken them.

  But why?

  Elle studied the tracks on the road.

  And she started following them.

  Epilogue

  The old man shoved his flight cap into the pocket of his leather jacket. The wind whipped his gray hair into circles as he climbed out of the seat of an aged biplane. He could taste the salt in the air. The spray of the ocean waves hitting the rocks.

  “Manny?”

  The old man turned, his face dissolving into a maze of wrinkles.

  “Cassidy,” he said. “What is it, my girl?”

  The woman was small, dressed in combat fatigues. Red hair fluttered against the breeze. “You’re not going to believe this,” the woman said. “But I think we found your niece.”

  Manny’s hand dropped to his side, limp.

  “Elle?” he said.

  The woman nodded.

  To Be Continued in

  Day One

  The Second Installment in The Zero Trilogy

  More Titles by Summer Lane:

  The International Bestselling Collapse Series

  Book One: State of Emergency

  Book Two: State of Chaos

  Book Three: State of Rebellion

  Book Four: State of Pursuit

  Book Five: State of Alliance (COMING JANUARY 2015)

  xxx

  The Zero Trilogy

  Day Zero

  Day One: COMING MARCH 2015

  End of Day: COMING OCTOBER 2015

  xxx

  Acknowledgements

  Day Zero is different than The Collapse Series in that it shows the survival situation of the most average citizens: children. These kids are not militia members, not snipers, not Navy SEALs. They are the average of the average – the nerdy, the troubled and the self-conscious.

  After visiting Hollywood and Santa Monica many times, I wondered what one of the most glamorous urban hotspots on earth would look like after the apocalypse. In Day Zero, I found my answer.

  I would like to thank my best editor and critic, Don Lane, for his help in getting this book into the world. It is always very important to me to remind my readers that these books would not be the quality that they are without his help.

  Thanks to my brother, Rocklin, and my mother, Kathy, for their endless support. Thanks to James and Janice White, to Ellen Mansoor Collier and to my grandparents, Pete and Nancy Petinak. Thank you, Scott, for making me laugh. I love you. The blogging world, of course, has been such a huge help in keeping The Collapse Series selling in continents around the world, and I am forever grateful for the support of the reading and writing community.

  I’m also full of thankfulness to the local community in which I liv
e, who has supported me as a writer since State of Emergency released in January 2013. THANK YOU READERS – you are amazing, and I love hearing from you. Your notes and inquiries every week are so much fun to read, and I love talking with you.

  Thank you Jesus for blessing me with the life of a writer, and for giving me the inspiration to pen adventure stories. I love working as a writer. I love teaching writing, I love writing about writing, and I love entertaining people through the medium of the written word. Thank you, Lord! It’s all from you.

  “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” – John 14:27

  About Summer Lane

  Summer Lane is the author of the national bestselling Collapse Series, which currently includes State of Emergency, State of Chaos, State of Rebellion and State of Pursuit. The fifth installment, State of Alliance, is releasing January 2015. Summer is also the author of the novella adventures of The Zero Trilogy and an upcoming survivalist/science fantasy series that will release in 2015. She owns WB Publishing, Writing Belle Magazine, and is an accomplished creative writing teacher and journalist.

  Summer lives in the Central Valley of California, where she spends her time writing, teaching, and writing some more. When she is not writing, she enjoys leisurely visits with friends at coffee shops, dates to the movies, hiking in the mountains and strolling on the beach.

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  http://summerlaneauthor.com/

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