Unwanted World: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Survival Fiction Series (The EMP Survivor Series Book 4) (The EMP Survivor Series (5 Book Series))

by Chris Pike

  Kate yelled and Nico turned to look at her.

  She was waving her arms and yelling. He couldn’t quite understand what she was saying. Maybe she cut her foot on a broken shell. Reload was at her side, barking.

  As he took a step in the waist high water, something powerful bumped his leg. Nico whipped around.

  That was no mullet.

  Adrenaline flooded his body and he scanned the dark water in the dimming light.

  He shivered in the suddenly cold water.

  His pulse raced.

  Nico pounded the water with his fists to try to confuse or scare away any sharks in the water. Deciding he’d better get to shore, he tried to high step out of the water, but the water was too high and his legs were like lead weights.

  He glanced at the shore.

  Kate was yelling and racing into the water, and his mind tried to comprehend why she was acting as if she was in a slow motion movie. He reached his out hand and waved her away, to her to tell her to stay out of the water.

  His words were garbled.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  An odd tingling sensation came over him and his leg felt odd. He reached to it, but couldn’t feel anything.

  Nico became woozy and he blinked through the hazy dense air clouded by sand and surf. The sand dunes, majestic and bleached white by the sun and water, shrunk away into the misty horizon.

  A seagull swooped low along the water, and Nico followed its zigzagging flight until it became a speck in the sky.

  Reload barked, an echo gobbled by the sea.

  Nico looked quizzically at Kate. She was so fragile against the imposing beach, solid and steadfast, pounded incessantly by the sea since the beginning of time.

  With his strength waning, an overwhelming need to protect her captured him. He took a step toward the shore as a powerful wave crashed into him, sending his body spiraling in the surf. It pushed him down and he hit his head on the bottom.

  Disoriented, he rolled listlessly with the power of the wave.

  His thoughts went to Kate. He was supposed to take her home where her parents waited for her, where her brothers and uncle were. If he didn’t take her home, they’d never know she was still alive.

  I’m sorry, he thought. He valiantly fought the muzziness clouding his brain. Thoughts bounced around in his head and he sensed the comforting presence of his deceased mother by his side. He thought she said something, but wasn’t sure.

  It was quiet and peaceful while Nico floated in the watery universe. His arms and legs were splayed out close to the surface, and he listened to the soft gurgling of the surf tumble over him. He watched a tiny sea creature, no larger than a wisp of a fairy wing, float in front of his eyes, its little fins fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings.

  It looked at him curiously then flitted away.

  He didn’t fight the power of the sea, and instead he joined with the authority of the water and sand, gliding him along the current in his cocooned universe.

  There was no pain.

  He was vaguely aware of being dragged through the water, but in his drugged state of mind he couldn’t discern if the water was getting deeper or shallower.

  Perhaps the tide was taking him back into the ocean, back to where his body would be reclaimed by the sea.

  He wanted to see Kate one last time, to tell her he was sorry. If only he had the strength to go to her.

  Suddenly he was cold and a shiver captured him, and no longer did the water and sand envelop him in a protective warm sheath.

  He was aware of the hardness of the wet sand, and of a shadowy figure next to him. Something wet and warm licked his face. Reload? Something else? He couldn’t be sure.

  The pounding of the waves crashing to shore came again and again; he shivered and gulped a hard breath.

  He willed his eyes to open. Kate was standing over him and the low sun was behind her. He reached up to her. She was so beautiful, her hair blowing in the wind. Her fair skin touchable.

  He wanted to get up to hold her once more, but when he tried, it was like his legs were glued to the ground.

  “Kate,” he whispered. “I can’t feel my legs.”

  She sounded far away, like she was deep inside a tunnel.

  Mustering what little strength he had left, he wiggled his toes, all ten of them. He relaxed a bit, realizing he still had his feet. Perhaps he was bleeding profusely from a massive bite from the shark and had gone into shock. He had to look and he steeled himself for the sight.

  Propping himself up on one arm he looked at his legs.

  One was swollen and covered in blistering welts. Long stinging tendrils had wrapped around his left leg, topped by a translucent, puffy, iridescent jello-like blob sporting a puffy blue Mohawk.

  Nico muttered, “Man ‘o war. Get it off me. Hurry.” Kate reached down. “No! Not your hands.”

  Kate looked for something, anything to remove the tendrils stinging him. She spotted a piece of driftwood, grabbed it and pried the man ‘o war from Nico’s leg.

  His head dropped back to the wet sand, and he gasped for air. “Kate,” he croaked. “I can’t breathe, my throat is closing…”

  “What did you say?” Kate asked. She leaned in closer to hear him. She thought quickly about what could be wrong. “Are you allergic?”

  He nodded and pointed to his throat.

  She expressed a look of horror.

  “I’m going into…into…” Nico coughed and tried to focus. “Anaphylactic shock,” he muttered. “EpiPen. Backpack. Get it and…” He was unable to finish the sentence.

  Kate sprang up and raced to the camp only yards away. She tore into Nico’s backpack and searched for the EpiPen. Finding it, she sprinted back to Nico.

  Kate jostled him awake. “Wake up. How do I use this?”

  He opened his eyes to a fuzzy and incomprehensible world. The dull sky weighed heavy on his chest and the wind moaned in the low light. He was unable to speak.

  Kate ripped open the package and read the instructions. Following the diagram, she forcefully stabbed the EpiPen into Nico’s upper thigh. She sat back, unsure what to do next.

  Nico gasped a difficult and shallow breath. His chest rose and fell. He gasped a deep breath and another until his breathing became normal.

  “Nico,” Kate said, “are you okay?”

  With tremendous effort Nico propped himself up on an unsteady arm. “I will be. Give me a moment.”

  “I didn’t know you were so allergic.”

  “I’m allergic to anything that stings like bees and wasps. I didn’t know that included a man ‘o war.”

  “I got stung once by a jellyfish when I was little. I don’t like swimming in the ocean. Things can eat you,” Kate said.

  Nico laughed. “And sting you.”

  “For the future, how many EpiPens do you have left?”

  “A few. Next time we come to the beach, I’ll stick to sunbathing with you.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. I can breathe now.”

  Kate put her hand on his arm. “You’re so cold, Nico. You need to get warm. Can you stand?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s try.”

  While Nico pushed himself into a kneeling position, Kate hooked an arm around his waist and helped him up.

  “Lean on me,” she said.

  With Kate’s help, Nico stumbled through the sand back to their meager camp. Kate helped him into the tent and put a towel over him to help him warm up.

  “Reload,” Kate said. “Come here.”

  The dog trotted over to the entrance of the tent and looked at Nico. He lifted his snout and tasted the air, laced with salt and sweat and a fight for life. The man, known for his strength and courage, was weak. The man needed Reload’s help. The dog gingerly stepped into the tent and padded over next to Nico. He lowered himself to the ground and pressed his warm body next to Nico. It was all he could do to comfort him.

  “Good boy,�
�� Kate said. “Stay.”

  “I’m sorry, Kate,” Nico said.

  “Why? What are you sorry for?”

  “I was supposed to protect you.”

  “You already have. We’re all here for each other,” Kate said. “We’re a team. You, me, and Reload. We’ll always be a team.”

  He reached his hand to hers and held it. “I’ll be better in the morning, and I promise to take you home. It’s time you go home.”

  “I know. It is time.” Kate paused. “All this excitement has made me hungry. Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat. Not a whole lot, but something.”

  Kate looked toward the beginnings of the campfire Nico had started. “I’ll get a fire going so we’ll have something hot to eat.” Kneeling by Nico’s side, she said. “You rest now.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Kate kissed Nico on the forehead. “I won’t be long.”

  * * *

  Later, after the sun had set, and after they had eaten, Nico lay awake in the tent, thinking and listening to the comforting sound of tumbling surf. It was dark and the chilly night air brushed the tent filled with the scent of the dog, and of a man and a woman. A coyote howled long and lonely somewhere among the dunes, and Reload growled low in his throat.

  Kate was sleeping curled into a little ball. Occasionally, she shivered. Nico took the beach towel she had given him and placed it over her to keep her warm.

  He thought about his parents and how they were no longer alive. He thought about his life up to this point and how Kate had grown in these past few months. No longer was she afraid to live or to face the vagaries of life thrown her way. What was it she had said? “I’ll face life as it comes. And I want you to be part of that.”

  Nico closed his eyes, lulled to sleep with the knowledge the woman he loved was next to him.

  Tomorrow he’d fly her back to Austin and to her home where her parents waited for her, to a safe place where they could both rest and recuperate. She had told him so much about her home that he could picture it in his mind. A grand two story house sitting on the banks of the Colorado River, lined by century old pecan trees and where her mother’s cooking was food for the soul. A place where her father had taught her to stand up for herself and to always stay true to herself. A place where she grew up with two brothers, Chandler and Luke, who had protected Kate from bullies when she was young. And Uncle Billy, Kate’s favorite.

  Memories of her life were there. Pictures, drawings from her childhood, her room with her favorite blanket, stuffed animals, clothes, shoes she had left behind. She needed all that now. She deserved a sense of normalcy in this unwanted world after what she had been through.

  In a few hours, as soon as the sun gleamed the first morning light over the ocean, they would leave, and Kate would have the homecoming she had dreamed about.

  What the next day would bring, Nico did not know, but one thing was for certain – whatever he faced, he and Kate would face it together.

  The End

  Behind the Scenes

  A Note from the Author

  Hi Readers, this is Chris. After finishing Book 3, I knew I needed to write the story about Kate Chandler and Nico Bell. I wasn’t sure where the book would take the characters, but it needed to do justice to San Antonio, its culture, and people. Growing up and living in Texas, I’m well acquainted with city life, country life, the dusty back roads, and since my parents retired to Goliad country, I’ve read the stories about Colonel Fannin and his troops.

  During the Battle of San Jacinto in present-day Harris County, Texas where Houston is located, the men yelled the battle cries, “Remember the Alamo!” and “Remember Goliad!”. During the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texan army led by Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna, thus establishing independence from Mexico.

  The battle cry “Remember Goliad!” paid homage to several hundred prisoners of war from the Republic of Texas Army executed at the hands of Santa Anna at Goliad on March 27, 1836. Colonel James Fannin was the commander and was also executed along with his men. A quick Google search can provide much more detail and accuracy of the horrific event. Despite pleadings of clemency by other Mexican leaders, Santa Anna gave the order to execute the men.

  For research, I traveled to San Antonio and stayed at the Menger Hotel (which the fictional Minor Hotel is modeled after), located across the street from the Alamo. I tried to stay true to the historic hotel, its layout, grand entrance, the bar, and other amenities. We also toured the Riverwalk and visited the Alamo where visitors are required to be quiet and respectful of the spiritual place. No photographs are allowed, and even children grasp the significance of the old mission.

  * * *

  For some parts of my books I take experiences from my life, expand upon them, and fictionalize them. For example, the tarantula scene was taken from an experience I had many years ago. I was driving north on Highway 183 heading toward the city of Gonzales, east of San Antonio. I crested a hill, and on the other side there were thousands of tarantulas crossing the highway. I didn’t even know there were tarantulas in that part of Texas, much less the sheer numbers of them. Cars whizzed by, and if the tarantula was lucky, it raised its front legs in defiance or protection or whatever the reason tarantulas raise their legs, then scampered across the highway to the other side. If they were unlucky, as many were, they became a squished black blob on the highway.

  I researched the phenomena and learned male tarantulas migrate to find a female tarantula to mate with. Not surprisingly, females outlive their male counterparts by many years.

  Fortunately, I was in my car and not camping on the side of the road so I did not have to experience the tarantulas crawling up my body.

  Another scene taken straight out of my life was the one for the Bonus Story. My teenage years were spent in Corpus Christi, where every Saturday in the summer we went to the beach on Padre Island. We body surfed the waves, dove for sand dollars, and when adventuresome we swam to the second sand bar. I never made it to the third sandbar, because it was too far out and the water was too deep. Many times while swimming, things bumped into me, which was always unnerving. In the back of my mind, I would think about a shark and would look around to see if I could find any. I’d breathe a sigh of relief when I saw mullet jumping out of the water. Other times the bump was stronger, and as I look back on it now, it might have been a juvenile shark.

  The Portuguese man ‘o war (according to the National Geographic and Wikipedia) is a marine hydrozoan of the family Physaliidae, found in the warm waters of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. It’s not a jellyfish, rather an animal made up of a colony of organisms working together. It uses a “bladder” that resembles a sail which sits above the water line and is the only means of propulsion. The bottom line is, the animal floats around the sea, capturing prey using long, thin, venom-filled tendrils to paralyze small fish and other creatures in the ocean. A human can experience an excruciating sting from one of the tendrils, but rarely is it deadly. I’ve seen many man ‘o war washed up on the beach and we were always careful not to step on the tendrils. If we saw them in the ocean, we would get out.

  In the scene where Nico is floating semi-conscious in the surf, he sees a tiny sea creature. This is the sentence: He watched a small sea creature, no larger than a wisp of a fairy wing, float in front of his eyes, its little fins fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings.

  I saw something like that in Lake Travis near Austin one hot summer when we were scuba diving at Windy Point. I got separated from the others so I swam to the platform (about 15 feet underwater) and sat there until I thought I had decompressed enough to surface. There’s not much to see in Lake Travis due to the poor visibility so I sat there staring at the murky water and listening to myself breathe. In front of my mask, a fluttering little fish, I’m not sure what it was, swam up to me, looked at me, then skittered away. I was mesmerized by how small it was and the ease with which it swam. When I was writing that scene, the memory came to me and
I decided to add it.

  * * *

  On a recent Facebook post (I can be found at Author Chris Pike), a friend asked me how long I resisted writing. I said it wasn’t that I resisted writing, it’s that I didn’t realize until a few years ago it’s what I wanted to do. The seeds were planted a long time ago, I just never paid any attention to them.

  I look back on it now and know there were a couple of defining moments. One was in college where I had to write a term paper in an oil and gas class. My topic was dull. Regardless, I thought about how I could write it to make it interesting. Since I was working part time at the Texas State Capitol, I had some knowledge about how Texas politics worked, so I wrote the term paper as if I was a legal aid to a senator. I made up an entire scenario, explaining I (the legal aid) had been asked to research the topic because of an upcoming vote on a bill. In a class of 150, the professor handed out the top ten papers. Mine was one of them. My writing wasn’t any better than anyone else’s, but the way I presented it was. It was interesting, it was different, and the professor appreciated the creativity. So, fast forward to many years later, I’m finally writing like I was meant to and enjoying creating fictional situations that interest me.

  About the Author

  Chris Pike grew up in the woodlands of Central Texas and along the Texas Gulf Coast, fishing, hiking, camping, and dodging hurricanes and tropical storms. Chris has learned that the power of Mother Nature is daunting from sizzling temperatures or icy conditions; from drought to category five hurricanes. Living without electricity for two weeks in the sweltering heat after Hurricane Ike proved to be challenging. It paid to be prepared.

  Currently living in Houston, Texas, Chris is married, has two grown daughters, one son-in-law, one dog, and three overweight, demanding cats.

  Chris has held a Texas concealed carry permit since 1998, with the Glock being the current gun of choice. Chris is a graduate of the University of Texas and has a BBA in Marketing. By day Chris works as a database manager for a large international company, while by night an Indie author.