Supernova EMP- The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  But there was nothing else she could do now. All she had left were her words, and they would have to do. If she meant anything at all to Storm—and she clawed onto the hope that she still did—then maybe he would be able to persuade Gabe to go down another route with Josh.

  A Harborman in the uniform of the king’s inner guard approached the dais, crashing to her attention, and made the salute. Gabe looked down at the officer from the platform. The shadow that Maxine saw pass across Gabe’s face told her that things were not going to plan, however. Gabe bade the Harborman approach the throne and leaned forward to take his report.

  The hubbub from the crowd dissipated somewhat. This definitely wasn’t in the script.

  A blossom of hope rose up in Maxine as she watched a twisted rage break out on Gabe’s face. His arm shot out, and the Harborman staggered back on the end of a curt backhander. He almost toppled off the platform, but regained his footing and returned immediately to attention, making the salute once more.

  Maxine just heard the officer above the crowd. “At once, Your Majesty.”

  The Harborman turned and double-timed his way out of the throne room to a rising bubble of jeers and catcalls.

  The court was restless.

  Gabe walked to the edge of the dais and pulled Storm with him. He raised a hand, and Maxine noticed that this time the crowd did not silence as one. It took four or five seconds for silence to fall.

  “There will be a slight delay, but the ceremony will commence shortly and…”

  “…the execution will follow. You have my word as your king!”

  Josh moved beneath the bleachers as the stamping of feet and the cheering drowned out anything else Gabriel Angel might have said. His head hurt like someone was still kicking at the wound. After he’d escaped from Stahlman’s room, he’d felt a thin trickle of blood coming from the wound where the stitches had been disturbed by Stahlman’s headbutt, but he remained on his feet.

  The huge surgical shears had done their job, though. As a Harborman had come into the room, it had been the work of a moment to lop off his gun arm at the wrist. Why did everyone lead with their gun, anyway? Josh had wondered as much as he’d taken full advantage of that particular tactical move and scythed skin and bone as if they weren’t there. All he’d had to do was stoop, pick up the guard’s SIG from the floor, shaking the guard’s dead fingers off as he came up, and then shoot the guard with the amputated hand just before shooting the one behind him in the doorway. Before both bodies had fallen fully to the floor, he’d already been running out into the corridor.

  That section of the castle was near deserted. And Josh had quickly realized why. The majority of the people in the castle, and perhaps beyond it from the port, were in the bleachers of the throne room waiting for… well, whatever they were waiting for. Josh had a good idea that what they were waiting for was the reason Stahlman had kept him alive, too—his death.

  Oh, the irony.

  Josh had made it to the perimeter of the throne room without incident, as it really did seem that everyone was there. There was an access door leading beneath the bleachers that Josh had found and slipped through, coming into the hot darkness between the wall and the bleachers.

  He could see between the benches out to the main area between the dais and the back of the hall. Gabe was on the stage with his face gleaming and beaming. Storm was next to him. Josh’s heart skipped a beat at that. He didn’t understand why his son was up there, but the fact Storm wasn’t under guard and didn’t have a gun pointing at him meant he wasn’t in immediate danger. That was at least a plus in a world of negatives. In front of the dais was Maxine. Becalmed and alone in the middle of the huge space, her arms were raised towards Gabe and her mouth was moving, but Josh had no idea what she was saying, the noise from above and around him being far too loud for her voice to carry.

  Ten yards behind Maxine, there were Tally and the others. They were all under guard, and they were bound, and behind them there were Harbormen. Their guns drawn, pointing in each case at the back of a prisoner’s legs.

  Punishment shootings seemed to be imminent, or else they were just waiting for a signal to begin.

  Josh bent over and got as far to the front of the bleachers as he dared. They were raked enough for him not to be seen readily from above, but anyone looking hard enough between the planks would be able to pick him out if he wasn’t careful.

  And then, the gun muzzle that stuck into his neck was cold and hard.

  “I think you’d better come with me, bossman.”

  “Ten-Foot?”

  “Of course. Figured you were slippery enough, once you’d escaped, to try to rescue yer family. Figured you were smart enough to find your way under here to get a lay of the land undisturbed, too. So, I thought I’d disturb you. Put down the gun and come with me. Move.”

  Gabe didn’t need to silence the crowd as Josh was pushed into the throne room by Ten-Foot.

  Josh staggered forward as Ten-Foot kicked him in the small of the back, and he made the last ten yards at a stumble. Josh fell to his knees, looking up at Gabe. The smile had returned to the crowned man’s features, and he was beaming like a lighthouse at Ten-Foot.

  “You will be rewarded for this, Ten-Foot, my boy. You have gone above and beyond today.”

  “Anything for the kingdom, Your Majesty. Josh ain’t as smart as he thinks he is.”

  “No, he certainly isn’t.”

  Josh looked at Maxine, whose cheeks were streaked with fresh tears. “Please… Gabe,” she started. “Spare him. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. If you want me, you can have me, but let Josh live.”

  “You’re such a whiner, woman. Be quiet now. We’ve got work to do. Storm?”

  “Yes… Dad.”

  Josh blinked. The air sucked out of his body and left his shoulders sagging. He felt the swimming dislocation of shock. Maybe a wave of a concussion was washing through him. Gabe had certainly hit him hard enough for him to be concussed.

  Maybe he’d misheard Storm.

  He hadn’t used that word… had he? Really?

  “Now, son,” said Gabe. “It’s time to prove yourself to me.”

  Gabe reached inside his jacket and pulled out an enormous .44 Magnum. It glinted in the light from the hundreds of oil lamps in the throne room.

  Gabe took the barrel in his hand and offered the butt of the gun to Storm, who took the weapon, looked at it approvingly, and then straightened his arm. The muzzle of the magnum came up, and the black hole—the endless black hole at the end of it—pointed directly at Josh.

  Josh looked up into the maw of the magnum.

  Maxine sobbed.

  “Time for you to do your duty, son,” Gabe said.

  “Yes, Dad,” replied Storm.

  End of Bitter End

  Supernova EMP Series Book Three

  Blurb

  Adapt or die. There is no other choice.

  Black and white no longer exist in a world swirling with shades of gray. To survive the post-apocalyptic nightmare they face, Josh Standing must find a way to stitch his frayed family back together. But with the lives of his wife and kids on the line, Josh must finally face the truth of this new reality—he may not be able to save everyone.

  The professor is another story. The man’s only concern is continuing his research, regardless of the cost to those protecting him. However, keeping the intelligent and irritating man alive is vital to the future because he holds the key to a cure that just might counter the dark matter madness.

  Maxine Standing won’t let anything come between her and the tiny hope offered for humanity’s brighter future. Sometimes compromise is crucial when civilization collapses, and Maxine will do whatever it takes to follow her husband’s example—even if it means facing a tyrant.

  But dark matter isn’t the only hurricane bearing down on the coast as the Standings pursue shelter from the Harbormaster’s crazed reach. Now they have one shot at restoring order to ensure a new tomorrow.
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br />   And before the sun rises, someone will make the greatest sacrifice.

  1

  There are moments.

  Moments the universe might pivot one way or the other. In this moment, Josh Standing—ex-cop, erstwhile probation officer, and currently a surviving by the skin of his teeth guy—looked up at the barrel of the .44 Magnum that was pointing at his forehead.

  It wasn’t so much the gun bringing him this close to death that was the moment’s pivot point. Rather, it was that the gun was being held by his twenty-one-year-old son, Storm. Storm Standing, who had been told that Josh was not his real father and that the right thing to do was to kill Josh by smearing his brains all over the throne room of Castle Jaxport.

  The baying crowd in the bleachers yelled and called, laughed and hooted. Out of the corner of his eye, Josh could see his wife, Maxine, on her knees on the dusty wooden floor. Her eyes brimmed with hot tears and her hands were held up, tied at the wrists, but still she pleaded forcefully with Gabriel Angel, the new self-styled King of America. King of America? It was a title so ludicrous as to invite perfect ridicule—that is, it would have if Gabe hadn’t been a charismatic, near psychotic sociopath who had begun to build a criminal empire around him after the world’s technology had been knocked over by the effects of a nearby supernova.

  That celestial explosion and the resulting wave of particles that had washed through the solar system had not only robbed humanity of its technological advances, but in almost all cases of its so-called humanity, and some of its sanity, as well.

  This effect on affect ranged from targeting lucky people like Josh, who occasionally felt mordant and depressed, on through people like Gabe having their secret psychopathy levered to the fore like a sharp stone dug into a horse’s hoof, and then right to full-on homicidal madness and a total disregard for personal safety.

  Here in the wooden castle being constructed within a huge bonded warehouse in the Port of Jacksonville, Florida, most of the inhabitants seemed to be like Gabe. Their madness and cruelty were being indulged and encouraged. Public executions, like the one Josh found himself an unwilling participant in, seemed to be the norm. America had been turned on its head, and all sorts of horrors were falling out of its pockets.

  “What are you waiting for, son?” Gabe Angel, in his black clothes, golden crown, and with a golden scepter fitted jauntily into the hollow of his shoulder, stalked behind the boy as the gun wavered. The black hole at the end of the barrel oscillated gently, the sight bobbing.

  Storm licked his lips and closed one eye to sight along the massive lump of dark metal in his hand. Josh was aware of his son’s fingers trying to get more comfortable on the butt of the pistol. Finally, Storm brought his other hand up to steady his wrist, but that only had the effect of doubling the interference in his aim.

  Storm dropped his arm as if the gun suddenly weighed a thousand pounds.

  Gabe rolled his eyes. “It’s very simple. You point and squeeze. You don’t have to think about it. Just lift the gun and point as you squeeze.”

  Maxine’s sobbing was almost as loud as the glee of the crowd. “Don’t do this, Gabe. Please. Don’t… it’s inhuman… Storm, you can’t…”

  Storm’s eyes flicked towards his mother, but in that moment his face hardened. Whatever his feelings about Josh were, the ex-cop could see that his son was equally at odds with his mother. Slowly, the gun came back up, and Josh was once more just a tightening of a finger muscle from his death.

  “That’s the spirit!” Gabe yelled joyfully. He waved his scepter to the crowd like a conductor with a baton who’d begun getting exactly the right response from a bombastic and strident orchestra. The throne room rang with bloodlust and sang with anticipation. Gabe’s eyes gleamed, and he puffed out his chest like a peacock strutting on the White House lawn. “This is the new America! This is our America! We the people! Indivisible under one king!”

  The crowd tried to tear off the roof with their cheers.

  Josh locked his eyes on those of Storm. There were tears swimming across his vision, but he would not blink. If this was the moment when he was going to die, then he would face it with his eyes open.

  “Do it, if you’re going to,” he whispered to Storm. “Do it.”

  Storm’s lip trembled and he steadied the gun.

  “I forgive you, Storm,” Josh said.

  The bullet exploded from the muzzle, and the rush of air that whistled in his ear was registered almost at the same time as Josh heard it strike the wooden floor behind him.

  Josh looked up at his son. Storm had moved the gun fractionally so that the bullet would miss him.

  Josh’s words had been enough.

  For now.

  “Jeez!”

  The voice of Ten-Foot Snare. The ex-probationer and nasty piece of work who had plagued Josh since the supernova had first hit on the Sea-Hawk in the Atlantic Ocean had reappeared in his life recently, capturing him in Jaxport. It had been this young African-American car thief and drug dealer who’d found Josh beneath the bleachers and brought him out to kneel here in front of Gabe and Storm.

  The bullet’s trajectory made Ten-Foot leap three feet to the side so that he now stood in Josh’s field of vision.

  The crowd had been silenced. They had expected the coup de grâce. They had expected the deed to have been done. Now, they chattered and breathed out as one. Gabe threw his scepter onto the velvet throne and snatched the gun from Storm’s hands.

  “If you want a job done…” he said as the Magnum bore down on Josh again.

  Storm’s eyes dropped, his arms falling to the side. Tears began to drip from the end of his nose.

  “Joshua Standing, by the power vested in me, I so decree that you are to be… wasted. Bye-bye.”

  Josh’s shoulders came up as he turned his face to the side, and this time, he closed his eyes. He wasn’t going to give Gabe any satisfaction at all. Let it be done, and let it be done now.

  An electronic buzzing cut across the hushed throne room.

  Josh opened an eye, and Gabe blinked. The would-be executioner looked up, scanning the crowd.

  Josh concentrated on the noise in his ear. He recognized the buzzing sound. He shifted his body so that he could see the line of captives, which Gabe’s red-garbed Harbormen were training their guns on. Donald, his father-in-law, stoic and strong. Henry, the bright young survivalist who had kept Josh’s daughter, Tally, alive and accompanied her all the way from Georgia to Donald’s farm in West Virginia. Poppet, the wife of a Mafia Don who Josh had saved on the ocean liner, Empress. Karel and Jingo, two Maryland Defenders who’d saved their backsides in Cumberland; Filly and Martha, escapees from the town of Pickford; and finally, Halley, the TV science guy who looked like he’d fallen out of a 1960s psychedelic band tribute act, and who might, Josh knew, just maybe save the world.

  The buzzing noise was coming from the end of the line, where Halley was. He had raised a hand and was signaling towards Gabe. The Harborman behind him put a pistol in Halley’s ear.

  “Wait!” Gabe ordered, pointing at Halley. “What is that noise?”

  It was only the second time that Josh had heard the electronic buzzing sound. The first had been when it had lured him, Jingo, and Karel into Halley’s sister’s house.

  It had shocked Josh then—for all intents and purposes, every piece of electronic equipment in the world had stopped working at the moment the effects of the Barnard’s Star supernova had hit Earth. Everything electronic was dead, as if the entire planet had been blanketed in an electromagnetic pulse effect that had shut down the world.

  The shock Josh had felt then was being mirrored across the crowd, and also across Gabe’s face.

  “I asked, what is that noise?”

  Halley lowered his hand. “If I may, Your Majesty, be allowed to approach the throne?”

  Gabe showed the kind of irritation a teacher might show when a pupil interrupted a lesson to ask to go to the restroom. His voice was clipped and coldly focus
ed when he answered, “As soon as I’ve finished killing super-cop here, sure,” Gabe said, and with that, he aimed at Josh again.

  “Umm, I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” Halley’s voice was confident—strident, even. Gabe blazed his eyes at the still interrupting professor, but he lowered the gun… again.

  Josh started breathing.

  “Are you threatening me, you bug-eyed acid casualty?”

  “No, no at all… well… yes, maybe a little. I have the power to, um… give you back your power. Energy, that is. I’ve discovered a way to make electricity flow again. That’s what the buzzing from my pocket is. It’s a battery-operated doorbell that I have shielded from the suppression field caused by the supernova, and I’m pretty sure I could make it work for almost any other device. If you keep Josh alive. I’ll work for you. I’ll stay here, fix stuff, and help you in your ambition to… umm… kingship. Or whatever you want. I just don’t want you to kill Josh. You think we could make a deal?”

  Gabe’s face was like a complex equation. “You want to make a deal? I’m the guy with all the guns, and you want to make a deal? You should be glad I don’t just shoot you in the face.”

  Halley was standing beside Josh now, and pulling a small box of copper filaments from his pocket. Through the filaments, Josh could see two batteries and the inside electronic guts of what he supposed was a doorbell.

  “This is what has led me to believe I can turn the power back on, sir. If you shoot me or any of my friends in the face, then you won’t get the power… umm… well, you have power, obviously, but you know what I mean. The… umm, other power. The electricals… um…”

  Josh could see that Halley was tying himself in knots now. His voice might not be calm and strident anymore, but the thoughts and calculations were rushing along behind his eyes. Halley had been a twenty-year veteran of live TV broadcasts. He knew how to communicate, and he knew how to hold an audience. His shtick was being the mad-scientist guy, and he was giving that performance now—but instead of having a live TV camera pointed at him, he was in a room full of well-armed guards.