She realized she couldn’t hear the flamethrowers anymore and quickly scurried forward to check. The men digging in the field had stopped their careful pacing and were looking off toward the right, watching something. One of them suddenly turned around and pointed at the supply truck before throwing his shovel over his shoulder and moving off to the left.
“Oh no. No no no. Please!”
Angel tried the latch again. But still her gloves were too bulky, too stiff to pull the safety clasp away.
Spinning around again, she could see that the remaining digger had now been joined by the man with her parka and one of the napalm burners. They were marching across the field toward the bulldozer operator.
The second burner was heading her way.
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END OF PART 01/12
PART 02/12 AVAILABLE AUG 2015
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THE FLENSE (Part 01/12)
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BUNKER 12
(companion series to THE FLENSE)
SERIES DESCRIPTION
They thought they were safe. They were wrong.
Requiring no more than the slightest skin-to-skin contact, the Flense spreads with ruthless speed and stealth, decimating mankind before it's even aware of it. The infected are turned into soulless creatures, Wraiths, which wreak destruction upon anyone and anything in their path. Secure inside ten isolated bunkers are Humanity's last survivors, each working tirelessly to unravel the mystery of the scourge. But the bunkers were never meant to protect forever. In fact, they were never meant to protect at all.
CONTAIN (BUNKER 12 series pilot)
Three years. That's how long Finnian Bolles has been hiding inside the impregnable walls of the hydroelectric complex known as Bunker 8. Three years, with enough resources to last him and the other thirty survivors three more. But then a series of disturbing events culminates in the sudden appearance of a stranger at their door. Before he too falls victim to the mysterious sickness known as the Flense, he warns them of a fate more horrific than the one they've been avoiding. But to prevent it, they must leave and seek a place many insist doesn't exist, a mythical twelfth bunker.
Future installments scheduled for Nov '15, May '16, and Nov '16.
EXCERPT
I'm in the nurse's office, sitting in one of those hard plastic orange chairs with the scratched graffiti on top and the gum stuck underneath. I'm pinching my nose with one hand. The other holds a bloody tissue.
It's an especially bad bleed this time, a gusher, as the nurse says. All I know is that it's a blessing my asthma doesn't kick in, because my lungs are barely treading water in a swamp of my own blood. It drips into the back of my throat, forcing me to swallow it, which just makes my stomach hurt more than it already does.
The stupid nurse won't let me move to spit it out. She orders me to sit still.
I press a little harder on the bridge of my nose, and a spark of pain explodes behind my eyes. A wet gurgle bubbles up out of me.
“Not so hard, Mister Bolles,” she warns in her sugary sweet, don't-you-dare-disobey-me voice. “Gentle pressure. It's not a tourniquet.”
I consider telling her that I'm pretty sure it's broken, but I know it would just come out sounding whiny. Not that she'd care anyway. She's already grumpy enough from having to call my dad for the second time in the same week.
I'm relieved when she finally stops fussing over me and leaves the room, shutting off the lights as she goes. As I sit there, my thoughts drift back to the event that ended in such humiliation. In my mind, I'm winning the fight. I always win the fight in the do-over.
The bell for final period rings and the halls fill with noise, so I don't hear when the door to the room opens.
“Finn?”
I lift my head and look over. And there, clear as day, is the disappointment in my father's eyes. Instinctively, I know what's going through his head: Why couldn't you have been more like Harper? Harper would have fought back. Harper would have kicked the other guy's ass.
He's never actually said anything of the sort to me before. I almost wish he would this time, so I'd know he gave a crap. But he doesn't ask. And for that I'm also glad, because how would I ever be able to face him again if I had to explain that it wasn't a guy who did this?
He wraps a hand around my scrawny forearm and gently leads me out of the office. The hallways are still crowded with students, though they're beginning to thin out. I can feel the stares of my fellow classmates on me, and I wish I could just crawl into a locker and hide. It's such a cliché, but that's how I feel.
He gets me into his car before I remember I’ve left my backpack in the nurse's office. Dad tells me to forget about it.
“But my books. My homework!” It comes out as boogs and hobeworg because of my shattered nose. “My phone!”
Which sounds like phobe.
“I'll leave a message for Harper to pick it up.”
Harper. Somehow, he always ends up saving the day.
Except I remember that Harper's not in school today. He's at his stupid elite genius internship at some bleeding-edge tech company in the valley.
I lean my head back and shut my eyes. I'll just get it in the morning.
We drive home in awkward silence, the news station Dad normally listens to turned all the way down, which means he wants to talk, if he could just dredge up the courage. I pray he doesn't.
“Finn . . . .” he eventually begins, and I wait. But after that rather auspicious start, he quickly loses steam.
I finger the bottle of pills in my pocket with my free hand, turn my head toward the window and shut my eyes. When we get home, I go straight to my room and lie down on my bed.
When I wake hours later, the house is silent and dark. In my dreams, I somehow manage to make my way back to the elementary school where my little sister, Leah, is a third grader. I somehow catch my mother and Harper as they're leaving, and I go with them instead of to the evac center with Dad. But the moment I get into the car, the scene always shifts, and I'm back inside the house, and it's my father's car that pulls into the driveway.
He rushes up the steps and slams through the door and grabs my shoulders. “Have you heard from any of the others?” There's panic in his eyes, and it intensifies as I shake my head. He squeezes me tighter, starts to shake me, and the pain and pressure inside my head feel like a balloon about to burst.
My chest starts to constrict. My breath comes out as a whistle. I reach for my inhaler, but it's back in my room.
“We have to go,” he tells me. “Now!” And he pulls me toward the car.
“Go where?” I ask. “Didn't you try calling them?”
“Phones are down.”
“Phones? How is that even possible?” I notice that the lights on the street are out. In fact, lights everywhere are out. I smell smoke. “What's happening?”
“Not now, Finn,” he says, his words clipped. He slips past the front of the car, keys jangling in his hand. “Hurry!”
A block away, someone is running down the sidewalk in our direction, a woman. I can't tell who it is, but she's really in a hurry. And something in the way she moves strikes me as odd.
“Get in the car!” Dad hisses.
“But maybe she knows—”
“Get in the goddamn car, Finn! Now!”
I glance back at the woman, and suddenly I'm terrified. She's moving way too fast, and I don't like the way her legs scissor. It's not natu
ral.
“Dad, what's going on?”
The door opens and slams into me, jolting me away from the car before he grabs my shirt and yanks me inside. My head hits the edge of the roof. I see stars.
“Close the damn door!”
The engine starts up, howls angrily as he stomps on the gas. But it's not in gear. He shifts, and then we're tearing off down the street, tires screaming.
We approach the running figure, and just for a moment I see her face in the car's headlights. There's nothing but darkness in her eyes. No emotion, no awareness. She turns as we pass and she reaches out for us. Dad swerves.
As we accelerate away, something about her shifts, and a howl of rage erupts out of her throat, sending an icy shiver through me. She grabs for us, but her fingers slip off the metal and she tumbles to the pavement.
“What the hell?” I shout. “I think you hit her! Stop!”
What the hell was wrong with her?
“Get your seatbelt on, son.” He throws a glance at my lap, then into the rearview mirror. “Do it!”
I reach over and clip it on. “Dad, please, tell me what's going on?”
He grips the steering wheel and barely slows when we reach the stop sign at the end of the block. The tires screech and the car fishtails around the corner.
“Dad!”
“Finn! Not now. I need to think.”
“Think about what? This is crazy! Slow down.” I point out the windshield, gesturing at the road ahead. “Speed limit's twenty-five here! You're going to kill—”
And that's when I see them.
They're everywhere— in the streets, on lawns. Standing around with their faces in the air, as if they were watching something in the sky but suddenly forgot that they were. They all turn to look at us, and they all have those dead, empty eyes.
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Tanpepper Tidings Newsletter
If you like post-apocalyptic and dystopian worlds, check out S.W. Tanpepper's epic cyberpunk series GAMELAND:
http://www.tanpepperwrites.com/gameland
Books 1 and 2 are free!
Golgotha (prequel)
The Series:
Episode One: Deep Into the Game
Episode Two: Failsafe
Episode Three: Deadman’s Switch
Episode Four: Sunder the Hollow Ones
Episode Five: Prometheus Wept
Episode Six: Kingdom of Players
Episode Seven: Tag, You’re Dead
Episode Eight: Jacker’s Code
Velveteen
Infected: Hacked Files from the GAMELAND Archive
Signs of Life (Jessie’s Game Book One)
A Dark and Sure Descent
Dead Reckoning (Jessie’s Game Book Two)
AVAILABLE IN DIGITAL AND PRINT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to the devoted staff of Brinestone Press, who helped put this book together and get it out to you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Saul Tanpepper is a writer of speculative fiction for teens and adults. A former molecular geneticist originally from Upstate New York, he now calls Northern California home.
If you enjoyed Part 01/12 of THE FLENSE twelve-part serial, then you'll want to check out the companion series, BUNKER 12, which follows the apocalyptic events detailed in THE FLENSE. If you missed it, you can read an excerpt here. You may also enjoy the GAMELAND series, an epic cyberpunk adventure through a post-apocalyptic world in which zombies are used as avatars in a twisted live action game for the amusement of the rich and privileged. Sign up for the Tanpepper Tidings for a free starter library. You can find out more about all of Saul's titles at his:
Website
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Twitter page
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The Flense (Part 01/12)
by Saul Tanpepper
Copyright © 2015 by Saul Tanpepper
All rights reserved.
July 10, 2015 by Brinestone Press, San Martin, CA 95046
Cover credit K.J. Howe Copyright © 2015
Photo licensed from Depositphoto.com
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LICENSE NOTES
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
http://www.brinestonepress.com
Tanpepper, Saul (2015-07-10). The Flense (Part 01/12)
Brinestone Press Digital Edition (rv150628)
For more information about this and other titles by this author:
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THE FLENSE: China: (Part 1 of THE FLENSE serial) Page 11
