by B. T. Wright
Uncivil War: Evolution
Wright & Dudycha
Contents
Newsletter
Title
Also by Wright & Dudycha
Author’s Note
UNCIVIL WAR
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Sample
Sample: Uncivil War: TAKEOVER
Sample
Acknowledgments
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Also by Wright & Dudycha
Newsletter
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Also by Wright & Dudycha
THE UNCIVIL WAR SERIES
UNCIVIL WAR
UNCIVIL WAR: INFECTED
UNCIVIL WAR: EVOLUTION
UNCIVIL WAR: TAKEOVER
(available - 8/27/19)
UNCIVIL WAR: RECKONING
(September 2019)
UNCIVIL WAR: AWAKENING
(October 2019)
Copyright © 2019 Holcomb & Shaw Publishing LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Holcomb & Shaw Publishing LLC
www.wrightanddudycha.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead,
or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Design by DDD, Deranged Doctor Designs
UNCIVIL WAR EVOLUTION/Wright & Dudycha
1st ed. ISBN - 9781079704419
For Billy Parker
We’ve killed a lot of zombies in our day, and lived to tell the tales.
There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost certain that there is life somewhere in space.
Buzz Aldrin
Author’s Note
Uncivil War is an episodic six novel series where you’ll follow two brothers into the apocalypse. What makes our story unique is that I, B.T. Wright, will be writing Jake Maddox’s story, and Jonathan Dudycha will be writing Colt Maddox’s story.
The advantage this gives us as co-authors is that each brother will truly have his own unique voice, because the authors have theirs. We believe the stories of the different brothers are much more authentic because of the way we have split the storytelling duties.
As the reader, you get to see the apocalypse from two different perspectives along the same timeline. Jake lives in Kentucky and Colt lives in Colorado. They both confront their own obstacles along the way while trying to fight their way back to each other. Each novel in the series is from one brother's perspective, battling through a world that all of a sudden is nothing like it used to be.
We hope you enjoy the ride. It has certainly been fun for us to write.
Book 3
by
B.T. Wright
1
The hum of the boat’s motor was loud in their ears. The river was black in the dark of midnight, and the wind pushing against Jake Maddox’s face felt warm. Though his girlfriend, Jess, his best friend Tyler, and their VIP package—thirteen-year-old Amy—made it without injury, his heart was heavy. The short but hellacious run from the University of Cincinnati to the Rivertown Marina had already claimed the first member of their team. Jerry may have been their weakest link, but he was still part of the chain all the same. A mission is always a failure when a team member is lost. No matter if the desired outcome is reached or not.
The infected had been everywhere on their trip to get to the boat, or at least that was how it seemed. Just four days ago, before they were infected, every one of those black-eyed aliens had been a normal human being just like Jake and everyone else on his team. Now they were all hunters. Looking to take everyone in their path down with them. For what reason, or to what end, was still unknown. But what was certainly clear was that they were getting smarter and more cunning by the day.
Moving from the safety of the small compound under the library at the university at night had been the only thing that saved them. That and they were able to drive to Rivertown Marina with their lights off thanks to the night vision goggles Professor Reed had procured before the fall of earth. Jerry lost his life because a group of infected had been standing guard at the marina, waiting for anyone to come their way. They had waited until everyone was well clear of the RV to make their move. And they came fast. In the end, they had killed every one of the dozen infected that had jumped them, but not before they claimed one of Jake’s ten.
Jake had gone over the risks with everyone who decided to leave the university for the emergency operations center in Mount Weather, Virginia. They knew the risks, but that didn’t make the loss any easier. However, just like any of his many missions with Delta Forces and in the Army, Jake knew the objective must still be reached. They had to keep their minds moving forward, and that was what he was doing now as he stood at the bow of the boat, staring at the black in front of him.
The boat was stocked with enough weapons and ammunition for a small war. If the trek from the university to the marina was any indication of what was to come, that amount of weaponry still wouldn’t be enough. They had plenty of medicine. Yesterday morning Jake led Bryan Hall, the only other survivor with military experience, and two other men that were also on the boat now, out on a Beritrix run. Beritrix is the medicine Jake has been taking since he was an infant when he was diagnosed with WD17, a disease that completely strips the immune system, affecting approximately 1% of the world’s population. But more important for Jake and others that had this disease, it also just so happened to be the medicine that kept them from getting infected. The medicine had been created to restore and amplify the immune system in those who had WD17. Apparently, it restored the immune system in a way that whatever the aliens were releasing into the air to infect people, Beritrix kept those aliens from making hosts out of whoever had been injecting it. “A dose of Beritrix a day helps keep the aliens away”, Tyler had joked. So far, it had continued to be true. And everyone on the mission to Mount Weather would have to have that daily dose to keep from being turned.
What the rest of the population had been turned into was still a point of contention, but with Amy being able
to translate the alien conversation, and that conversation being all about taking over humanity, it was hard to argue, even for Jake, that it was anything other than an invasion. What they wanted, and why they wanted it, was still a mystery. And it would remain so, at least until Jake and company got Amy to Mount Weather, where they could begin investigating and running tests as to why she was immune from being infected even though she hadn’t taken Beritrix. The real reason to get her to Mount Weather, other than Jake’s carnal instinct to protect the innocent, was that the thirteen-year-old could actually understand these invaders. Whatever they were. Jake and Jess also believed Amy was what the aliens had referred to as Element Zero. In the conversation Amy was able to translate, these aliens mentioned Element Zero was their only weakness, and that they must find it. They both thought it too big of a coincidence that Amy was immune without medicine and could translate this alien language. Then, of course, there was also the fact that on multiple occasions, the infected, who had never spoken anything before, said the name Amy. One said it to Jake, and one said it to Dr. Emily Fraser at Mount Weather. The coincidence was too strong.
So what did that mean for Amy? Jake had no idea. But if Amy was in fact this Element Zero, and it was the invaders’ only weakness, he was certain they would be coming for her. Therefore he had to get her to Mount Weather alive so maybe the small number of humans left on the planet could possibly learn how to survive this invasion, and in Jake’s mind, find a way to fight back.
2
Jake was just getting ready to leave the front of the boat when he felt someone grab hold of him. He looked back and saw Jess and unhooked his arm so he could wrap it around her.
“Doing okay up here?” Jess said. Her voice was near a shout to be heard over the boat’s motor.
“Just clearing my mind.”
She nodded and gave him a squeeze. Jake was so happy to have her and Tyler with him. Other than his brother Colt and his nephews, they were the only loved ones he had left. He thought of Emily in Mount Weather in that moment. He thought about the spark they’d had when both of them were stationed in Syria a couple of weeks ago. How they had too much to drink one night and made love. Jake had told Emily it was a drunken mistake; that he loved Jess. He saw the hurt in her eyes, and though Jake knew he should never have slept with Emily, because he loved Jess with all his heart, something about her was special. He hated to think that way, especially with Jess on his arm, but he never meant to get to know Emily the way he had. Their bond over the mutual loss of their parents suddenly when they were younger was the catalyst for the close relationship they’d formed. Even though Jake had never meant for things to get physical, they had, and he hoped going forward it wouldn’t ruin what he had with Jess. They’d been together since high school—over fourteen years—and it was the most important relationship in his life. He didn’t know what he would do without her. If one mistake was enough to erase that, he supposed he would have to live with it, because he was the one who made the mistake. But a life devoid of his girl would be dark. Especially in this cold new world.
Jake leaned over and gave her a kiss on the lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
It was dark, so he had to imagine her dirty blonde hair blowing across her sharp cheekbones and almond shaped eyes.
Jess lifted Jake’s mood. The other thing that kept him in good spirits was the radio conversation he finally had with Colt yesterday. Colt and his two sons, after far more time than Jake would have liked, had finally made it to the Cheyenne Mountain complex outside of Colorado Springs and been able to radio him. Colt had mentioned they’d found trouble several times, but were able to make it alive. His wife—the boys’ mother—hadn’t been so lucky. Colt had also been able to corroborate what Jake had seen in Kentucky: that the infected were most certainly evolving, and getting smarter every day. That was ultimately why Jake had chosen to go as far as they could toward Virginia on the river––hoping their evolution had only made it to on-land skills.
The idea had come when openly formulating a plan with the fifteen survivors at the professor’s university-funded End Of the World project’s underground safe haven. One of the members of the board and current captain of their little river vessel—TW White—was an admitted yachty. He suggested if Jake was so worried about the roads being watched by the infected that they try to make it to his boat at the marina. Jake’s plan had included the river ever since.
TW had mentioned the main problem they would face with the river would be the dams. He said that without anyone running them, most likely they would be closed. And if they were closed, there was no bypassing them, and their journey would have to move to land right then and there. Without the dams, the river could take them as far as West Virginia, making their trek on land much shorter, eliminating a couple hundred miles of risk. But TW said there was no chance all the dams between Cincinnati and West Virginia would be open. In fact, the first major hurdle was supposedly just in front of them now, the first dam, Meldahl, only about thirty miles from Cincinnati. They very well could have gone through all the trouble of getting to the marina for only a thirty-mile boat ride. So everyone aboard the boat, no matter how exhausted, was waiting with bated breath as they approached the dam.
TW said the only way the dam would have stayed open when things got crazy with the infected a couple days ago, was if the dam operator opened both doors just in case boats might need to pass in an emergency. He said the chances were slim to none, but Jake thought it was worth that chance. Because, if they made it through this dam, the next one wasn’t until Greenup County, Kentucky, saving them over a hundred some odd miles of potential run-ins with the infected.
The boat powered down, slowing to an idle atop the water.
“Okay everybody!” TW shouted. “I have to hit the lights. We should be coming right up on the Meldahl dam. Cross your fingers, otherwise we’re gonna have to send someone out to get a vehicle or two.”
The thought of already having to jump ship in favor of a wheeled vehicle made Jake’s tension rise. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the lights of the dash glowing on TW, and he saw a few more people come up from the below deck cabin to see their fate.
“It’s gonna be open.” Jess didn’t need to shout now that the motor wasn’t at full throttle. “I can feel it.”
Jake loved her optimism. Tyler walked up the front of the boat to join them.
“I feel like I’m in the sequel to the movie Deliverance right now, and when this dam is closed, a couple of redneck survivors are gonna trap us and do all kinds of weird shit to us.”
Tyler, ever the unserious warrior.
“They’ll eat you first,” Jake said. “All that fat on you makes your meat taste better.”
Jake still couldn’t really see, but he imagined his curly headed friend shaking his pudgy belly under his Star Wars T-shirt, then flipping him the bird.
“Whatever,” Tyler said. “I just really don’t want to get off this boat yet. Even though there’s an Army’s worth of weapons below deck, and we’re surrounded by strangers, this is the most normal I’ve felt in four days.”
“Totally get it,” Jake said. “I feel the same way. Fingers crossed.”
The boat was coasting over the water, and the spotlight on the hardtop above the stern cockpit came on and lit the water in its beam in front of them. The bounce of the light showed Jess literally crossing her fingers. She wasn’t going to take any chances. The moment of truth had come. The light moved from left to right on the water in front of them, then finally began moving upward until Jake could see the shadow of the dam in front of them. Not enough light yet to see if they were in luck and it was open.
“As far as the light goes!” TW shouted. “Almost there. Cross your toes!”
Jake imagined Jess did as TW asked, because he nearly did it himself. The air was humid, and what Jake could see of the surrounding riverbank was pitch black. A chorus of crickets could be heard just above the hum of
the motor. His insides were humming as well, a nervous sweat trickling from his pores. This was a big deal. It could literally mean life or death for some or all of the people that Jake had convinced to go on this excursion. He was exhausted from nonstop training sessions with everyone, and when he wasn’t passing along his combat skills, he was helping to plan the mission. They had to pre-map out a road-route from every dam along the way on the river. They had no idea which one, if any of them, would be closed, so they had to be prepared. Jake was really feeling the weight of the last few days, and the weight of the status of this dam. If they were fortunate enough to pass through, he was going to get some sleep.
“Any second now and we’ll know,” TW said.
Jake felt Jess squeeze around him. Tyler moved up to the edge of the rail. As the excruciating seconds passed, Jake’s mind began to imagine what might be lurking just beyond that pitch-black riverbank. The infected—the aliens—would most assuredly be there waiting for them to make a mistake. To take their bodies and use them for their gain. He pictured himself blasting away at them with bullets but they just kept coming––swinging away with his axe after the bullets were gone, but the black-eyed monsters just wouldn’t relent. Too many of them to ever make it on land. He was sick with worry. He couldn’t wait a minute longer, good or bad news, he had to know.
