by W. J. Lundy
Owen Ballie
ZOMBIE RUSH
New to the Hot Springs PD Lisa Reynolds was not all that welcomed by her coworkers especially those who were passed over for the position. It didn’t matter, her thirty days probation ended on the same day of the Z-poc’s arrival. Overnight the world goes from bad to worse as thousands die in the initial onslaught. National Guard and regular military unit deployed the day before to the north leaves the city in mayhem. All directions lead to death until one unlikely candidate steps forward with a plan. A plan that became an avalanche raging down the mountain culminating in the salvation or destruction of them all.
Joseph Hansen
THE ALPHA PLAGUE
Rhys is an average guy who works an average job in Summit City—a purpose built government complex on the outskirts of London. The Alpha Tower stands in the centre of the city. An enigma, nobody knows what happens behind its dark glass. Rhys is about to find out. At ground zero and with chaos spilling out into the street, Rhys has the slightest of head starts. If he can remain ahead of the pandemonium, then maybe he can get to his loved ones before the plague does. The Alpha Plague is a post-apocalyptic survival thriller.
Michael Robertson
THE GATHERING HORDE
The most ambitious terrorist plot ever undertaken is about to be put into motion, releasing an unstoppable force against humanity. Ordinary people – A group of students celebrating the end of the semester, suburban and rural families – are about to themselves in the center of something that threatens the survival of the human species. As they battle the dead – and the living – it’s going to take every bit of skill, knowledge and luck for them to survive in Zed’s World.
Rich Baker
THE RECKONING
Australia has been invaded.
While the outnumbered Australian Defence Force fights on the ground, in the air and at sea, this quickly becomes a war involving ordinary people. Ben, an IT consultant has never fought a day in his life. Will he survive? Grant, a security guard at Sydney's International Airport, finds himself captured and living in the filth and squalor of one of the concentration camps dotted around Australia. Knowing death awaits him if he stays, he plans a daring escape. This is a dark day in Australia's history. This is terror, loneliness, starvation and adrenaline all mixed together in a sour cocktail. This is the day Australia fell.
Keith McArdle
GRUDGE
The United States Navy led an expedition to Antarctica in December 1946, called Operation Highjump. Officially, the men were tasked with evaluating the effect of cold weather on US equipment; secretly their mission was to investigate reports of a hidden Nazi base buried beneath the ice. After engaging unknown forces in aerial combat, weather forced the Navy to abandon operations. Undeterred, the US returned every Antarctic summer until finally the government detonated three nuclear missiles over the atmosphere in 1958. Unfortunately, the desperate gamble to rid the world of the Nazi scourge failed. The enemy burrowed deeper into the ice, using alien technologies for cryogenic freezing to amass a genetically superior army, indoctrinated from birth to hate Americans. Now they’ve returned, intent on exacting revenge for the destruction of their homeland and banishment to the icy wastes.
Brian Parker
A Sneak Peek at The Darkness
Book 1 of the Invasion Trilogy.
THE DARKNESS
W. J. Lundy
Chicago Suburbs
Day of the Darkness, Plus 5
Everything closed. Jacob’s co-workers jokingly called it a FEMA holiday, like a snow day in the summertime. Office buildings locked up, the government declaring a national shutdown with only essential employees required to report. It was rumored that police officers and even medical professionals were starting to walk off the job, refusing to report for duty.
Jacob willingly agreed to working from home until the crisis passed, happy to avoid the traffic for a few days. A long break from the out-of-town travel would be nice, and he could spend some much-needed family time with his wife and young daughter. As the emergency progressed, internet connections and even the phones began to fail. He tried to call in to the daily meetings at the factory but received a fast busy signal and dead phone lines instead.
Grocery stores sold out of everything as the mass hysteria slowly spread. Gas, milk, eggs, water… everything hoarded, or the prices raised beyond the average person’s reach. By the time Jacob figured out something real was going on, something that wouldn’t pass, it was too late. He drove by the local superstore and saw armed guards at the entrance of the parking lot where shoppers were required to show cash before they could enter. The store delivery trucks didn’t even bother to unload their goods as merchandise was being exchanged right out of the backs, like a shady underground marketplace.
The news just seemed so far away and foreign. It was something that happened in the third world, not here in the suburban neighborhoods of Chicago. Jacob sat on his living room sofa watching a looping satellite broadcast of the chaos in Atlanta. The anchors warned that the rioters had already breached the lobby. Stairwells were full of piled furniture and the elevators sat dead at the bottom of their shafts, but still the rioters came and destroyed everything in their path—nothing was left untouched. Not knowing what else to do, Jacob loaded his handgun and stared at the TV. The loop always stopped at the enraged face of a man with pearly black eyes; the image would freeze before the video re-started.
Jacob turned to watch her pace the room while she dialed the phone over and over, receiving the same steady tone as a response. He knew she was afraid; everyone was. She wanted to go to her parents’ home near the lake, north of the city. It was out of town and quiet there; maybe she was right, but how would they get there? He had seen then video feeds, and knew the city wouldn’t be safe—even the outer areas of Chicago would be chaos—and he couldn’t risk it on the interstate, not with Katy. Laura suggested the trains, but that was the last place he wanted to be stranded if the lines went down.
He knew the phones were down, the circuits jammed, but she tried nonetheless. Once she realized she would have no contact with her mother, she would be devastated. Jacob didn’t want her to give up on him; he needed her to stay focused. He needed her and Katy to be strong. He could not do it alone. He watched the scrolling bar on the bottom of the TV. Emergency officials demanding calm, ordering civilians to shelter in place. He looked over his shoulder, she held the phone by her side, and tears were filling the corners of her eyes.
“Give it a couple days, Laura; if nothing changes, we'll try for the city, we’ll get to your folks.”
Day of the Darkness, Plus 7
“What happened?” Jacob muttered, pulling his head away from the airbag. He tasted blood from a broken lip and smelled oil dripping from a hot motor. Looking over the dash and through a broken windshield, he could see a second vehicle with steam still pouring from its radiator. Jacob could barely hear his daughter, Katy, screaming over the weather siren. In the side mirror, he caught a glimpse of a man in denim dragging his little girl from the car, then lifting her to his chest before turning to run.
Jacob strained and painfully pressed against the driver’s door, the metal screeching as he forced it open. Losing his balance, he rolled from the car and onto the street. His daughter’s screams faded. He felt anger rising, giving him strength; he scrambled to his feet and ran after the screams. His daughter fought, screaming and flailing her arms and legs while scratching at the man’s eyes and nose as she struggled. The man dropped her and put his hands to his face, but when he saw Jacob, he turned to lunge. The man’s black eyes locked on his, and he howled while reaching for him wildly with oily, blood-covered hands.
With his body shaking violently, Jacob raised his Ruger P89 pistol and fired quick shots from only feet away. The first rounds went low; the others, directly to the man’s chest. Jacob twisted away and dodged as the man's momentum carried him past before the body tumbled to the ground, landing on its stoma
ch. Not waiting to see if he was dead, Jacob turned hard and stepped on the man’s back. Enraged, he fired one more shot into his head. The body stiffened before going slack. Jacob’s terrified daughter screamed from where she lay on the pavement; he scooped her up and ran back to the car.
On the passenger side, Laura was struggling with a second attacker. The large man was on top of her and almost had her pinned to the ground. Jacob sat Katy down, ran full speed, and then, leaping onto the man’s back, grabbed him under the arms. Rolling forcefully, they tumbled away from Laura and into the grass. The crazed attacker was able to gain position on Jacob. Having the advantage in strength and weight, he tussled and twisted until Jacob found his own back to the ground. The man now stared down into Jacob’s face as his hands grasped Jacob’s throat and began to squeeze.
Looking into the man’s dark eyes, Jacob saw no emotion that could be reasoned with. Like a rabid dog, the man seemed to have no regard for Jacob’s life. Jacob pushed against the man’s chest and gasped for air while struggling under the attacker’s weight. The man suddenly dropped and fell limp over Jacob’s chest, having taken a full kick to the side of the head from Laura.
Jacob hoisted the body up and rolled it off him. Grabbing at the grass, he pulled himself away and pushed up into a sitting position. He coughed and choked for oxygen as he looked at the unconscious man. His attention was distracted when he noticed Laura was on the ground, sobbing and pulling Katy into her lap.
The attacker let out a moan and stretched an arm, reaching for Jacob’s ankle. Jacob pawed at the grass until he found the pistol and then turned back to face the man. Leveling the weapon, he shot the attacker once in the face, snapping back its head violently, causing the girls to scream.
Staggering back to his feet, he looked in both directions. Jacob's focused tunnel vision faded enough to allow him to see everything. The sounds of the wailing weather siren seemed to come back even louder than before. It was over; the threat stopped. Suddenly exhausted, he struggled to stay on his feet as adrenalin pushed spasms through his legs and knees. Jacob turned and looked around him; his neighbors were standing on their porches, staring at him accusingly. He ignored them and reached down for Laura.
“Are you okay? Come on, get Katy back in the house,” he said, lifting Laura to her feet.
Laura looked at him in shock. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, get Katy back in the house, Laura!” he said over the sound of the siren.
Laura looked at the dead man at her feet. She asked again, “What happened?”
Katy began crying hysterically.
With his heart still racing, he lifted Katy and handed her off to Laura. “Please get her inside; I’ll be there in a minute.”
Laura turned her head to look at their neighbors before backing away toward the porch. She held Katy’s head to her shoulder in a belated attempt to shield the young girl from the horror of what lay on the ground.
He watched them move across the porch and waited for the door to close behind them. Jacob’s head ached and the sound of the siren clouded his mind as he struggled to collect his thoughts on what had just occurred. He stepped to the house and wearily dropped to the porch steps.
They were trying to flee to the country, or at least get to Laura's parents north of the city—anywhere as far away from people as they could get. He remembered pulling out of the garage and barely entering the street before the speeding car collided with them. But the men… where did they come from? They must have been pursuing the other car. Why did they attack them?
Under the spiteful eyes of his neighbors, Jacob stood and went to the other car.
“Thanks for the help, guys,” he said under his breath.
He ignored their stares and opened the passenger-side door, stretched across the front seat, and checked the man’s bloodied wrist for a pulse. The driver was dead; the lack of a seatbelt had allowed his body to thrust partway through the windshield.
Looking in the backseat, he found it filled with luggage. He saw a plastic grocery bag stuffed with oranges and bottles of water. Jacob pondered them briefly before taking the bag and joining his wife back in the house. Ignoring his neighbors’ cold stares, he shut and locked the house door behind him. Even if the phones worked, the police wouldn’t come.
Moving across the room to a window, Jacob parted the curtains and looked into the street. The incessant wailing of the weather siren was better behind the plate-glass window. Even with the power out, it wailed. Why had it not been shut off yet? Jacob looked at the smoking vehicles in the street and saw his neighbors approaching the crash scene.
The anxiety built up in his chest; he was sweating and he felt his heart racing. Jacob was fighting off panic… and losing. He had to do something.
“Laura, get everything and take it upstairs to our bedroom,” he said.
Laura was in the kitchen, handing Katy a glass of water and still trying to calm her. “Why? What are we doing?”
“Something is changing, I’m not sure what, but I think we need to get to the safe room. We need to lock ourselves in. I’m afraid they’re coming.”
“Those rioters we saw on the news? Here? Is that what that was?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Laura, those men… they looked through me, they had no fear, please get all the food and water upstairs. We don’t have much time. I’ll be right behind you.”
Jacob went to the garage and shut the overhead door before retrieving his cordless drill and a box of deck screws. He made a quick pass through his home, locking and bolting every door, closing every curtain.
By habit, he went to arm the alarm by the front door, his fingers nearly touching the buttons. With no power and the backup batteries long dead, the alarm was useless. Jacob shook his head before running up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
He joined his wife on the second floor and followed her into the master suite. Their bedroom was large and square; an antique armoire rested against an interior wall close to the door. A single, long window faced the street, opposite the entrance to the bathroom. A king-sized bed in the center of the room, with a nightstand on each side, filled the rest of the space. Jacob moved to the foot of the bed where Laura had placed everything and took a quick inventory of their belongings. He nodded before turning away to bolt the heavy hardwood bedroom door.
Jacob had always been security conscious… or paranoid, as his friends called it. He was on the road a lot for work, and he wanted his family safe when he was away. Laura shook her head at the idea of him tearing out their master bathroom to construct a state of the art safe room. As a compromise—in Jacob’s mind, at least—he’d installed a heavy exterior door at the entrance to their bedroom. The heavy bolt he had added, to secure it further, effectively turned their master suite into a hardened shelter that could hold off any home invader.
Jacob stopped and looked at the door with the brass bolt lock, talking quietly to himself. “Better than that damn security alarm I spent all the money on,” he said. “More practical too… and passive, doesn’t require electricity like the alarm. Nothing to train or learn and no fancy monitoring companies… a one-time expense to install, and we have a barrier between us and them…”
He paused when Laura asked, “Who are you talking to?”
Jacob put his hand on the door again and rattled the knob. Checking the lock, he felt the clunk of the steel bolt riding into the two-by-six stud frame.
“Nobody,” he said.
Jacob lifted the drill and a handful of screws. He drove the four-inch screws in deep—one in each corner, two in the top, and two on each side.
“What are you doing?” Laura she asked.
Jacob stopped and looked her in the eye. He could see she was in shock and not fully comprehending the situation. She was still struggling with the thought of being attacked in the streets of their quiet neighborhood. Even having felt the violence firsthand in front of their home, she wasn’t fully grasping the urgency of the situatio
n. This wasn't something that was happening far away, not anymore; the violence had reached their front yard. People were killing out there, and nobody was coming to save them. They would have to save themselves.
“I’m running screws through the door all the way to the studs. The lock is good, but this is better.”
Laura watched the same news reports he did—the attacks, the disappearances, the mobs, the warnings from police to stay off the streets. At first, the commentators compared them to events expected with third-world mentality, like the massacres in the Congo and attacks in Rwanda—even the LA Riots; they simply did not make any sense.
The newscasters relayed messages from mayors urging residents to stay in their homes and wait out the crisis. The government was working on it and the police were organizing a response. The National Guard mobilized and set up evacuation centers. Although in some cases, the evacuation centers were as dangerous as the streets. Several reports aired news of them being wiped out… everyone lost… everyone dead. The warnings were shown on the TV in long, repeating broadcasts before the power went out.
Secured on the second floor, Jacob went to the window and observed the street. The road was wide with tall shade trees on both sides and ran deep into the suburban neighborhood. Well-maintained, cookie-cutter homes sat back from green lawns, interrupted by the destroyed car that was still smoking from the collision just beyond his own driveway. Some of his neighbors had left their porches and gathered around it, talking and taking photos with their phones of the dead men.
