by A. R. Shaw
Graham’s Resolution
Bundle
Book 1, 2 & 3
The China Pandemic
The Cascade Preppers
&
The Last Infidels
By A. R. Shaw
Liberty Lake, Washington
Copyright © 2015 by A. R. Shaw.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator.
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 Designs by Keri Knutson of Alchemybookcovers.com
Dedicated to my friends and family
The China Pandemic
Introduction
1 A Fate Worse than Death
2 Digging Graves
3 The Dark before Dawn
4 The Lucky Ones
5 Heading Out
6 Bang
7 Marcy, Macy, and Sheriff
8 The Madman
9 The Confrontation
10 Through the Darkness
11 Regrettable Decisions
12 A New Candidate
13 In Search of One
14 If It Weren’t for Guardians
15 The Owls at Night
16 The Guardians
17 A New Pack
18 Troubling Introductions
19 A Night in the Woods
20 Once Lost, Then Found
21 Torment
22 Contrition
23 Scouting Around
24 On the Road
25 The Journey to the Cabin
26 New Introductions
27 Getting Things Straight
28 A Surprise Bounty
29 The Scavenger Hunt
30 New Plans
31 An Extra Setting
32 The Preppers
33 A Surprise Encounter
34 An Observation
35 On Watch
36 A Decision
37 Trick or Treat
38 The Debriefing
39 A Sigh of Relief
40 Containment
41 New Signs
42 An Urgent Call
43 Cabin Fever
44 A Walk in the Snow
45 A Plan
46 A Violation
47 The Chase
48 The Accident
49 Bad News
50 Reunited
51 The Cost
The Cascade Preppers
1 The Trail between the Trees
2 Daily Routines
3 His Best Girl
4 Addy at Heart
5 Skinning Wolves
6 Going on the Hunt
7 A Call In
8 Hunting
9 Whiteout
10 Precautions
11 A Sleep Over
12 Mark Takes a Walk
13 Frayed Ends
14 Tended
15 Not This Time
16 Decided Chance
17 A Quick Trip
18 The Carnation Boy
19 Manning Media
20 Marcy Moves
21 McCann
22 Good and Bad
23 The Caretaker
24 Story Time
25 Night Drive
26 Fire
27 The Return
28 Alarms
29 Missing
30 Found
31 Unforsaken
32 Tracker
33 Intervention
34 Coming to Terms
35 The Return of Sam
36 Repairs
37 The Fall
38 A Chance
39 Hope
40 Aid
41 Like a Promise
42 Dawn
43 The Last Candidate
44 The Birth of Spring
The Last Infidels
Chapter 1 Dutch’s Caravan
Chapter 2 Required Reading
Chapter 3 To Fix Them
Chapter 4 Triple-Loaded
Chapter 5 Shots Fired
Chapter 6 Speak Easy
Chapter 7 By the Campfire
Chapter 8 A Story of Fire
Chapter 9 The Injustice
Chapter 10 A Greeting
Chapter 11 The Stalker
Chapter 12 Fleeing Dreams
Chapter 13 The Messenger
Chapter 14 The Girl
Chapter 15 Private Time
Chapter 16 An Old Enemy
Chapter 17 Caught and Lost
Chapter 18 The Nightmare
Chapter 19 Sheriff’s Vacation
Chapter 20 The Invitation
Chapter 21 Saying Good-Bye
Chapter 22 The Debriefing
Chapter 23 The Trip
Chapter 24 In the Garden
Chapter 25 Anticipation
Chapter 26 The Attack
Chapter 27 Pressure
Chapter 28 The Burial
Chapter 29 Regret
Chapter 30 Fixing Dalton
Chapter 31 Riding High
Chapter 32 A Predicament
Chapter 33 Shooting the Breeze
Chapter 34 Young Love
Chapter 35 Come to Me
Chapter 36 Tent City
Chapter 37 Man Traps
Chapter 38 A Trick
Chapter 39 The Meeting
Chapter 40 A Dinner Mood
Chapter 41 Malefic Nation
Chapter 42 Eyes Aglow
Chapter 43 Let’s Roll
Chapter 44 The Escape
Chapter 45 Americans
Chapter 46 The Cache
Chapter 47 Going Back
Chapter 48 Waiting
Chapter 49 All Is Lost
Chapter 50 Graham’s Resolution
Chapter 51 The Immigrants
Chapter 52 Reunion
About the Author
Acknowledgments
~ ~ ~
The China Pandemic
~ ~ ~
Introduction
Some said that China’s intent to develop the H5N1 virus merely came about as an attempt to culture a vaccine, knowing the nation’s dense population would be at catastrophic risk if attacked by such a virus. Others said that China’s motives had always been sinister, and that they had developed a weaponized form of the virus. In the end it didn’t matter what the intentions had been; having tinkered with Pandora’s box, and without safeguards in place, they had unleashed it. And not only on their own people; it spread like wildfire across the globe, exterminating more than six billion souls. The million or so who were still alive were somehow immune, but they were carriers. As for the virus itself, it became known simply as the China Pandemic.
1 A Fate Worse than Death
Shivering in the pounding Pacific Northwest rain, Hyun-Ok needed to see for herself what threat the grim man in the distance posed. She’d heard him yelling before, followed by a gunshot blast and then a terrible scream. Having already counted him an unsuitable candidate to offer her the aid she needed, she had to be certain he wasn’t an immediate threat to her and her son.
With a death grip on the bed of the parked black pickup truck behin
d which she had taken refuge, Hyun-Ok gasped in horror as the crazed man powered up a small, worn backhoe. He scooped his victim up with the bucket, then spilled him, still alive and screaming, into a massive fire he had kept burning all day in a Dumpster.
She slinked away, her broken sobs bringing on a coughing fit from her own infected lungs. The agonized screams finally stopped, and Hyun-Ok grieved in silence for the unlucky man’s soul as sparks flew skyward. She must escape this part of town! The grim man, Campos, had posted no trespassing signs, and his actions told her he meant it.
She was her son’s only hope, and there was little time left to ensure his future. The disease weakened Hyun-Ok more each day, and she knew she would soon die. She could not leave her five-year-old to fend for himself with the likes of Campos around. Her days of scouting had told her there was only one person left to consider; the search had already taken up too much valuable time and energy, and Bang had to be in caring hands soon.
The one she was thinking of had one more to bury anyway. She might as well spend what little time she had left with her son.
Hyun-Ok recovered from her coughing fit as best she could and continued her journey home. She would need to make the trip in silence through the forested night, hidden from the few remaining people. Since coming to the realization that Bang showed no signs of the virus she had been venturing out like this, into the dark, every night.
One by one those around her had died off as she cared for them, Bang always at her side. Her elderly mother had been the first to go, followed closely by her father. Shortly after that, her husband, though he desperately clung to life, not willing to abandon his wife and son.
Covered in the sweat of fever, and her words rasping, Hyun-Ok had assured him his son would be fine and urged him into a peaceful beyond. “I will be with you soon, my love,” she’d told him with tears streaming down her face. As weak as she was at the time, the tears had surprised her.
The endearment, and the true meaning of her words, had sparked something in her dying husband. His eyes darted from Hyun-Ok to Bang, who was standing at the bedside. In brutal agony he drew himself up to gaze at his son’s face. “He must not be left alone and defenseless in this world gone mad!”
Hyun-Ok tried to comfort her husband with words, pushing him gently back toward the mattress, and she revealed her plan to safeguard their son. Her husband held them both close, praying aloud to an unhearing god that he could draw them with him as he slipped away.
That was just a week ago, and that night, after Bang drifted off to sleep, Hyun-Ok had gone out canvassing for the few remaining survivors in the neighborhood. Cloaked in black and defying the many dangers, she spied on the others and assessed them based on instinct alone. She estimated six hundred had originally occupied this immediate area in the Seattle suburb of Issaquah, and with only a 2 percent survival rate there should be twelve survivors—now known to be carriers. Of those she had only found seven.
Tonight she immediately discounted the first person she came across, two streets over, as being too elderly to be the guardian of a child of five. This lady only had a year left in her, if that. Hyun-Ok’s boy needed someone younger to carry him through life, at least into his teens.
The man she found next made her uncomfortable. She observed him decidedly grieving for his lost family, sitting out in a lawn chair in the night, yelling obscenities. He taunted and waited for the starving dogs, now gone wild, to smell him out. He shot at them, but it seemed to her that he was only trying to provoke an attack. She could sense his massive sorrow and knew his intentions were suicide by mauling if he could manage it. If not, he would likely soon take his own life. Sadly, she suspected that happened a lot with survivors.
Hyun-Ok crossed the highway unseen and found a scantily clad woman picking apples from a tree in a vacant lot. She knew the woman would attract the wrong kind of attention and wouldn’t be a good choice for her son’s welfare.
The man she had finally chosen seemed the only one capable of being her son’s guardian. Not only that, but something about him—either the way he carried his tall frame or the thoughtful dignity with which he buried his loved ones—assured Hyun-Ok that the neighbor named Graham would prove himself the best guardian. She knew that she could trust him with her boy. Knowing that as soon as Graham’s father passed away he’d have no more to bury, she could take her boy to him going on her own journey into death. One more day, she thought. But before then, I need to write to him about Bang.
With a sad smile, she stepped through the maze of parked vehicles, listening attentively to all sounds and alert for any dangers. She glanced back at the glow in the distance one last time. The last remaining obstacle would be to make Graham understand that he needed the boy as much as the boy needed him. She knew that would be the greatest challenge. She had to convince him of that or her son would be doomed.
2 Digging Graves
The frail man reached out to his son. Through tears, Graham gently grasped his father’s shaking hands as he lay dying. He knew it was the closest they had ever been.
Graham reaffirmed that he would go on as they had planned, that he would always keep the rifle beside him. Through drowning coughs his father reminded Graham that taking his own life was not part of God’s plan; it would only ensure a soulless wandering in the afterlife and would prevent him from ever again joining his departed family.
Having seen the signs so many times before, Graham knew the end was drawing near. He became desperate, knowing that the difference this time would be him standing alone without a soul known to him. His father’s wheezing came in shorter gasps, his eyes drew quiet, and his face sank into itself. Graham went from the desperation of losing his father to praying for mercy and a quicker end; he could take no more of this torment. Just like all the others, one by one, they all died in anguish.
Graham could not understand why he still lived. He had watched helplessly as his wife Nelly had died, taking their unborn child with her. Then his dear mother left him, followed by his sister and four-year-old niece. And now his father.
“What will I do without you?” he asked.
“Do what I have taught you, Graham. Make good decisions along the way, and don’t regret anything. You’ll do fine. Always know that I’m proud of you.”
Graham wiped spittle from his father’s lips and clutched his hand.
When death finally came, his father assumed a peaceful demeanor and said for the last time, “I love you, son.”
Exhausted from the night’s endless vigil, Graham rubbed his face. Tears of frustration, fear, and loss streamed down through his light brown whiskers. He had not shaved since way back when things were normal, and he did not care if he ever shaved again. Food, and even the very air he needed to breathe, had lost all importance. He could only wonder how he could possibly go on without his father’s strength and guidance.
With his last racking sob, Graham took a deep breath. “Buck up,” his father would have said sternly. And that’s what he decided to do. He was now the father of the clan, and he continued as if there was a family to lead.
There was only the one last grave, though this one would be the hardest to dig. Such little consolation would have to do at this moment. Everyone he’d ever known was now gone: all of his family, friends, and acquaintances. From the lowliest beggar to the wealthiest tycoon, no class had gone untouched; even the president had died. This was an equal opportunity pandemic; no one could be accused of racism or class warfare.
With only the blue shadowy morning light peering in on them, Graham reached over to close the blue-veined eyes of the man he loved and admired.
“Good-bye, Dad,” he whispered, kissing him on the forehead. He wrapped the edges of the white bedsheet slowly around his father’s body; it was a skill he had learned through repetition. Then he left the room, walking lightly so as not to disturb the peace.
~ ~ ~
His father had asked Graham to leave space in the middle of the other four grave
s in his mother’s prized rhododendron garden. On one side lay his mother and Nelly, and on the other his sister and niece. His father had wanted it that way so he could “safeguard the ladies.” Graham had known that his dad, always the gentleman, would hold out to the very last, until after the ladies had gone.
In October the soft loamy ground would still shovel easily, though it would freeze soon enough. The autumn rains were often misty, but this morning it rained as if it meant it. The digging would have to wait.
Graham dreaded this final act almost as much as when he’d buried his beloved Nelly. He slumped down in his father’s living room chair and sobbed uncontrollably. “Where do I go from here?” he yelled, grabbing his water glass and flinging it across the room, where it crashed against the wall.
But he already had his answer; his father had already made him commit to certain plans. Graham remembered this but asked aloud, “What for?” He continued to sob, frustrated by the lack of answers.
He left the bedroom, walking to the dining room window to peer out into his mother’s garden. He saw the fading leaves of the rhododendrons, and the memory of their spring flowers made him wish he could somehow share his grief with Nelly.
After the pandemic had started, he and his wife had fled to his parents’ isolated home from the chaos that had come to Seattle. With Nelly’s teaching job suspended due to futile quarantine efforts and Graham’s job as a math professor gone, it only made sense to get the hell out of their apartment in the city. The decision became final when shots rang out one night, waking him from his sleep and causing him to clutch his pregnant wife securely against him. The next day they learned their neighbors had been murdered for their food supply. Fearing that he and Nelly were next, he packed the car and they left.
As humanity died off, people turned on one another. Fresh food was at a premium, and even preserved foods were running short. The immune preyed on the living; they desperately searched for dwindling food supplies because the grocery stores were no longer being stocked. To make things worse, counties had implemented quarantine roadblocks in an ill-fated attempt to lock infected populations out, thus making residents prisoners within their own communities.
