The Quest: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 6

by Darrell Maloney

  She still didn’t know Randy Maloney’s whereabouts, or even if he’d survived the attack, but she prayed he was there among the others, to provide her whatever aid he could in her getaway.

  As for saving Tom Haskins’ life, it was now or never, for she knew she was running out of time.

  A lesser woman would have felt the gravity of the situation, and would have panicked. Or might have frozen at just the wrong moment. But Tom was lucky in that his life lay in the hands of a very strong and capable woman.

  It mattered not that the weight of the world, or at least the very lives of two good people and maybe a third, lay directly upon Sara’s shoulders. She was up to the task.

  She hadn’t fired a weapon since she’d removed Glen’s ugly face from his “Father of the Year” plaque some months before, but it didn’t matter. Her aim was true. She assumed a shooter’s stance in the shadows of the hayloft, took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger.

  Her first shot struck Payton in the center of his chest.

  As his limp body crumpled to the ground, her second shot hit a stunned Wimberley on the left side of his head, just behind the temple.

  The others were slow to respond, having just seen their brutal leaders fall lifelessly before them.

  And, as she has hoped, none of them had the resolve to offer any further resistance.

  Cut off the head of the snake, Tom had told her, and you remove the threat.

  As if on cue, Randy Maloney burst free from the back of the crowd and was already working to free the noose from around Tom’s neck. Then his hands, all the time glaring at the crowd as though daring them to make a move.

  None did. The crowd had suddenly turned docile. Almost timid.

  The crisis was over.

  Sara walked to the edge of the hayloft, in full view of the crowd now, and stood ready to shoot anyone who made a move for a weapon. The murmurs racing through the group below made it clear that many were amazed this tiny girl, just barely a woman, had stood up to and conquered two of the most vile men Texas had ever seen.

  Countdown to Armageddon, Book 7:

  CASTROVILLE

  will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in December, 2015.

  If you enjoyed

  THE QUEST,

  you might also enjoy

  ALONE Book 1:

  Facing Armageddon

  Dave and Sarah Anna Speer had been preparing for Armageddon for years. They thought they’d covered all the bases, and had planned for everything.

  It never occurred to them that the single thing they had no control over was the timing.

  Sarah was on an airplane with her young daughters when solar storms bombarded the earth with electromagnetic pulses. Everything powered by electricity or batteries was instantly shorted out and would never work again.

  Dave was suddenly alone.

  He was also unsure whether his family was dead or alive. He assumed that the airplane stopped working and plunged from the sky. But it was scheduled to land in Kansas City at almost the exact time everything stopped working.

  Had they landed in time? Was it possible they survived?

  This is the story of a man facing Armageddon alone. It chronicles the things he does to survive in a newly vicious world.

  It also includes Dave’s desperate and poignant diary entries to his wife. Just in case she did survive, and somehow makes it back to him to find he didn’t make it himself.

  From the author of last year’s best sellers “Final Dawn” and “Countdown to Armageddon” comes a new tale of one man’s journey through hell… alone.

  Chapter 1:

  Dave couldn’t get the tune out of his head. He’d heard it all morning long, off and on, playing quietly in the back of his skull. And it was driving him crazy.

  Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a happy little ditty. At least it sounded that way. It sounded more like sunshine and smiles, rather than rainclouds and foreboding.

  Finally, he’d had enough.

  “Okay, let’s play a game,” he announced while looking in the rearview mirror at Lindsey and Beth.

  “I’ll hum you a tune, and the first one to guess the tune gets a candy bar when we get to the airport.”

  Sarah looked at him from the passenger seat. With that look.

  “Excuse me, mister? You’re going to get the girls all hyped up on sugar just before I take them on a four hour plane ride?”

  “Not both of them, honey. Just the one who guesses the name of the song.”

  “Uh… no. If that song is still bugging you, just hum it. If any one of us guesses it, you can buy each of us a cinnabon.”

  The girls laughed. Beth gave Lindsey a high five. Lindsey said, “All right! Go, Mom!”

  Dave coughed. At first he had no words.

  Then he found some, and stated the obvious.

  “Why is it okay to get all three of you hyped up on sugar but not okay to do it to just one of you?”

  “Because you know I have a thing for cinnabons. And I’m the mom. So that makes me the boss.”

  Lindsey broke out in uncontrollable laughter from the back seat, and Beth said, “Ooooohhh, Dad, you just got owned.”

  “I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, those things aren’t cheap, you know.”

  “Oh, we know, don’t we girls?”

  Two heads nodded up and down behind her.

  “But, Dave, they are soooo worth the price. And I’ll give you a bite. And think how sweet I’ll taste when you kiss me goodbye.”

  Beth made a gagging sound.

  “Besides, if you want us to help you with that song, you have to pay the piper. It’s only fair. And if you don’t, it’ll continue to drive you crazy for days. Maybe even the whole week we’re gone. And we’d feel so bad for you if that happened.”

  “Yeah, you’re just oozing with sympathy for my plight.”

  Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss. She was even more gorgeous now than the day they’d met thirteen years before. It suddenly dawned on him that he was an incredibly lucky man, to have such a beautiful wife and family. And that the price of three cinnabons wasn’t that great, in the grand scheme of things.

  In other words, he played right into Sarah’s hands. She knew he would, as soon as she let the kiss fly.

  “Okay, here goes.”

  Dave started humming the tune that had played in his mind a thousand times since the previous evening.

  It took the three of them no more than ten notes. They’d have been “Name That Tune” champions in another era.

  All three of them blurted out, almost simultaneously, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

  Then Dave felt incredibly stupid.

  “Of course. How could I have not known that? The old Mr. Rogers theme song. Sheesh! Now I really feel dumb.”

  Sarah said, “Did you know that Fred Rogers was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and wore his red sweater to hide all of his tattoos?”

  Dave scoffed.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “On the internet. Why?”

  “That story’s been going around for years. It was debunked a long time ago. Mr. Rogers was a fine man, but he was never a Green Beret.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”

  “On the internet.”

  It was too much for Lindsey.

  “Gee whiz, would you two stop believing what you read on the internet? Nearly all of it is garbage.”

  She turned to her little sister.

  “Do we have to teach these old people everything?”

  Beth said nothing but nodded her head decisively. She was in firm agreement.

  Dave was a man of his word, and after the family checked in at the ticket kiosk and Sarah and the girls got their boarding passes, they made a beeline to Cinnabon.

  “Daddy, are you going to walk us to the gate?”

  “No, honey, I can’t go through security without a boarding pass, so I’ll walk you a
s far as I can and then you can give me a great big hug and a kiss.”

  “I wish you could come with us.”

  “I know, sugar. I wish I could too. But with two of the guys being sick at work, they just can’t let me take vacation right now. Uncle Tommy will understand, and we can go fishing another time. And you’ll be so busy helping Aunt Susan get everything ready for the wedding, you won’t even have time to miss me.”

  “Bet I will!”

  Sarah looked at him longingly. They were going to be apart for their twelfth anniversary. It would be the first one they’d missed.

  It was as if he could read her mind.

  “We’ll do something special when you get back, I promise. We’ll get a sitter and go spend the weekend at the lake. Just the two of us.”

  “I’d like that.”

  He walked the three special ladies in his life to the TSA checkpoint and got his hugs and kisses.

  He held Sarah close and told her he loved her.

  Little Beth rolled her eyes and said, “No mush, you two.”

  Dave paid her no mind. He looked Sarah in the eyes and said, “It’ll seem like forever before I see you again.”

  Neither of them had a clue how true those words would be.

  ALONE, Book 1:

  Facing Armageddon

  is available now on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

  If you enjoyed

  THE QUEST,

  you might also enjoy

  RED Book 1:

  The Adventure Begins

  The one evil that Debbie could not conquer was the vile cancer that was slowly consuming her mother's body.

  Rita was in her last weeks when Debbie knelt at her bedside.

  "Daddy taught me how to fight. I kicked a boy's ass."

  Rita was aghast.

  "Oh, my goodness! That's not the proper way for a young girl to behave. Please tell your father to come and see me immediately."

  Debbie fetched her father, disappointed but not surprised that her mother didn't approve.

  "Butch, you're teaching our daughter to beat up boys? What kind of life will she live if boys are afraid to court her for fear of saying or doing something wrong and being beaten for it?"

  "I'm not teaching her to beat up boys. I'm teaching her first to be a peacekeeper. To try to reason with the unreasonable. To apply logic to the illogical. To try to talk her way out of a difficult situation.

  "But you and I both know that sometimes bullies, drunks and thugs can't be dealt with in civil terms. Sometimes she'll have no choice but to defend herself or those she loves.

  "And in those cases, you're darn right I want her to be able to kick a boy's butt. I want her to exhaust all other more peaceful means, but when she can see it's going to get violent, I want her to hit first, hit hard, and hit often. It's like that old Chinese proverb... He who hits first stands the longest."

  Rita was skeptical.

  "I don't believe I've ever heard such a proverb."

  "Okay," he confessed. "I made it up. But you have to admit it's pretty clever, don't you think?"

  Rita didn't think so.

  Butch turned to Debbie, who thought it was indeed quite clever, and who decisively nodded her head in agreement.

  "Oh, Butch, I'm just afraid for her. What if she starts something she can't finish?"

  Butch turned to Debbie and asked her, "Honey, what did Daddy tell you about losing fights?"

  "You told me that there are no guarantees that I'll win every time I have to use my fists. And that's why I should only hit someone as a last resort. And you told me that even if I don't win a fight, that I'll chase away a bully. Because bullies pick on people they don't think will fight back. And when they do, the bullies stop picking on them. They will find someone else, someone weaker, to bully."

  "And what else, honey?"

  "You told me that black eyes build character."

  Butch panicked.

  "No, not that. That was supposed to be just between us. What else did I tell you to tell your mom if she ever had any concerns with you defending yourself?"

  "Oh, yeah. You said that even though I may not win every fight, I'll finish each one a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser, and with one less bully."

  Rita still wasn't convinced. In principle, she agreed with Butch's attempts to raise Debbie as a strong girl, who didn't necessarily need a man to rescue her when the going got tough.

  But Rita was raised in another era, with a different set of social norms.

  "I'm just concerned that she'll never be able to find a boy," she explained. "When I was young, boys went out with girls who wore dresses and played with dolls. Not tomboys who climbed trees and skinned rabbits."

  "Times have changed, Rita. The men who are intimidated by a strong woman aren't worth having. A real God-fearing, salt-of-the-earth man now sees a woman as an equal. And he isn't concerned if she's capable of defending herself. In fact, I want her to have a husband who's proud of her for being strong."

  Debbie was just a bit confused. She had a girly side too, and cherished her time playing dolls and dress-up with her friends.

  "But Mom, can't I have both? Can't I be a girl when I play with my girlfriends and still be able to defend them when one of us is bullied?"

  And that, in a nutshell, summed up Debbie's outlook on life.

  She'd grow up to be a caring and nurturing woman. A loving wife and mother.

  But she'd also relish the role of protector when she needed to be. And any man who couldn't accept her on those terms wouldn't make it in her world.

  But that was many years away.

  Here, and now, she needed her mother's blessing.

  Rita asked, "What happened to the boy you fought?"

  Debbie smiled.

  "He lost a tooth and walked funny for the rest of the day."

  "No, honey. That's not what I meant. Did he also get punished? Do you think he'll learn a lesson from this?"

  "I know for a fact he has, mom. He called me last night to apologize. He admitted that his mom made him call, but he really sounded like he meant he was sorry. He said his friends were making fun of him for getting beaten up by a girl."

  "What did you tell him?"

  "I accepted his apology. And I told him that dynamite and hand grenades both come in small packages and he should never assume a smaller person can't fight back. I also told him that real friends don't make fun of each other, and that maybe he should find some new friends who accepted him as he was. A great big jerk."

  Butch stifled a laugh.

  "I told him that if he'd quit picking on Roy and the other kids that Roy and I would be his friends.

  "He never said yes or no to that, but he got quiet. Maybe he's thinking about it."

  Rita smiled and felt a rush of pride.

  "Maybe I've misjudged you, sweetheart. I think you handled a difficult situation perfectly. I hope he can change his ways and the three of you can be friends."

  "Yeah, maybe. It doesn't really matter to me one way or the other. But I'll be his friend if he behaves himself."

  She changed the subject.

  "Samantha called. She said the whole school is talking about it. She said I have street cred now."

  Her mother asked, "What on earth is street cred?"

  "Gosh, Mom, I don't know. I was goin’ to ask you guys."

  Debbie and Rita both looked at Butch.

  He smiled.

  "It means respect. Street credentials mean that you've earned your right to walk the streets. You've proved yourself. You're not someone to be messed with."

  Rita said, "Oh, my. I'm not sure I want my daughter to have such a reputation."

  Debbie summed it up a different way: "Cool!"

  Please enjoy this preview of

  REBELLION Book 1:

  The Allegiance Device

  There’s a certain element in our society that believes the federal government is using FEMA death camps, mind altering drugs, and
tracking implants to control us all.

  These people are generally ridiculed and scorned.

  But what if they’re right?

  Megan and Jason are a young couple with a small child, enjoying a typical American life in an average suburb. There’s nothing special about them at all.

  And then they notice that people around them are mysteriously disappearing.

  Some of them are never seen again. Some of them come back, but there’s something oddly different about them.

  Megan is a newspaper reporter, and starts investigating. Until, that is, she speaks to the wrong people and asks too many questions.

  Then she and her family are no longer just typical Americans. They are now targets of the United States government.

  Chapter 1:

  “Honey, come here a minute. I want to show you this.”

  Jason slipped his mug out of the Keurig and dumped a teaspoon of sugar into it. He’d need an extra boost to get himself started this morning.

  “Be there in two shakes. Do you want coffee?”

  She yelled back, “No thanks! I have some already.”

  He stirred his cup and walked to the small office they shared on the back of the house. He walked up behind her and kissed her on the top of her head.

  “Well, thanks for making me some too.”

  “Hey, I never know how to make your coffee. You fix it different every day. There’s something weird and icky about a man who can’t decide how to drink his coffee. Besides, you were in the shower.”

  “Icky? People still say icky?”

  “I do. And what did you mean when you said ‘two shakes,’ by the way? Mi no comprende your weird language.”

  “Oh, so now I’m weird and icky. On the same day. I feel so honored.”

  “Seriously. I’ve heard you say that before. But I don’t know what it means.”

  “It’s a shortened version of something my grandmother used to say. ‘Two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’ It means it won’t take long. Or something. When I say that it means the same as just a second.”