Beside her, Dodge asked, “Everything okay?”
She blinked. Realized that they were passing the spot where the remains of Rebecca Rule lay. She considered stopping once more for her friend and mentor’s remains, but they’d been out of touch with the town for too long. Refuge comes first, she told herself, glancing at Griffin. Everything else is secondary.
Shaking her head to clear it, she said, “I’m fine,” and she pressed her foot back down on the gas pedal.
They didn’t speak for the next several minutes. Not when she made the turn at the intersection. Not as they climbed the road leading back into town. At some point, she knew one of them would speak, and that would start up a whole conversation, but she wasn’t sure what she could add to it. Not yet at least. Not until she had time to sit down and process everything.
Then, behind her, Winslow said, “It’s happening again.”
She eyed him in the rearview mirror and saw him staring out the window. She looked out the windshield again, not at the road but toward the sky. He was right. She slowed the Humvee to a stop and cut the engine. Off in the distance, the church bell was ringing frantically.
They waited and watched the green world behind them shimmer and fade. In its place was a wasteland. Brown dust blew across the landscape, shifting past fields of boulders, craggy stone outcroppings and a few scattered, burnt trees that rose up like blackened, one-hundred-foot tall flagpoles.
Dodge’s voice was a reverent whisper. “What—what is this?”
“Did you ever see pictures of Hiroshima after the bomb?” Winslow asked. “Looked a lot like this.”
Frost started the engine, placed the Humvee in gear, and they moved forward again.
They reached the outskirts of town two minutes later. Some people were out with guns and rifles. They even heard gunfire off in the distance.
“What’s happened now?” Dodge asked.
Someone spotted them and hurried over.
Frost rolled down her window. “What’s going on?”
“Bugs. Big, giant bugs. Like bees or wasps or something.”
“How many?”
A shrug. “Not sure, but we managed to kill most of ’em. A few others flew away. Sheriff, where do you think we are now?”
Frost decided to ignore the question for the moment. “Is anybody hurt?”
“A few people. Think they got stung. I’m not too sure, though. Hey, where’d you get the Humvee?”
Another question Frost decided to ignore for the time being. “I’m sorry, we need to go. Be safe.”
They continued into the center of town. More people were around, most of them carrying weapons of some kind. Not all of them were guns. Some of them were makeshift—baseball bats, rakes, hoes—a mob fit for Dr. Frankenstein’s castle.
Frost stopped the Humvee in the middle of the street. She glanced back at Charley. “How are you holding up?”
He grimaced. “Could use a drink.”
Frost raised a single eyebrow . “We’ll get Kyle to look at your hand.”
The sense of confidence she tried to convey rang hollow even to her own ears.
“Now we just need to find him,” Winslow said.
“Here comes Cash,” Griffin said. He opened his door and stepped out as the electrician hurried over.
Cash took in the Humvee. “Guess the depot wasn’t completely deserted after all, huh?”
“It’s a long story,” Griffin said. “Charley’s hurt pretty bad. Do you know where we can find Kyle?”
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He ran a hand through his hair, then replaced his Sox cap. He was clearly nervous.
Everyone else was getting out of the Humvee now. Frost asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Well, um—” Cash shook his head. “Kyle’s up at Mr. Herman’s place.” He glanced at Winslow and then back to Griffin. “It’s best you head up there as quickly as possible.”
Griffin stepped forward, clutching Cash’s arm. “Is it Avalon?”
“Lony’s fine,” Cash said. “It’s—” His eyes shifted toward Winslow again, and at once the old man’s face paled.
“Carol?” he whispered.
Cash repeated, “You best hurry.”
Frost touched Winslow’s arm, tried to direct him back to the Humvee. “Get in. I’ll drive.”
“What’s happened to Carol?” Winslow asked.
But Cash only shook his head.
Griffin helped Charley out of the car. “Can you find Charley some help?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Cash asked.
“His left hand is broken.”
“How’d that happen?”
By then Frost had managed to get Winslow back in the Humvee. She waited at the driver’s door. “Griffin?”
He nodded to her, then said to Cash, “Just make sure he gets some help, okay?”
“Definitely,” Cash said. “No problem.”
Griffin hurried back to the Humvee. Dodge was still in the passenger seat. He climbed in next to the pastor as Frost started up the engine and tore down Main Street, turning a quick right into the residential neighborhood.
Cash took Charley’s arm and led him toward Soucey’s Market. “Hell, man, what happened to your hand?”
Charley said nothing. The pain still radiated up his arm, but the hand itself had become numb. He wondered if he would ever be able to use it like he had before. After all, this was his beer-drinking hand. The one he used to tip back countless bottles. The one he even used to choke the chicken on the occasions he had nowhere else to stick it.
Cash opened the door for him. Charley started to take a step inside, but something caught his eye down the street. Julie Barnes, now dressed in form-fitting jeans, a tight, pink flannel shirt and new-looking hiking boots, stood there outside the Brick House, watching him. He stared at her a moment, not sure what to say or do. Then he lifted his other hand, his good hand, and raised his middle finger.
Cash glanced down the street. No fan of Julie Barnes, he grinned. “What’s that about?”
“Nothing,” Charley grunted, turning back to him. “You think you can find me a beer? Because right about now, I could use a goddamn drink.”
25
Frost drove as fast as she could without careening off Winslow’s long, winding, uphill driveway. They arrived at his house squealing to a stop. Winslow had his door open before the Humvee stopped rolling. He jumped out, stumbled and nearly fell on his face. He managed to keep his balance, though, and hurried toward the front porch, just as the door opened and Avalon stepped outside.
She tried saying something to Winslow, tears in her eyes, but he pushed past her into the house. She turned then and saw her father getting out of the Humvee. She ran down the steps and threw herself into his arms.
“What happened?” Griffin asked, holding her head to his chest. Dodge had headed inside, but Frost was lingering. Griffin nodded at her to go on ahead.
“It’s all my fault,” Avalon sobbed.
“What is?”
“She should have stayed inside with the girls. But I—I—I was scared. She saw I was scared and she—”
Avalon burst into even more tears. Griffin held her close. He wanted to go inside, find out what happened, but he wasn’t going to let go of his daughter after the experience he’d just survived. For a time, he had been certain he was never going to see her again.
Finally, Avalon got herself under control. She wiped at her eyes, sniffed back tears.
Griffin said, “Tell me what happened.”
She did. It came out in fragments, but she told him about Radar and Lisa in the observatory, about the wasps, about how there were at least six crawling all over the observatory, and how they had needed to get the kids out. How the plan was for Monty to draw the wasps’ attention so Avalon could run out and bring Radar and Lisa back, and how Carol changed everything up at the last moment and took Avalon’s place.
“She went and got the kids?”
“No.” Avalon shook her head, wiping away more tears. “Monty did that. She went out front and started shouting and hollering and doing everything she could do get their attention. And it worked—it really worked. The bugs left. Monty went out, grabbed Radar and Lisa and brought them back inside. But then Mrs. Herman—I mean, Carol—she started screaming…”
Griffin then noticed two of the oversized wasps, dead on the lawn several yards away. He knew without Avalon telling him that after bringing the kids back inside Monty had gone out and found Carol being attacked by the wasps. Monty was good with a gun, and probably he had killed two of them, maybe injured more, enough so that the rest had split.
“Let’s go inside.”
He helped his daughter up the porch steps, a hand draped around her shoulder. Just before he opened the door, Avalon spoke again.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not going to let something like that happen again.”
He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Sweetheart, it’s not your fault. From what you told me, it could have been Monty who...” But he didn’t want to say it. Not knowing Alice and Joy had just recently lost their mother.
They went inside. Voices murmured deeper in the house. They followed the sound and found Frost standing with Monty outside an opened doorway. Griffin peeked inside. It appeared to be a guest bedroom. Winslow sat in a chair beside the bed. Carol lay across it, a quilt covering most of her body. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was discolored. Dodge stood off to the side, ready for when he would be needed to give a prayer. Kyle was cleaning up some supplies.
Frost touched his arm and led him farther down the hallway. In the living room, the TV droned on with some cartoon. Alice and Joy sat on the floor in front of it, while Radar and Lisa sat on the couch. The dining room was deserted except for the Scrabble tiles spread across the table.
“Radar and Lisa are keeping the girls preoccupied,” she whispered.
Griffin nodded. “How’s Carol?”
“She’s unconscious, but alive.”
“Does Kyle think she’ll pull through?”
The slightest shake of her head. “It doesn’t look good, but he said he was hopeful.”
“Why?”
“He said if there weren’t any human beings in that world, it was unlikely that the venom would work the way it was intended on human physiology. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be deadly.”
She rolled her neck and sighed. “We can’t just keep reacting like this. We need to get ahead of it somehow. But I have no idea what to do next.”
“Nelson Florider.”
“What?”
“Does the name ring any bells?”
“I don’t think so. What was the last name again, Florida?”
“No, Florider. I think.”
He turned to the table and began sorting through the Scrabble tiles until he had spelled it out:
NELSON FLORIDER
“Look familiar?”
Frost stared down at the name for a long moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think I know anybody named Nelson, let alone Florider.”
“I do.”
They turned. Radar stood in the doorway.
He saw their expressions and offered up a sheepish grin. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I swear, but I was wondering if either of you had seen my father? After what happened... I just wanted to see him. He’s still my father.”
Griffin wasn’t sure how to answer that appropriately. He had never cared much for Charley, but the man had just gone through a traumatic event, and Griffin wasn’t quite sure Radar needed to hear the details yet.
“He’s okay,” Frost said. “We’ll find him soon. But, Radar, how do you know Nelson Florider?”
“Oh, I don’t really know anyone named Nelson.”
Griffin frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s an anagram. Here.” Radar approached the table and started rearranging tiles.
“And you just looked at the table and saw the solution?” Griffin asked. He’d known Radar a long time but had never seen him playing a word game.
“It’s kind of a gift, or a curse if you’re a teenager.” Radar stood back. “See?”
Griffin said nothing. All he could do was stand there, staring down at the eighteen-point name. A name he knew very well. A name everyone in town knew very well.
RENFORD ELLISON
REFUGE is a serialized novel, co-authored by #1 Amazon.com horror author, Jeremy Bishop, and five other authors, including Amazon.com bestsellers Kane Gilmour and David McAfee, USA Today bestseller, Robert Swartwood, and newcomer Daniel S. Boucher. The novel will be released in five parts, every two weeks. The first part was released November 12, 2013. The story will also be available as one complete novel, as soon as the fifth episode is released. So read along as they appear or hold out for the completed novel. Either way, you're in for a creepy ride.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JEREMY BISHOP is the #1 Amazon.com horror author of THE SENTINEL and THE RAVEN, published by Amazon’s 47 North imprint. He is also known as Jeremy Robinson, the bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including SECONDWORLD, ISLAND 731, PROJECT NEMESIS and the Jack Sigler Thriller series. His novels have been translated into eleven languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.
Visit him online at www.jeremybishoponline.com
or www.jeremyrobinsononline.com.
ROBERT SWARTWOOD is the USA Today bestselling author of THE SERIAL KILLER’S WIFE, THE CALLING, MAN OF WAX, and several other novels. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, Chizine, Space and Time, Postscripts, and PANK. He created the term ‘hint fiction’ and is the editor of HINT FICTION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES IN 25 WORDS OR FEWER. He lives with his wife in Pennsylvania. Visit him online at www.robertswartwood.com.
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ALSO by JEREMY BISHOP
Horror Novels
Torment
The Sentinel
The Raven
Refuge:
Book 1 - Night of the Blood Sky
Book 2 - Darkness Falls
Book 3 - Lost in the Echo
ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON
New Standalone Novels
SecondWorld
Project Nemesis
Island 731
I am Cowboy
Project Maigo
Xom-B (2014)
The Last Hunter
(Antarktos Saga Series)
The Last Hunter – Descent
The Last Hunter – Pursuit
The Last Hunter – Ascent
The Last Hunter – Lament
The Last Hunter – Onslaught
The Jack Sigler Novels
Prime
Pulse
Instinct
Threshold
Ragnarok
Omega
Savage (2014)
The Chess Team Novellas
(Chesspocalypse Series)
Callsign: King
Callsign: Queen
Callsign: Rook
Callsign: King 2 – Underworld
Callsign: Bishop
Callsign: Knight
Callsign: Deep Blue
Callsign: King 3 – Blackout
Jack Sigler Continuum Novellas
Guardian (2014)
The Origins Editions
(First five novels)
The Didymus Contingency
Raising The Past
Beneath
Antarktos Rising
Kronos
ALSO by ROBERT SWARTWOOD
Man of Wax Trilogy
Man of Wax
The Inner Circle
Standalone Novels
The Calling
The D
ishonored Dead: A Zombie Novel
The Serial Killer’s Wife
No Shelter
Walk the Sky (with David B. Silva)
Collections
Phantom Energy: [Very Short] Stories
Real Illusions: Stories
Novellas
Nomad: Wayward Pines
Through the Guts of a Beggar
The Silver Ring
In Solemn Shades of Endless Night
Spooky Nook
In the Land of the Blind: A Zombie Story
The Man on the Bench
At the Meade Bed & Breakfast (with David B. Silva)
Refuge Book 3 - Lost in the Echo (with Jeremy Bishop)
As Editor
Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer
Omnibus
Two Shot: The Serial Killer’s Wife and No Shelter
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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
About the Authors
Also by the Authors
Copyright ©2013 by Jeremy Robinson (aka Jeremy Bishop)
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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