The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2

by Brett Battles

“I’ll leave you a high-powered field radio. Maybe someday you’ll want to try to reach someone.”

  “Doesn’t seem like a very fair trade.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t. I could probably find a dozen plows within a mile of here, and twice as many cargo trucks. A good, working radio? That’s what’s hard to find. It’s worth more than all your vehicles combined.”

  Though a sneer was still on Rick’s face, there was also uncertainty in his eyes.

  Matt held out his hand. “So, do we have a deal?”

  “For something you’d take anyway?”

  “I’d rather do it this way, man to man.”

  Rick looked at the proffered hand, and finally took it. “All right. It’s a deal.”

  “Good.” As Matt released his grip, he turned to Ginny. “If you have anything you want to bring along, you should go get it now. We’ll be leaving soon.”

  “Whoa!” Rick said, jumping up. “Ginny’s staying with me.”

  “You think so?” Matt asked. “Ginny?”

  She looked from her cousin to Matt and back. “We’ll die if we stay here,” she said, her voice not much more than a whisper. “Rick, please.”

  “We’ve done fine so far,” Rick said.

  “For a week,” Matt pointed out.

  “We have to go with them,” Ginny said.

  Rick stood motionless for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said. “That’s fine. Go with them. I’m staying.”

  “What?” Ginny said. “No!”

  “You want to go, you go. But I am staying.” He turned to Matt. “When do I get my radio?”

  BRANDON WAS MISSING yet again. They’d been packing up their things in their room when he said he had to check on something, and left. Josie ended up having to load not only her and her father’s bags, but her brother’s, too, into their Humvee.

  When she returned to the room and he was still not there, that was it. Enough.

  “Brandon!” she yelled as she stepped back out onto the walkway. “Brandon, where are you?’

  Around her, the others moved in and out of the rooms as they prepared to leave. She asked a few if they had seen her brother, but no one had. She was about to start a room-by-room search when Brandon came out of the door to the motel office. In his arms was a blanket that appeared to be full of something.

  She marched toward him. “What have you been doing? It’s almost time to—” She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared at him. “What happened?”

  Across the right side of his jaw were two thin lines of blood. Scratches.

  “What?” he asked.

  She pointed at his face. “That.”

  He touched the wounds and looked at the blood on his fingertips. “Oh, uh, yeah. Nothing.”

  “Nothing? That’s not nothing. Did you fall?”

  “No. It’s nothing. I’m o—”

  The blanket he was holding began to twist as if something were squirming inside.

  Josie took a quick step backward. “What have you got in there?”

  Looking defeated, Brandon said, “I couldn’t just leave him there.” He peeled a portion of the blanket back, and revealed the head of a tan, very scared-looking cat.

  “Where did you find him?” Josie said, moving in for a closer look.

  “Chloe and I found him yesterday when we searched the motel,” he said. “Please don’t tell Dad.”

  “You think he’s not going to notice?”

  “I mean, don’t tell him until after we get started. It’ll be too late then.”

  Josie moved her hand cautiously over the cat’s head. Its eyes followed the movement, but when she began stroking the area between its ears, it seemed to relax some.

  “Fine,” she said. “I won’t say anything. But if he gets mad, I don’t get in trouble for this.”

  Brandon smiled. “No, of course not. It’s all my fault.”

  She petted the cat a few more times. “Does it have a name?”

  “I don’t know what it used to be called, but I was thinking Lucky would be good.”

  She smiled. “No kidding.”

  WHILE THE SNOWPLOWS were checked out and the cargo truck loaded up with canisters of gas, Matt had one of his men take a spare radio into the room Rick was in and show the kid how to use it. When everything was set, the whole group gathered in the motel parking area.

  “You can still come with us,” Matt said to Rick.

  “I’m fine here,” the teen answered quickly, as if he’d been rehearsing the response for an hour.

  Despite Rick’s words, Matt could tell the kid was terrified. “All right. You change your mind in the next four or five hours, give us a call on your radio, and we’ll send someone back to get you.”

  Rick took a step back. “You’d better get going.”

  “Rick, come with us,” Ginny said. “Please.”

  Her cousin shook his head. “No reason for you to stay here any longer. Go on. Get out of here.”

  He turned, walked back to his room, and shut the door.

  Josie put an arm around Ginny. “Come on. You can ride with us.”

  Tears rolling down her cheeks, the girl let herself be led away. Soon the only ones standing outside were Matt and Hiller, one of his men.

  Matt pulled a zippered case out of his pocket and handed it to Hiller. “Hopefully you won’t have to wait long, but if it goes more than a couple of hours, use this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s vaccine in there, too. For after,” Matt told him. “Be careful.”

  As Hiller hurried off, Matt walked over to his Humvee and climbed into the front passenger seat. They had quite a convoy now. Ahead of him were the two plows, and behind, the rest of the troop transporters and the cargo truck.

  He grabbed the radio mic and clicked the talk button. “Let’s move.”

  RICK PACED BACK and forth through the garage area of Thorton’s Equipment Rental Center. In one of the bays was a pickup truck that had been in mid-repair when everyone started dying, and in another, a tractor with a busted axle. Tools and oil jugs and parts were scattered everywhere, all reminders that Rick was alone now, and that the only one who could finish fixing any of the vehicles or could put everything away was him.

  You screwed up big time, he told himself.

  What the hell had he been thinking? Stay here? Alone? That was suicide. But even if the others had still been out front, pride and the words his father had said not long before dying would have prevented him from taking the offer.

  “You’re in charge now,” his old man had told him. “You need to take care of things.”

  He’d already messed that up, hadn’t he? Ginny was gone. She was family. He was supposed to take care of her. He wanted to be pissed off at her for defying him, but did he honestly think she would have been safer here with him?

  No. Not even close.

  He’d always thought being a grown-up would be so easy. No one to answer to. All the decisions his own. And yet here he was, with the freedom he’d been hoping for, and he just wanted to go back home, curl up under his covers, and stay there forever.

  He wanted to be a kid again

  He wanted things back to normal.

  At some point he realized he’d been crying, but he couldn’t stop. Back and forth he paced, his mind in turmoil as the minutes turned to hours.

  “All right, that’s enough. You’re making me dizzy, kid.”

  Rick thought the words were only in his head until the man stepped out from behind the damaged tractor. Even as the man walked over to him, he couldn’t quite process what he was seeing. The man was alone, but…

  “Hey!” Rick said, trying to jerk away as the man stuck a needle into his arm.

  But the guy grabbed him with his other hand and held him in place. “Sorry about that. Was really hoping you’d decide to follow my friends on your own. Could have avoided this.”

  “What?” Rick was suddenly dizzy, and while he heard the man’s words, he couldn�
��t quite understand their meaning.

  “It’s all right. Here, let me help you down,” the man said.

  Before Rick realized it, he was sitting on the concrete floor.

  “What are you doing?” Rick asked, the words feeling heavy in his mouth.

  The man had another needle in his hand and was moving it toward Rick’s arm.

  “You don’t want to get sick, do you?”

  The prick of the needle stung less than the one a moment before. Still, Rick wanted to brush it away. He tried to raise a hand, but apparently it was content to stay in his lap.

  “Sorry for all this,” the man said. “But we couldn’t let you die out here.”

  Rick closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead as the world began to sway.

  “Just relax,” the man told him. “Here.”

  Rick was moving backward, slow and steady. When he opened his eyes again, he was staring up at the ceiling.

  “Let it take you,” the man said.

  Take me? Rick thought. Take me where?

  “Close your eyes.”

  As if acting on their own, his lids slid shut, and everything went black.

  “Sleep.”

  Once more, the power of suggestion worked its magic.

  HILLER CHOSE THE best of the last three remaining snowplows on the lot, loaded the kid into the passenger seat, and headed south. Between them was the portable radio Matt had never intended to leave behind.

  When they reached the interstate, Hiller turned on the radio, checked to make sure it was set to the right frequency, and picked up the mic.

  “Retrieval to M1,” he said. “Retrieval to M1.”

  Matt’s voice jumped out of the speaker only seconds later. “This is M1. Go, Retrieval.”

  “En route. Had to go active.”

  “That’s too bad. Glad you’re on the way, though. Wait for you at checkpoint three.”

  “Copy. Checkpoint three.”

  TWO HUNDRED MILES to the west, on board the Project Eden helicopter that was now flying in a parallel southward direction, the copilot, charged with monitoring radio transmissions, picked up the faintest of voices, hearing words like “is” and “route” and “bad” and “three.” The static was so bad, though, he couldn’t tell if it was one voice or two.

  As he tried to fine-tune his reception, the transmission ceased. He hunted around, hoping to pick it up again, but there was nothing.

  Since he had no idea what was being said, and no way of knowing which direction it came from, he decided not to disclose the information to Sims and the others. If he did, he was sure his boss would order them to search for the source, a task that would only succeed in keeping them through the storm.

  Better to keep heading south. In a few more hours, they’d be in the relative warmth of New Mexico.

  Fourteen

  GORMAN, CALIFORNIA

  9:47 AM PST

  MARTINA KNEW IT was a bad idea before she tried it. But she also knew, if they were ever going to get on the road again, the first step would be to open her eyes.

  Thankfully, she had had the sense to close the curtains before toppling into bed after their New Year’s Eve celebration. If not, she’d have been permanently blinded by the sunlight.

  Dear God, her head hurt.

  How much had she had to drink? Three glasses of champagne? Or was it four? Could her head hurt that much from only four glasses? She had no idea. She hardly ever drank, and quite possibly never would again.

  Maybe it had been more than four. She had a fuzzy memory of someone—Noreen, she thought—suggesting they walk back to the liquor store for another bottle when they ran out, but she had no recollection of actually doing so.

  What was it her college roommate Crissy told her? “For every glass of alcohol, drink a glass of water. That’s the secret.”

  Well, Martina had drunk absolutely no water the night before. That was one thing she did remember. Though it would be hours too late, she could probably use some now.

  She flopped her legs off the bed and sat up. Immediately, she froze as her stomach did a complete somersault, threatening to disgorge everything it held.

  “Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t, please don’t,” she said under her breath.

  When the tumult in her abdomen eased, she tried slowly rising to her feet. The trip to the bathroom was made in a series of step-pauses that probably would have looked hilarious if she had not been the one doing it. There had been a glass on the sink the evening before but it wasn’t there now, so she cupped her hands and fed water straight from the tap into her mouth.

  The first couple gulps went down with relief, but the third was a mistake. She barely lifted the lid off the toilet before the water and the rest of her stomach contents made a quick, loud exit.

  When she was through, she felt better. Even her headache had eased. Though she was apprehensive, she knew she should drink some more. This time she stopped at the two gulps and was relieved when they seemed to stay down.

  Thinking a shower would help even more, she stripped off her clothes and climbed in. She was pleased to find the motel’s water heater still worked. Standing head bent under the warm stream, she let the water pound into her neck and shoulders for several minutes before washing herself. When she finally climbed out, she actually felt, if not exactly normal, 65 to 70 percent there. She toweled off, carried her dirty clothes into the other room, pulled out something clean from her bag, and got dressed.

  Though she knew she’d been making a lot of noise, both Noreen and Riley were lying exactly as they had been when Martina had gone into the bathroom. She tiptoed to the door adjoining the two rooms and peeked inside. Craig was still out, too.

  Well, this was going to be fun. “Happy New Year, everyone,” she said in as loud a voice as her head would allow her. “Time to get up!”

  “THE ROSE PARADE,” Noreen said.

  All four of them were sitting around the same table at Carl’s Jr. they had used the night before. Martina had found some frozen sausages and hamburger buns in the back, and had been able to get enough of the kitchen gear working to warm everything up.

  At first, no one wanted to touch the food, but after the initial bites were taken, everyone devoured his or her portions and asked for more.

  “What about it?” Riley asked.

  “I missed it. It’s always over by now.”

  Martina eyed her friend wearily. “Noreen, I’m fairly certain there was no parade this year.”

  For a moment Noreen said nothing, lost in melancholy. “I know that. It’s just kind of a tradition. Mom and I would always get up early on New Year’s Day and watch.”

  “It’s just a boring parade,” Craig said. “You’re not missing anything.”

  Martina and Riley turned on him, glaring.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Were you born an idiot?” Martina asked.

  “It’s okay,” Noreen said. “He’s right. It is boring. Was boring. The last couple of years Mom had to force me to get up with her.” Her gaze drifted out the window. “I really wish she’d had to do that today.”

  Martina thought her friend would start crying, but Noreen’s eyes remained dry.

  “Let’s finish up,” Martina said. “We’re closing in on noon. I’d hoped we’d be on the road for a couple hours by now, at least.”

  “Have you decided which way we’re going?” Riley asked.

  Martina nodded. “To the coast, I think. If Ben heads south, that’s the way he’d come.”

  SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

  10:10 AM PST

  BEN SPENT ONE last night in the house he’d grown up in. Maybe he’d come back. Maybe he’d never see the place again. He wasn’t sure which he preferred. He just knew at that moment the place held nothing but memories of death and loss.

  South was where he wanted to go. South to the desert, to Martina.

  What happened after he found her, they could figure out together.

 
He loaded up his Jeep with supplies and clothes and camping gear. As he walked through the house for the last time, he considered grabbing photo albums and mementos, but, in the end, the only thing he took was a framed family picture of the five of them. It had been taken at a neighbor’s barbecue. Nothing fancy, just his mom and dad on one side of a wooden picnic table, and he and his sisters on the other. A quick “look at the camera and smile” kind of thing, but his mother had always loved the shot, had said more than once it was her favorite.

  Climbing into his Jeep, he tucked the photo under the front seat and started the engine. He had to force himself not to look at the house again. If he did, he knew he would probably be sitting there all day. So he kept his eyes forward, shifted into gear, and pulled into the street.

  Even though it had been days since he’d seen anyone else moving around, it was still surprising to be the only one driving down the freeway. Here and there he’d pass abandoned cars, most pulled over to the side, but a few left in the middle of lanes.

  A straight drive to Ridgecrest would be, at most, an eight-hour trip, but he wasn’t going straight there. He needed to make a stop at his place in Santa Cruz.

  As he moved out of the city and into the hills, he turned on his radio. Like always, it automatically synced with the phone in his pocket, and began playing the song it had left off with last. In this case, Green Day’s “American Idiot.” He dialed up the volume and blasted it. It was something he would have never done in the past, but who would care now?

  Thirty minutes later, as he entered the city of Santa Cruz, the Arctic Monkeys gave way to Adele singing “Someone Like You.” The song was too maudlin for his current mindset, so he reached toward the radio, intending to skip to the next track.

  His finger had barely touched the button when something darted into the upcoming intersection.

  “Oh, crap!”

  He slammed on the brakes, the tires squealing and the Jeep shimmying from the sudden deceleration. For half a second, he thought the back end was going to swing around and he’d flip over, but he was able to keep control and bring the vehicle to a stop.