Contents
Also in the series
Preface
Prologue
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
Epilogue
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Also in the series
ADAPTATION
©2019 DEVON C. FORD
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.
Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu.
Published by Aethon Books LLC. 2019
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
For their time spent finding obscure translations for me.
Also in the series
Toy Soldiers:
Apocalypse
Aftermath
Abandoned
Adversity
Adaptation
Book six yet to be named (coming 2020)
Preface
All spelling and grammar in this book is UK English except for proper nouns and those American terms which just don’t anglicize.
Prologue
“Absolutely not, Professor,” said the man in the grey suit, with a cold finality to his words. He didn’t raise his voice, but the intensity was there. “No way. No how. No chance whatsoever.” He stabbed an index finger onto the desk to underline his point in case he hadn’t been heard clearly. “No.”
“But,” Professor Sunil Grewal whined, annoyed that the bureaucrats lacked the ability to comprehend that what he was asking for was vital, “without subjects to conduct the research on, Professor Chambers and I simply won’t be able to confirm whether or not the serum works, let alone what side-effects it might have on—”
“He’s right,” Chambers agreed reluctantly from the only other chair in the room, which he’d occupied without offering to his colleague. The two men hated one another, or at least Chambers despised Grewal, as he’d been personally responsible for creating the unnatural abomination which had wiped out what he guessed would be more than half of the world, by that point. “Without a test subject, a series of test subjects ideally, we can’t be certain of anything.”
“I’m confused,” said the suit who called himself Agent Fisher, as he leaned back at his desk and steepled his fingers. “You assured me that the recipe you cooked up in the lab killed the virus ten times out of ten. Explain to me how that’s now wrong.”
“It’s not wrong,” Grewal snapped petulantly. “Tests in a petri dish are very different from tests in live host subjects. Already there have been reports of… variations in the behaviour of some infected subjects, and we aren’t even close to beginning to understand or explain why that is. If you’d simply allow us to study a series of captured specimens a—”
“Study?” the CIA man enunciated coldly. “Captured Specimens? Professor Asshole, I’m not sure you fully understand the ramifications of those words, so let me lay it out for you.” He whipped a hand up and snapped his forefinger and thumb together, indicating to Grewal that he should keep his lips firmly together while the man spoke.
“Studying a captured specimen means constructing a purpose-built lab with strict control and containment procedures. That holds significant risk to the United States Armed Forces personnel involved in every aspect. Furthermore,” he said loudly, repeating the gesture with his fingers to stop Grewal from interrupting when he saw the opportunity. “Capturing those specimens would require missions in hostile territory to return an infectious host subject to US soil and jeopardise those personnel on the mission. Moreover, we would threaten the safety and security of the entire United States by bringing even one of those things back here, so no, Professor, you can’t ha—”
“What if we don’t have to bring them back here?” Chambers asked quietly from across the office, his eyes staring upwards at the ornate patterns chasing themselves over the ceiling. Grewal and the suit looked in his direction, waiting for the rest of his thought. Chambers leaned forwards in his chair, eyes back on the two men and his hands moving with the words he used to air the idea out loud.
“There’s a secure, military-run base in Britain, right?” he said, waiting for a reluctant nod from the CIA man, who wondered which one of the people at the facility had been talking too much. “So we task their military to capture the specimens and we do the testing over there. That way the whole Atlantic sits between them and home.”
The suit sat back, watching Grewal out of the corner of his eye before turning to fix him with a direct stare and a crooked smile.
“I’ll run it up the chain of command,” he said, pretending that he wasn’t a very senior shot-caller and not convincing either of the scientists, “but I’d say you two need to pack up and get ready to fly to Scotland.”
ONE
Squadron Sergeant Major Dean Johnson couldn’t sleep. He didn’t sleep much at all anymore. He stood in the morning air, the pre-dawn chill tightening his skin and reminding him that he was alive, sipping from a mug of tea as he thought about the day’s work to come. Exchanging a curt nod of greeting with the evidently cold man standing guard and eagerly awaiting the arrival of his relief, he stared out over the low, rolling landscape looking inland over the half-hidden profile of the Warrior emplaced to guard the single approach road.
Leaving the Hilltop wasn’t an issue for him as the place had never even remotely been home; home was with his squadron and what he had learned via radio from one of the few people of his former life still alive made him feel like a nomad.
The crunch of feet on gravel made him stiffen, until he reminded himself that he wasn’t in danger, wasn’t out in the battleground that was anywhere not protected or fortified against the remnants of the population who had died yet continued to walk the Earth. Turning, he saw the expected sight of Peter stepping in his direction; his small feet treading lightly, as if suggesting the boy had evolved and adapted to this new and brutal world as much as the faster type of Screechers had. He gave his young companion a nod, warmer than the one he’d given the sentry, and softened his usually harsh features with a small smile.
“Can’t sleep either?” he muttered in a low voice, sympathetic to the fact that almost everyone else there was still slept.
“Never do,” Peter answered in a tone of voice that made him sound forty years older than his mere decade. His brow furrowed slightly as he thought about it. “Didn’t before, not really, and finding out about…”
He trailed off as though saying the words out loud would ma
ke the knowledge of his sister’s survival and subsequent disappearance all too real. Johnson reached out his huge left hand and rested it gently on the nape of the boy’s neck, giving him a light squeeze of reassurance in an attempt to convey how he felt.
So many emotions ran through him at that moment. He felt a heavy loss for the boy and, if he were honest, for himself. He felt a burning and fierce pride for the sacrifice of the two Royal Marines who had held their own long enough to allow him to drive the box van away from their small sanctuary and save the lives of the two children and the others, and that pride swelled inside him when he learned from Daniels that they had made it out alive somehow.
“I know, lad,” he said, feeling the words to be wholly inadequate but needing to voice his understanding. “I know. We won’t give up yet, though.” He looked down to meet Peter’s eyes with his own. “You believe me?”
Peter gave a sad smile which seemed to say that he knew Johnson meant the words but he was just too pessimistic, too broken by the events of the last months, and indeed all of his life before, to allow himself to believe anything good could ever happen again. He let out a long, resigned sigh.
“If she’s survived this long,” the boy said as he shrugged his shoulders to hide his neck from the cold air, “then I’m sure she’ll manage a little while longer.”
Johnson felt a wave of sadness at his words because he realised they were given to reassure the old soldier and not to provide the child beside him with any form of comfort.
The boy’s resilience and maturity humbled Johnson. He’d seen more good sense and practicality from him than from many soldiers he’d commanded in his years, and could only imagine what Peter would have become if he’d had a better start in life. If he’d had the opportunities and education which had been wasted on Oliver Palmer, he’d have quite likely become an intelligent and capable leader, like the infuriatingly arrogant second lieutenant’s older brother was.
Both of those men were gone now; travelled north to Scotland, according to Daniels. He let out his own sigh and wondered if he’d ever meet up with them and the other members of the squadron again.
“I’m sure she will,” he said quietly, bringing his attention back to the world and the boy’s words. “I’m sure she will.”
Peter seemed to shake his own dark mood off in the same moment and rolled his shoulders to stand taller, as though he’d banished the frightened child inside him to his room without dinner.
“When do we go?” he asked the squadron sergeant major with no squadron.
“We?”
Peter smirked playfully. “You grown-ups wouldn’t last five minutes without me and Amber to look after you.” Johnson laughed in spite of his own dark mood and the early hour.
“Oh, if I’d had a squadron of Peters… we’ll go soon,” he said as he extended a finger towards the partially hidden light armour, “and we’re taking that to be on the safe side.”
It was Peter’s turn to smile. Despite the collapse of their world, despite the fact that they had been cut off and abandoned, he was still a ten year old boy, and what ten year old boy didn’t want to ride in a tank?
Pauline, the apparent leader of the Hilltop survivors, wasn’t surprised when Johnson had told her they would be leaving soon. She didn’t expect such rough soldiery types to sit back and settle, not when there was a war to fight, and the news that they would be setting off to link up with their own people and search for Amber’s mother and Peter’s sister was expected.
In some bizarre parody of loved ones setting off for a day’s work, she brought them all sandwiches made with thick, fresh bread to sustain them on their search, along with a few insulated flasks of strong, sugary tea. The flasks, arrayed inside the Warrior side by side, their tartan decorations looking like some new type of ammunition for the 30mm main gun, provided Johnson with a curious amusement as he maneuvered the big, tracked vehicle out of the widened ditch it had occupied to hide the hull from any approaching enemy.
Michaels, one of his former troop sergeants turned Hilltop dictator by all accounts, had still retained enough sanity to ensure the Warrior had a full tank of diesel and was loaded with both blue and yellow-tipped ammunition for the autocannon. Johnson sneered suspiciously at the controls for the chain gun which was widely rumoured to be a poor upgrade for their tried and tested general purpose machine guns firing the same ammunition.
Still, he told himself, beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers, especially when he felt the grunt of the engine through the controls and it bucked free of the ditch which would’ve stranded even the most capable off-road truck for an eternity.
Being the only man among them accustomed to operating and living inside an armoured fighting vehicle, he was forced from his rightful place in the turret and took up residence in the forward hull to drive. Peter, much to his absolute delight, was offered a spot inside the turret alongside Bufford, who Johnson had trained in the basic use of the chain gun.
“What about the big bastard?” Buffs asked him as they sat in intimately close proximity as the commander and gunner would. Johnson patted the breech of the 30mm and shook his head sadly at the sergeant of the Special Boat Service.
“You expect me to be able to teach a frogman how to hand-crank an HE round into this and follow up with a clip so as not to get a stoppage and have to start over?” Bufford gave him a withering look, secretly pleased that the comfortable inter-services rivalry had begun to reassert itself. “Just stick to the chain gun,” he told him. “You still probably fuck it up, so pay attention. And no coffee breaks,” he grumbled as he fought to maintain a straight face, “I don’t want to have to retrain you when you forget it all.”
Astrid Larsen and Kimberley Perkins stepped inside the dark confines of the troop-carrying section comprising the rear of the Warrior, their arms loaded with bags of supplies and weapons. Amber followed, her own backpack stuffed with her favourite things, along with water and food should she need it. The top of that bag sprouted a threadbare and tired-looking stuffed lamb which had previously been Peter’s sister’s and had been one of his only comforts from the place where he used to live—not that he called it home even in his head. It had become Amber’s prized possession not long after he had found her alone and frightened and she had carried it with her ever since. She also carried Peter’s creation, his ‘sticker’ as he called it, fashioned originally from a pitchfork and modified for small hands to wield against the shambling corpses still wandering the landscape.
“Zero-Bravo, Zero-Bravo,” Johnson said into the radio after they’d said their farewells to the civilians who had shown them kindness, “this is Foxtrot-Three-Three-Alpha.”
He waited a beat before the excited voice of corporal Charlie Daniels came back to him, his usual calm radio demeanour chipped away to release the emotion he felt.
“Three-Three-Alpha, Zero-Bravo,” he replied in quick words, using the out of date rotated callsigns which were the last they had been issued.
Johnson pressed the button to transmit but took his finger away again.
“Fuck it,” he said aloud to himself, unheard by the other two members of their little band inside the tank over the noise of the engine. He pressed to transmit again, this time abandoning the protocols he had spent a lifetime drilling others to adhere to.
“Charlie, we’re on our way to you now. Get the kettle on, lad. Out.”
TWO
“What the bally hell do you mean?” Second Lieutenant Oliver Simpkins-Palmer shrieked obnoxiously at the uniformed but hatless man standing safely on the bow of a ferry twenty paces from land. “I order you to dock that boat, immediately, and allow my men and these civilians to board.” The soldier, wearing no obvious badge of rank or indication of his unit, could be heard laughing by everyone on the empty concrete of the Mallaig ferry port.
“Who’s actually in charge?” he yelled back.
“Now you look here,” Palmer erupted, his face turning crimson and spittle launching from his
mouth on a trajectory like heavy artillery. His finger was extended, wagging furiously as though the mere threat of the digit would enforce his weak words. “I’ll have you court-martialled an—”
“What seems to be the problem?” a voice asked from behind him, cutting him off and making him suddenly aware of his self-inflicted embarrassment, not only at being denied after a life of entitled ease, but by the shame of losing control of himself.
“Major,” Palmer said, composing himself and greeting the man with the genteel nod of an aristocratic bow. He stepped aside for the tall, bearded Special Air Service officer to lay eyes on his enemy, “this…” he waved a frustrated hand in the general direction of the small car ferry, “man, is refusing my orders to dock and allow us to board. I must insist that y—”
“That you, Tip?” Major Downes called out.
“It is,” replied the man testily in a broad Newcastle accent. “I’ll leave you to have a word, Boss.” He turned away, stepping down from whatever he had stood on to call out his instructions to the officer.
“Lieutenant,” Downes said, “perhaps you need to take a minute?”
The order was made in a polite, suggestive way which Palmer’s education and breeding should have picked up on instantly, but the exhaustion and stress of their long journey by road had robbed him of his decorum.
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