The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding Read online

  She hopped down from the barricade. “Rally to the alternate position.”

  “All of us?” Wess asked.

  “Everyone.” And the small pit bull of a woman and her Marines ran before the dead.

  AHMED

  Unknown

  The inside of his eyelids were a soft pinkish brown. Thick reddish veins ran like blood tributaries on a pink field. He emerged from the darkness with a soft realization that he was alive. His eyes darted from side to side beneath the thin skin as if hiding in apprehension of what lay on the other plane. He flicked them open and gasped a breath between his lips.

  Blinking rapidly, he inhaled the stuffy air with a hint of must to it. He exhaled the wondrous stuff as his brain tried to comprehend the sight above him. It was a fuzzy collection of tan wooden planks. Darker knots lined the wood. That’s a ceiling. He worked himself on his elbows and a quilted blanket fell from his bare shoulders. I’m alive.

  Pain emanated from his chest, reminding him that he yet lived. He peered down. White bandages wrapped around his torso. He took a hand and gingerly explored his wound. It smarted beneath his fingertips. I got shot. The Wolf Riders. Macleod murdered Ollie and Weston. Steele and Jackson’s war along the river.

  Dread filled him along with the fear of not knowing where he was. His eyes bolted around the room. A weathered rocking chair rested nearby along with a vanity with a mirror. He lifted the blankets, becoming acutely aware of his nakedness under the quilt. He let his covering fall back over his body.

  His voice rasped like a metal file scratching over metal. “Hello?” Searching the room for a way to escape, he located a lone window to his right. A board had been hammered over it, rusty nails ringing around the edges. No light seeped through the cracks, meaning it was dark outside.

  He rolled over and placed his feet on the chilled floor that made him think he was in a freezer. Wrapping the blanket tighter around his body, he hurriedly pushed himself upright. Blood rushed to his head and his vision grew clouded. The muscles in his legs did nothing he asked them to do. He stuck out a hand to steady himself but collapsed on the floor with a thump.

  Pain shot through his chest and into his back. He laid there for a moment, letting the cold air wash over him. He imagined that laying on ice was the same as the floor.

  Hallway floorboards creaked outside as someone approached his room. Their footsteps struck the ground hard, like they moved in anger.

  Ahmed’s head swiveled as he tried to find something to fight with. He searched beneath the twin bed. A worn grungy sneaker that used to be white lay with its sole ripped open. He grabbed it, holding it close to his upper body. The footsteps stopped. Shadows of feet shifted beneath the door.

  The faded brass doorknob with nicks and scratches started to rotate. It slowly ground its way around as if it resisted the hand that turned it.

  The door groaned open like a lazy yawn. A man stuck his head inside. His beard and mustache were thin like a man in his late teens or early twenties. Ahmed swung the shoe with all his might on the top of his foot.

  “Jeepers creepers!” The man jumped up and down on his other foot. “Little bugger got me!”

  The sounds of more feet thundered down the hall. Ahmed crawled to his knees and lunged at the man. His chest screamed, but he ignored the searing pain. Lifting the man off the other foot, he took him down with a crash into the adjacent wall. He scrambled up the man’s torso like a wild beast.

  The man shouted. “Help me, Jesus, he’s got me!” He kicked Ahmed with his free foot and knocked his head into the wall. “Help!”

  Addled, Ahmed pressed a forearm into his neck. The young man’s eyes widened as he struggled to breathe, fingers digging into Ahmed’s flesh.

  Cold steel settled on top of Ahmed’s head. It was the unmistakable harsh touch of a gun barrel. “Now you listen loud and clear, boy. You let go of him nice and easy and nobody has to die today.”

  Flashbacks to his beatings at the hands of Puck’s cronies hit Ahmed like a lightning bolt, driving him to continue to kill the man in his grasp despite certain death. He grudgingly lifted his head and released his captor.

  The black hole of the metal barrel was less than an inch from his face. The man holding it had a full dark mud-colored goatee. He probably didn’t need more than a week to grow it, and curled hair hung down to his shoulders. His face was thin and oval-shaped like the man in Ahmed’s grip. He was older than the man beneath him, but no more than thirty. His eyes were a pale blue and pierced with the strength of hateful daggers.

  He pressed the handgun painfully into Ahmed’s skull. “Nice and slow, you brown bastard.”

  Ahmed let go of the man beneath him and sat with his back against the wall.

  “Get up, Kyle,” he commanded. There was a rural twang to his voice, but not a deep Southern accent, more of just a regular country boy.

  The young man crawled away from Ahmed, getting to his feet. Ahmed watched at their mercy beneath the cool gaze of the man with the handgun.

  “What’d I tell you about being aware of your surroundings? We pay attention to what is happening around us.” The bigger man gave Kyle a shove.

  “I know, Jim, but we’re in our house.”

  “With a man we know nothing about.”

  Ahmed thought about snatching the pistol from him. His heart pounded in his chest. It’s got to be quick.

  The man faced Ahmed as if he read his thoughts. “What am I going to do with a feral dog like you?” Taking a step closer, he extended his arm in Ahmed’s direction lining up his shot. His lip quivered with the thought of blowing Ahmed’s brains into the wall behind him.

  “Jim!” came a female voice. A woman shouldered past him and raced for Ahmed.

  “Goddamn it, Sadie!”

  She dropped to her knees by Ahmed and examined his chest. Her eyes were blue, not as pale as Jim’s, but her appearance was enough like him for Ahmed to think they were closely related.

  He grimaced as she checked his bandages. Her eyes fluttered to his. Eyes that said she knew him, but he couldn’t remember ever meeting her before now. Her blue eyes lingered for a moment before she whirled away, focused on her task.

  “We didn’t save his life just to kill him when he woke up,” she said into Ahmed’s chest.

  Jim shook his head. “Shouldn’t have taken him in. He’s trouble. He attacked Kyle like one of those things out there.”

  “I’m not one of those things.”

  Sadie wrapped an arm around him, and using the wall, helped him to his feet.

  “We don’t know anything about him,” Jim said, waving a gun in his direction.

  “He’s fine.”

  “You don’t think we should ask who put a bullet in him? What if they come back to finish the job? You’re putting our whole family at risk.”

  “Don’t tell me about putting the whole family at risk.”

  Jim’s mouth snapped shut. He scratched at his goatee in anger. “You of all people know why I did that.”

  She looked back at Jim. “And this man needed our help.” She half-carried him back into his room and sat him down on the bed. It bounced as they plopped down together, too firm and springy for his taste, but it beat the cold floor a hundred times out of a hundred. She removed his arm from around her and let him pick his feet up and place them inside the sheets.

  “There we go,” she said with a smile. Ahmed watched her as she busied herself with tucking his sheets around him. Her face grew a bit rosy as her hands neared his thighs. Large swooping muddy brown curls hung past her shoulders not dissimilar to Jim’s, but more feminine, like care was put into them instead of a wild indifference.

  She took the heavy quilt and draped it back over his body. The weight was immediately comforting.

  “Who are you?”

  Ignoring him, she bent back toward the end table and picked up a glass of water. She brought it to his lips and he eagerly gulped it down. The water brought a coolness to the fire in his chest, quen
ching the rawness of his throat.

  “Not too fast. You’ll get sick.”

  He gave her a weak smile, watching her as she set down the glass on the side table. “Where am I?”

  “Missouri, honey. You obviously ain’t from around here.” Her face was a thin oval, same as the other men, yet she was softer. He didn’t know if it was her skin or her slender eyebrows, but they were the same yet different.

  “Are those your brothers?”

  “Ha. Can’t pick your family.” Her smile lessened. “The one with the gun is my older brother Jim, and the younger one is Kyle. Me and Vicky were in the middle.” Her voice grew quiet as if the mention of Vicky hurt her.

  His eyes read her for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything.”

  “No.” She dismissed him straightening his blanket. “We all look alike, don’t we?” She wore a sad smile, and water filled her eyes, stopping at the corners.

  “Yes. Your faces are all the same.”

  She wiped the corner of her eye and blushed. “I hope not too much.”

  A short smile split his chapped lips. “Not too much at all.”

  Her cheeks reddened and she turned away.

  “I’m Ahmed.”

  She glanced back. “Ah-med,” she said, sounding it out, the word clunky on her tongue. “That’s different.” Her eyes said she didn’t quite believe him. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Egyptian.” He would not hide his identity, which a name was a part of.

  “Oh.” She sat quiet for a moment as if afraid she’d offended him.

  “I was born here.”

  “Why were you out there?”

  “I was scouting for my group.”

  Her eyes grew fearful and her throat moved as she gulped. “What group?”

  He watched her, judging. He was at their mercy. The wrong answer could bring about his death even after they’d saved his. The fact remained he knew nothing about these people. They could be allied with the Wolf Riders, Jackson, or be a bunch of hillbilly assholes like Puck’s band.

  “I was with a group of survivors. We were trying to find a way to reach Hacklebarney, Iowa.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Well, I know where that is. About thirty-five miles north of here. We’re near the top of Missouri.”

  Okay, it’s not so far if I have to run. “How’d you find me?”

  “Luck,” she said her voice hushed. “I’m gonna let you get some rest before supper.”

  He was exhausted from his short excursion from the bed. “I am tired.”

  Her hand fell to his arm. It warmed his skin. “When we found you, you were almost dead. A bullet through the chest.”

  He remembered the moment. It was burned into his memory and soul. The bullet had entered his body like a stream of icy fire through his upper back, boring a hole through him. Blood sprayed from the front as it exited his body. The thought made his chest ache. Frigid air crystalized his lungs as he ran from the men riding motorcycles, each breath ragged and blistering.

  “The Wolf Riders. Have you seen them?”

  Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “They’re a motorcycle gang, black wolves on their vests.”

  She shook her head no. “I haven’t heard of them.”

  His heartbeat slowed down and he exhaled, relief washing over him. “They betrayed us.” He adjusted his head on his pillow. He felt so weak but safer than a moment before.

  “Get some rest. I’ll wake you for supper. It’ll be good to get some whole food in you. You’ve been in and out for a long time.”

  “Thank you, Sadie. I can’t put into words what I owe you.”

  A smile curved on her lips. “You’re welcome.” She stepped softly toward the door and slipped out. The door clicked shut.

  A man’s voice spoke heavily in the hallway. Ahmed could only catch bits and pieces of what he said. “He’s not safe.” and “Them.” Sadie’s voice followed and the voices calmed.

  Metal scraped along the doorjamb. They are locking me in. Is that for my safety or theirs?

  He stared at the ceiling, wondering who these people were. Like a heavy quilted blanket, slumber draped over him.

  JOSEPH

  Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado

  Joseph studied a boxy screen, his arms folded beneath him. His biohazard suit crinkled as he tried to adjust his glasses from the tip of his nose back to the bridge. A thick clear plastic faceplate got in the way of his finger, and he had to press harder, indenting the plastic. He scrunched his nose trying to settle the glasses and tipped his head back until they settled into their rightful place.

  “There.” The needle brushed the membrane of the cell they had been searching for. “That one.”

  “I got it,” Dr. Desai said. She pursed her lips inside her HAZMAT suit as she worked in deep concentration. The needle deflected off the side of the cell. She audibly exhaled through his headset. She tried again, this time penetrating the membrane. Hitting a button on her controls, the needle released its fluid. The cell’s interior darkened.

  “That’s the last one.” He looked at her with a short grin.

  Her white teeth shone back from behind her suit and she let out an exhausted sigh. “If this works, our production will dramatically increase.”

  “That’s some quality work, doctors,” Byrnes said. The tall army doctor gave them a slight smile, his gaunt cheeks creasing. He reached out and squeezed Dr. Desai’s shoulder in a friendly manner. “I’m confident that this will work, and we’ll be able to produce a few hundred vials of the vaccine a day, instead of a hundred, without keeping all of us on a twenty-four hour rotation.”

  “Some regular sleep would be nice,” she said.

  “An end to shift work,” Joseph added. He hated the odd hours and the interrupted sleep patterns. Since the successful testing of the Primus Necrovirus vaccine and the following outbreak, they’d been on shift work to ensure maximum levels of production for a grueling six weeks.

  Day after day, they produced as much vaccine as they possibly could, building the government’s stockpile. They lacked the pharmaceutical infrastructure to mass-produce the vaccine and had to rely on themselves for manual creation. Slowly, their stockpiles grew but only by one vaccine at a time. Dr. Desai’s improvement on their process could exponentially upgrade their production.

  A faint look of amusement crossed Byrnes’s face, and as quick as it came, it disappeared. “No one said we would get more sleep, but we can produce more of the vaccine now.”

  “Why do we even bother to innovate?” Joseph said to Desai.

  She shook her head. “Just so we can work more.”

  “Remember why we do this,” Byrnes said.

  “We know why we’re here.”

  The implications of failure were well-known to the team of doctors. The remains of mankind depended on them to produce and vaccinate all that remained, giving them a fraction of a chance to survive the extinction level event. The magnitude of the event hadn’t been seen in millions of years, and nothing like it might ever be seen again. One thing was for certain, there was no guarantee that Homo sapiens as a species would emerge from anywhere but the ground.

  Joseph walked to the biohazard glove box. Although his suit covered his entire body, including his hands, he placed his hands inside the rubberized chamber gloves. He took the culture dish Dr. Desai had been working with and carefully took the small amount of fluid and added it to another vial.

  On the far side of the chamber was an add-on glass box containing a smaller white box. Joseph opened the lid and placed the last vial in the small six-vial centrifuge. He hit the start button on the control panel, and a light humming filled the chamber. He disengaged, removing his hands, and stood.

  An unknown voice scratched over the PA system. “Colonel Byrnes.”

  On the other side of the glass, six soldiers in black tactical gear filled the observation room of the biohazard lab. They c
arried black MP5s slung to the center of their chests. Their faces were covered with black balaclavas exposing only their eyes.

  Byrnes went to the PA on the side of the room and depressed the button. “We’re just finishing.”

  Desai peered at the men. “What are they doing here?”

  “I don’t know.” The sight of guns still made Joseph’s stomach nervously jump despite his limited use of them in the past. He’d never had enough time handling a weapon to acquire any sort of comfort in their presence.

  The soldier nearest the glass hit his button. “Sir, we need to see you now.”

  “I’ll be right out.” Byrnes turned around and gave Joseph a quizzical look.

  “What’s with all the guns?” Joseph said through his mic.

  “I’m sure it’s just a precaution.”

  Byrnes studied the men for a moment. “I’m ready to get out of this suit anyway. Let’s call it.”

  The three doctors crowded into the pressurization chamber. Their boots echoed off the metal-grated floor. Nozzles appeared from the walls and sprayed a disinfecting liquid over the doctors’ biohazard suits. Then came the fog as the pressures were equalized between the two rooms.

  A green light flickered on above them and the doors rolled open. They unzipped each other’s protective suits and stepped out of them, hanging them on racks to be inspected by technicians for continued quality. After stripping off their scrubs, they threw them in a burn bag.

  They went through another sliding door then proceeded into a locker room. Dr. Desai veered toward the other side where the female doctors changed with more privacy.

  Joseph went to his locker and lifted the handle. A pair of khaki slacks, a sky-blue button-down shirt, and brown loafers were inside. Taped to the interior of his locker door was a picture of Dr. Weinroth with her plum auburn hair, sharp eyes, not the milky virus-ridden ones at the end, and pretty smile.