Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Read online

  APOKALYPSIS

  Book Six

  Kate Morris

  2021

  Ranger Publishing

  Copyright © March 2021 by Ranger Publishing

  Note to Readers: This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is not intended to provide helpful or informative material on the subjects addressed in the publication. The author and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions of thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, email: [email protected].

  First Ranger Publishing softcover edition, Ranger Publishing and design thereof are registered trademarks of Ranger Publishing.

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  Author photo provided by J. Morris

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file

  ISBN: 13-9798717364188

  To my fans,

  This past year has proven an interesting one. Unfortunately, it ran a little too close for my liking to the pandemic in this series. In times like these, it’s important to discern information being spoon-fed to the masses and do our own research. It was also fortunate that we weren’t all turned into night crawlers, as it were.

  I plan on many big, new releases this year and hope you’ll continue to follow along with me as I explore new worlds, characters, and return to those familiar and dear to us already. Thank you so much for your support.

  Sincerely,

  Kate

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter One

  Tristan

  He knew where he was going from studying a map he found in the mansion of the human sex trafficker, Jeff, who was recently departed from this earth by his hand. Tristan wanted to go back there tomorrow to raid it for more stuff. The message tonight from the government did little to squelch the unsettling feelings he’d been having lately that this thing was going to drag on for a very long time. The government didn’t have this under control, but he didn’t fault them like most other people were doing, either. The Russian Flu was concocted in a lab by people who meant to do harm with it. There was just no way the United States or any other country could’ve known what they were doing in those labs. Now they only had to learn how to survive it.

  “Everyone have a mask?” he asked the others in the truck, in the quiet, dark of the cab. They all answered to the affirmative. “This place is supposedly in town, in a neighborhood, an older one,” he explained. “We should be able to park a few streets over and come in quietly.”

  “If the crawlers are sleeping,” Alex pointed out.

  “They won’t be,” Roman said. “This is their time, remember?”

  “Great,” Stephanie said from the backseat. “As long as we get those girls back, then that’s all that matters.”

  “What’s your deal with this?” Alex asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Elijah’s brother paused, “You seem like this is personal to you. Your hand’s bandaged from burning it today, but you still wanted to come.”

  “Wait, you’re injured?” Tristan asked, unaware of this situation.

  “No, I’m fine. I got this. Trust me. Before my dad took off, he used to take me shooting. I know what I’m doing. I’d snag my step-dad’s guns sometimes and go out to the abandoned quarry and shoot. It’s a good way to let off some steam.”

  “Geeze,” Roman said with a chuckle, “Remind me not to piss you off.”

  “You’re reminded,” she joked. “And to answer your question, yes, this is personal. No girl deserves this. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Understood,” Alex agreed.

  Roman said, “Steph can handle herself. We’ve been going out together. Back when we were still looking for our missing friends, that is.”

  Tristan gave a nod but still worried.

  He turned onto the side street that went past the urgent care as he had already done earlier this week. This time, he drove all the way to the red light, which was actually working, strangely enough. Of course, it didn’t change to green. It was just stuck on red. He paused only long enough to check both ways before pulling through the intersection and continuing on without worrying about the traffic camera or a cop pulling them over. A few of the street lamps were working, and one of the drugstores actually had lights on inside. Tristan wondered if the government was running a pharmacy now. Not likely. Someone probably forgot to turn them off the last time it was open, or it was running on a natural gas generator. Some stores had those and were still operating with electricity when things started going bad. As long as the natural gas kept flowing, he assumed the generators would continue to work. This county was natural gas-rich, which he knew from patrolling it.

  He drove them to the dead-end where the road crossed with the state route. Then he turned left and drove past the old fairgrounds, which Avery said used to draw quite a crowd during fair week. It was definitely abandoned now. One single solitary streetlight inside the fairground’s tall boundary fencing was lit in between two long rows of one-story barns where animals were likely kept during the festivities. The lamp cast an eerie orange glow around the barnyards as a light, misty snow fell. Since he was driving on untreated, snowy roads, he couldn’t look away from more than a second or two, but Tristan was pretty sure he caught the shadow of someone sprinting between those long barns on the fairground property. It was moving very fast, too fast for the average person in these conditions of unsure footing and snow-covered land. Seeing those things always send a preternatural chill up his spine.

  He turned left and went down a steep hill, the truck’s rear-end sliding back and forth.

  “Shit,” Stephanie said under her breath, clearly worried.

  “Hang on,” he told them and fought the deep ruts in the snow as the truck waged its own battle of machine versus mother nature.

  They made it to the bottom of the road, and he slid into his left-hand turn, which was fine because there wasn’t any traffic coming in either direction. Then it was up another hill and off to their left again. It was a white-knuckle drive for the passengers, but he felt no fear. For Tristan, it took a lot more than driving in adve
rse weather conditions to panic him.

  “Avery said her family would come over into this neighborhood and park to watch the fireworks every Fourth that the county let off at the fairgrounds,” he told them. “There’s supposed to be a small park at the end of this street. We’ll leave the truck there and walk in. Where we’re going is two streets over.”

  “What about you, Tristan?” Roman asked. “You were shot last night. Are you sure you can walk far?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered honestly. Before he left the house, he had plunged a tiny dose of local anesthetic into his side to numb the pain from the wound so it wouldn’t slow him down. It should last a few hours or so. Good enough for the tasks at hand.

  “Where’s the other girl?” Roman asked.

  “Two are supposed to be at this house,” he told them. “The other is a few miles outside of town. Our buddy Jeff said it’s a sketchy place, more like a bunker in the woods kind of situation. He sold her to a man there.”

  “Great,” Alex said. “Glad that asshole’s dead.”

  “Everyone, lock and load,” he ordered as he pulled into the small community park. Tristan cut the engine after parking near a dumpster and a tall wooden fence at the end of the city park’s parking lot. He could see swings moving in the wind, a security light buzzing and snapping and flickering. It made him uneasy. “Memorize the route we take in. If something happens to me, get back to the truck. I have a key hidden under the bumper in a small magnetic box. It’ll always be there if we get separated from now on.”

  “We should stick together,” Roman said.

  “I know, but if I go down, you’d better get to this truck.”

  Alex said, “We will. Same for everyone. We stay together unless it goes south. Spencer knows that if we’re not back by noon that whoever survives will try to make it to that country-western bar. It’s only a few streets over. Do you guys know where?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Stephanie said, and the other two agreed.

  Tristan reminded them, “The bigger picture is the younger ones back home. This is all to protect the kids so they can survive. We have to think about them.”

  “Let’s not screw this up,” Stephanie said.

  “Get the girls. Kill the bad-guys. Get out,” Tristan said and half turned in his seat.

  “How do we know who’s bad?” Stephanie asked.

  “Anyone in there is bad,” he answered. “Don’t worry about it. If they’re in this house where girls are being abused, they’re there for it. They’re in on it. Kill them all. Jeff said there would probably be two or three dudes in there. Don’t hesitate. Got it?”

  “Got it,” she said firmly.

  Tristan wished Spencer was with him, but there were bound to be situations like this when they couldn’t work together. He had to get these kids trained and ready, and there was no better time than the present. He felt slightly better since Roman and Stephanie were wearing borrowed Kevlar vests.

  They exited, he locked the truck, and they sneaked quietly across the park, avoiding the lighted area. Tristan was highly aware of the fact that the infected ones could be anywhere right now. It was only just completely dark, so they’d be out on the move, hunting, feeding, and whatever the hell else they did. Unfortunately, covert missions were also better done at night.

  “This way,” he whispered and led them behind the weathered brown, tongue and groove small building labeled for restrooms on one side and staff-only on the other. Then they went down a short hill and ended near a ball field. He wished he had some night-vision gear, but the occasional street lamp gave off a slight bit of phosphorus lighting.

  He led them toward another building with a small sign out front that read, “City Garage.” There were two school buses in the lot, a big snow plowing truck, and a few pickup trucks.

  “Hey, we should come back here,” he said, pointing to a gas tank. “Syphon it and…”

  “Shit!” Stephanie screeched and lurched backward, stumbling into Roman. He caught her before she fell, just as one of the infected ran at her from around the corner.

  Tristan drew his dagger and lunged. Alex did the same, and they were able to tackle the madman to the ground.

  “Hold it!” he ordered during their wrestling match. It was so strong.

  “Kill it!” Alex returned in a lot louder voice than Tristan would’ve preferred.

  Tristan was able to get an arm free and stabbed the thing in the thigh. It howled. Then it screeched loudly, too damn loudly, even louder than Alex. It would surely draw others.

  “Hurry, Tristan,” Alex said with urgency.

  He grappled as Alex also struggled.

  “Oh, shit!” Stephanie said. “Guys, hurry the fuck up. We’ve got more coming!”

  “What do we do, Tristan? Shoot?” Roman asked.

  Finally, he got his arm free enough, swung a leg over, and straddled the thing. Then he stabbed down straight into its heart. Within seconds, it stopped beating, and the thing ceased thrashing around. Alex was already up and on his feet. He extended a hand and pulled Tristan up. His side was getting sore already, and he hoped wrestling around with that thing hadn’t opened up his wound.

  “Where?”

  Roman pointed from the direction they’d come, from that park probably.

  “Let’s move!” he whispered and turned.

  They ran as fast as they could through the snow and made it to a chain-link fence at the other end of the property likely owned by the city garage. He scaled it quickly and landed on the other side. It wasn’t that high, probably six feet. When he turned back, Alex was helping Stephanie over, and Roman was waiting for her. Then the guys followed her over. They retreated into a dense tree line where it was darker.

  “What do we do?” Roman whispered.

  “Shh,” Tristan said and stood half behind a tree. He watched as the others did the same.

  It was difficult not to open fire on the things coming toward them. There were three. Two stopped at the dead body of the one he’d just killed. One stooped and smelled it, which he found odd. Then it let out a scream that surely would break all the glass out of the windows in nearby homes. Beside him, Stephanie stepped back as if she were about to bolt. Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her up against him.

  “Shh,” he whispered.

  The other two monsters ran off in a different direction. The third ran in theirs. When it came to the chain-link fencing, it slammed into it and fell down as if it if hadn’t seen any fencing at all. Tristan held his ground and waited. When it realized what it had done, it growled psychotically, pounded on the fence with its fists, and stood again. Then it surprised him again and stuck its nose in the air like a dog would when trying to catch a scent. It was so creepy that he had a hard time looking at it. Fortunately, it didn’t try to scale the fence but lumbered off towards the garage and then up the other road.

  He tapped Roman’s shoulder, who nodded. They moved out again, and he didn’t remind anyone to be careful.

  “1322,” he told them the address number as they came into a neighborhood at the top of the hill. “Two-story. Gray.”

  Somewhere a dog barked. Then it whined. He hoped those things weren’t hurting it, but it sounded more distressed than in pain. It grew quiet again as they walked down the street toward the house. The house was supposed to be on the right-hand side. The neighborhood was old, and Jeff told him it was near the former high school, the one that was converted into a rec center and office space for the city workers after the new schools were built.

  The road was sloshy as if people around here had been driving on it more frequently than out near their properties away from town. That bothered Tristan. Traffic down this road could indicate men were coming here for those girls. It could portend that many people were currently at the house of horrors he was about to bust into. He tried to cool his temper and quell his nerves.

  “There it is,” Alex announced quietly.

  They stopped a few houses away and knelt behi
nd a full-size van with a flat rear tire.

  “Alex, pair up with Stephanie and come in through the rear,” he ordered and didn’t get any guff. “Roman will come with me through the front. I don’t know if we’ll get in or have to kick in the door or what. We’ll play it by ear.”

  “No lights are on,” Stephanie whispered, the nerves in her voice exposed by the slight quiver.

  “I know,” he said. “Could just be doing that so they don’t bring in the sick ones, same as we do.” He couldn’t imagine anyone would use lights at night anymore. Not if they valued living.

  They nodded in agreement.

  “Try a back door, a window, whatever,” he instructed. “Just be aware that we’re coming in from the front. Don’t shoot us.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “Us either.”

  They rose in unison, and Tristan crept forward slightly bent over and at a slower pace than running this time. Roman mimicked him, which he did often. The kid was a fast learner, and that was good. He easily took direction and followed his orders well, too. However, Stephanie was right. The house was not lit at all, which made their job a lot harder. No boards were on the windows. The house was dark, and no cars were parked at the curb or in the driveway, which surprised him. The traffic lines in the snow on the road went right past the house as if they hadn’t stopped here. For all intents and purposes, it looked abandoned. There was a slim possibility that Jeff had lied to him. It was slim because Tristan had beat the shit out of him, tortured him to talk. Once people broke from that, they didn’t tend to lean toward deception.

  He stepped carefully, the snow crunching under his combat boots. Mindful of being silent, Tristan stepped up to the front door and tried the handle, which seemed flimsy. This didn’t seem like a particularly expensive area, mostly older homes from the sixties or so. Roman was already trying a nearby window.

  Suddenly, the front door opened, and Alex was standing there.

  “Back door was wide open,” he whispered and stood aside to let him and Roman inside. Tristan gave a nod and suggested they split up by using hand signals he hoped Alex would understand.

  The old hardwood floors creaked every now and then underfoot, but they pressed on. After a search of the first floor, he suggested Alex and Stephanie should go to the basement while he and Roman checked the second floor. Then they separated again.