Surviving the Refuge (Survivalist Reality Show Book 2) Page 27

  EXCERPT

  Regan stretched her arms over her head, only to poke Fred in the side. “Sorry,” she muttered. Beside her, he only grunted in response, and she guessed he was used to it.

  It had been a couple days, but her brain still got confused when she first woke up. She needed a few minutes to orient herself in the dark living room where she and the rest of the group from the island stretched out to sleep at night.

  Truly, Regan missed the couch and the bed she’d sometimes slept in back on the island, and longed for the boring, queen-sized bed back in her old apartment. If she’d known she would never get to sleep in that bed again when she’d left for the reality show, she would have paid a little more attention to the details.

  She couldn’t even remember what her comforter looked like.

  With no other choice now, she shifted her body, trying to give her hip some relief. The hard floor in the living room was extremely uncomfortable. This was one time in her life when she would have appreciated having a little more meat on her bones. Carpeting on the floor would have been nice, too. Of course, she was grateful for the hard floor, even if she did complain. The alternative was sleeping outside.

  It had rained for nearly two days straight after they’d escaped the fiery inferno that was the island, and the storms had only begun to let up overnight. The ground outside was soggy, the air rich with bugs and damp. But at least she no longer smelled smoke in the air.

  She closed her eyes and thought back to the night the island had burned, heavy with the vivid image of Virginia holding a gun on Wolf and the fire’s glow as they’d escaped with their lives. It had seemed like a nightmare at the time, and still it continued to replay in her mind—as if that was exactly what it had been. They’d had so much. Their lives hadn’t been perfect, sure, but they had been safe, comfortable, and had plenty to eat. Now, they were back to not knowing what they were going to do next.

  Worse, Regan had grown to appreciate carrying a gun on her at all times when she’d been on the island. It had made her feel secure, knowing she could handle whatever popped out of the trees and threatened her. As of this moment, though, they had one gun between them.

  And the island had been relatively safe, while the mainland would be far more dangerous—a place where they actually needed the guns they had all been carrying.

  “You awake?” Wolf whispered, his voice echoing into the dim room that had slowly begun to lighten with the rising sun.

  “I am,” she answered quietly.

  “How’d you sleep?” he asked from beside her.

  She scoffed. “As good as can be expected. You?”

  Instead of answering her, he shifted beside her, his hand brushing her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking,” he said simply.

  Regan rolled to her side to face him, looking at his long black hair fanning out around his head before meeting his eyes and prodding him into saying more. “About?”

  “We need to leave. I haven’t heard rain since late last night. I think the storm has passed.”

  She nodded. “Okay. What does that mean?”

  “He means we need to seriously consider going back to the swamp,” Fred interjected.

  Regan jolted at his voice—she’d thought she and Wolf were the only ones who’d woken up.

  “I thought you were joking about that,” Tabitha’s soft voice commented.

  Last night, they had decided to have RC take the couch, with Geno pressed up against the couch on the floor—predictably, they seemed to be the only ones in the room still asleep.

  Lily had slept on the floor in Heather’s room, but their small group of adults was all sandwiched into the living room, making the room feel far warmer and stuffier than it was. The windows were all open, but that did little to circulate the heavy air. Sleeping on the floor made it tolerable, if uncomfortable.

  “We’ll talk more when everyone is up,” Wolf said.

  Regan lay back down on her back, longing for some privacy. It was impossible to talk with so many people around them all the time. Heather’s house was so little, and with the storm raging outside, Regan had felt trapped all over again.

  Unable to relax now that the conversation had been re-opened, Regan sighed and sat up. “I’m getting up,” she muttered.

  She finger-combed her hair as she stepped over bodies, heading for the front door. She needed fresh air.

  When she opened the door, though, she was assaulted by the smell of wet foliage and what could only be human waste drifting on the slight breeze. It wasn’t pleasant. She drifted over to the flowerbed on the edge of the postage stamp-sized yard and stared down at the haggard petals of Heather’s day lilies.

  Wolf’s voice came from behind her. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, barely glancing back at him. “Yes, I wanted some fresh air. Usually, I like the way it smells and feels after a big storm, but it doesn’t smell so great out here.”

  “Not so much. We knew the sanitation systems would fail eventually. It’s only going to get worse.”

  “Thanks for the optimism,” she said wryly, looking up to face him as she turned back toward the porch.

  “I want to talk, just me and you.”

  “About?”

  “Returning to the swamp.”

  She groaned. “I know you said it’s the best option and I know there are resources there to make it a little more tolerable than what it was before, but it’s still a swamp. There are still going to be alligators, snakes, spiders, and a ton of mud. That doesn’t sound appealing to me.”

  He shrugged a shoulder. “Here, you have all those things, plus people. Not just people—desperate people. Desperate people are dangerous people.”

  “We could get out of town a little further, maybe go inland. There has to be some abandoned housing we could take over.”

  “And what will we do for food?”

  She shrugged, meeting his eyes defiantly. “Grow it.”

  “With what?”

  “Logic,” she grunted, her shoulders slumping slightly as she moved back to his side—she couldn’t avoid this discussion any longer, it seemed. “Heather has some seeds.”

  “Regan, I know the swamp doesn’t sound all that appealing, but it would be safer. We can harvest food from the vegetation. We can make it work. It won’t be easy, but we will have food.”

  “What food? Do you have canned goods out there? Seeds? Corn?” she shot back at him, fighting not to raise her voice and draw the attention of the others who were still inside.

  “No, but my ancestors have lived in the swampy areas of Florida for hundreds of years. I’m here as testament to their ability to survive.”

  “That was all they knew,” Regan argued. “They were taught how to live out there from the moment they were born. I wasn’t. None of us were. You may have visited, but you didn’t actually live it day-in and day-out. I bet a lot of your ancestors died from malaria, dysentery, and wild animal attacks, as well,” she pointed out. “Many of them probably starved if crops were bad for even one year.”

  “True, but we know how to avoid dysentery,” Wolf said gently, drawing her down to sit on the porch beside him, as if her sitting down might lower her defenses. “Malaria isn’t likely going to be an issue, and we can be smart and pay attention to avoid animal attacks.”

  “Food? We were on the verge of starving when we were in the swamp,” she growled.

  He reached out and wrapped her into his arms, pulling her in close to him. “Regan, I’m more worried about finding food here when there are hundreds, more likely thousands of people all trying to find food along with us. In the swamp, we aren’t going to have to worry about fighting other people for the resources. We won’t have that competition. People are far deadlier than any wild animal.”

  She sighed against him, warring within herself. She knew he made a lot of good, valid points, but the very idea of living in a swamp, constantly being wet and smelling that horrid stink of rotten vegetation and stale water, made her stoma
ch turn.

  “Fine,” she muttered, wishing he’d let it go.

  “You said that before. You know that if you’re not on board, it is going to cause tension.”

  “Yeah, Wolf, I know. But I’m not the only one who’s hesitant. Tabitha and Lily aren’t exactly thrilled with the idea.”

  “No, but they’ll go along with it if we make it sound like the best choice,” he reminded her.

  “What about what Lily said that first night?” Regan asked.

  “What?”

  She cocked her head to the side and looked at him. “About Heather and Travis going with us.”

  Wolf shook his head. “That was a suggestion. I don’t think Heather took it seriously. Lily was trying to be nice.”

  “But what do you think Heather should do?”

  “I can’t say. It isn’t my place.”

  Regan shook her head. “Uh-uh, you’re not getting off that easy. Do you want them to come along or not?” she pressed.

  He shrugged against her, the move shifting her against his body. “I honestly don’t know. It would be nice to have a couple extra strong, able bodies, but it would also mean we need more food, water, and shelter. There are good and bad sides to everything. I won’t stop her if she decides that’s what she wants to do, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “We owe her,” Regan said.

  “We do, you’re right. We’ll have another conversation with her and see what she thinks without the kids around.”

  After another minute, Wolf got back to his feet and reached down for Regan’s hand, pulling her up to stand beside him and wander into the yard, further away from the house and under the cover of some trees. They kissed briefly, and then stood in the silence of the early morning, listening to birds calling out, feasting on the many treasures the long rainstorm had brought out. Before long, the soft murmur of voices drifted through the open window, alerting them that the rest of the house was up and stirring.

  Get your copy of Surviving the Elements

  Available 9 May 2019

  www.GraceHamiltonBooks.com

  BLURB

  911 operator Jim Parker wants—more than anything—to be useful again. When a catastrophic EMP strikes, and he’s the last person a kidnapped girl speaks to before the lines go dead, he knows he can’t let her down. Especially when the circumstances are so similar to his own daughter’s disappearance. With the world falling apart around him, he wants to do nothing more than retreat to his prepper cabin. But with a fresh lead on his daughter, and another innocent girl’s life on the line, the disgraced cop will do everything in his power to track them down.

  Finn Meyers has lost Ava, her best, and only, friend in the world, but she knows where the missing young woman might be—and perhaps Parker’s long lost daughter. Now, Parker must form an uneasy alliance and tackle his own internal demons as the two begin a perilous journey that will take them to the headquarters of a mysterious cult in Indiana.

  But what they find along the way will shatter all their preconceptions—and threaten the world as they know it. Can a has-been and a has-not save the innocent, and stop a disaster from happening?

  Grab your copy of Dead Lines here.

  EXCERPT

  Chapter One

  Southern Indiana, 2306 hours

  Countdown: 25 seconds until Event.

  James Parker rubbed the sandy grit out of his eyes and stared at the monitors in front of him. Three screens—low light, supposedly easy on the eyes—sat at his station along with a computer, telephone, and emergency communications radio. He was suffering from a hangover headache pounding dully behind his temples, and it hurt to use his eyes, even in such dim lighting.

  His hand, big and calloused, massaged a five o’clock shadow rapidly heading towards full-on homeless scruff. He wanted another Vicodin, but had promised himself not to take too many at work. Mostly, he kept that promise. Mostly.

  The light in the room was muted, more a soft ambience with the illumination designed to be easy on an operator’s eyes, and the soft glow of computers reflected like silvered mirrors from each station. From all around him, the white noise of the call center was a light murmur of background conversations punctuated by the alerts of incoming calls. Parker leaned back in his comfortable chair and eyed the clock.

  Fifteen minutes to quitting time.

  He lifted a hand to Kevin Oaks in a lazy gesture of greeting as the man, his relief, came in through the door of the “vault” and meandered towards the coffee maker on the table in the corner.

  Right behind him, though, Parker’s supervisor Annie Klein burst through the door, resembling a squat lead ball fired from a musket. An old, not well taken care of musket. Her arms, pudgy bowling pins topped by raptor claws of fingers, clutched her iPhone and a thick pile of official manila folders.

  Avoiding eye contact, Parker sat up and spun around to more fully face his row of monitors. His conversations with the indefatigable Ms. Klein inevitably ended in a poor fashion. He’d already earned two written warnings for insubordination, and HR had informed the union that he was currently under investigation. Yay.

  He couldn’t afford to lose another job. His pension and retirement benefits were closely tied to his employment with the city. After how he’d left the department, getting fired from this job would vastly reduce his options. Besides, when the factories had closed down and moved to Mexico, they’d taken the greater part of employment options with them. Try as he might, he couldn’t see himself working as a barista, jumping to fetch absurd coffees for uppity IT techs half his age.

  He sighed. “Because I’m old,” he muttered.

  An indicator light blinked on. He moved his foot and nudged the pedal, opening the line.

  “911,” he said into his headset mic. “What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “Please help!” a young woman’s voice cried into the line. “Please help, something horrible is going to happen!”

  “Calm down, miss,” he said. “Let me help you.” He’d taken enough calls by now to know whether it was the real thing or not. This felt real.

  Automatically, his voice went down a register, sliding from gravely baritone to an almost basso profundo. It was a habit left over from working domestic disputes and suicide interventions as a law enforcement officer. It helped in his new career.

  He went on, “I need your name, ma’am.”

  His eyes went to his screen and he quietly cursed. She was on a cell; the caller locator software had the 812 area code, but that was it so far. He could have figured that much out on his own by her southern Indiana accent alone. Go Hoosiers, he thought.

  “They’re going to do something at Stapleton Mall, the Church!” the girl half-sobbed.

  He winced internally at the location, the reminder of his daughter, but pushed the feeling away quickly. He possessed an instinct, a residue left over from working patrol. This girl was fighting to hold it together; he could hear it in the timbre of her voice. She wanted to be brave, she was fighting to be brave, but she was utterly terrified.

  “They’ve already killed a girl... I guess you’d call them a cult,” she went on. “The Church kidnapped me, and Casey, Jesus, they killed Casey!” The words burned through the signal into his ear and he heard the raw anguish and terror in her voice.

  Parker’s stomach clenched. This was no hoax.

  He eyed the caller ID screen—nothing. Goddamn satellites. He frowned. He inhaled through his nose, calming himself. Since Sara had disappeared, such actions were only effective at work. Outside of the call center, it took Ativan, 4mgs at a time, to calm him. Usually with a Steel City Lager chaser. Sometimes something stronger.

  “Tell me your name,” he repeated. His voice remained steady, calm. He might be all this girl had until he could dispatch officers to her 20. He didn’t want to fail her. Didn’t want to fail another girl the way he’d failed Sara.

  “It’s Ava,” she choked out. “It’s Ava Talbot—”

&nbs
p; The line went dead.

  Everything went dead.

  “No! No, no!” he shouted, turning towards the screen. “Hello? Ava, hello!”

  He was sitting in the dark. Not the low illumination ambience he was used to, but dark. Every light in the room was out, all screens dead, overheads down, his headset utterly silent. He felt frustrated rage building up in him.

  “Goddamn,” he swore.

  He began breathing faster as he thought about that crying girl out there, alone. Unbidden, tears of impotence burned the backs of his eyes. He scowled, almost snarled, and pushed everything back. Why hasn’t the auxiliary power kicked on? he suddenly wondered.

  “Why hasn’t the auxiliary power kicked on?” he bellowed.

  He heard the two other 911 operators who were sitting beside him and still on shift also cursing. No one answered his question. In front of him, set off to the side since it was never used, the back-up ham radios kicked on. They were old redundancy systems, designed for use during cell tower incapacitation by inclement weather. With them suddenly being used... well, if he’d needed more proof that the shit had surely hit the fan, this by God was it.

  “Able Seven,” a patrolman Parker knew as Mark Denham said into his radio. “Be advised, Dispatch, we have complete power outages in my vicinity. Stoplights went out—I need Fire and Rescue to Harp and Neilson Avenues. Multiple MVAs; multiple vehicles versus pedestrian!”

  Parker knew Denham. He was a twelve-year veteran, calm and collected under pressure. He sounded more than excited, more than under pressure. He sounded shook up. One of the other operators took the call and began trying to roll Fire and Rescue.

  “We’ve got a, wait… Jesus Christ!” another officer broke in. “We’ve got a plane down on Baker and Freemont! It slid into a row of houses! Everything’s burning!” The line clicked off, and for a moment there was silence. Then the officer clicked over again, his voice hard and flat. “Dispatch,” he said. “We need everyone. I’ve got six large residences fully engulfed. There are people trapped; I can hear them screaming from here.”