A Wilderness Within Read online

  A Wilderness Within

  Unlikely Heroes - Book 2

  Emma Castle

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Midnight with the Devil

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Other Titles By Emma Castle

  About the Author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Emma Castle Books, LLC

  Edited by Noah Chinn

  Cover Art by Cover By Combs

  * * *

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  * * *

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-947206-70-0 (e-book edition)

  ISBN: 978-1-947206-71-7 (print edition)

  Prologue

  @CDC: We have been made aware of a small outbreak in Beijing created by an unknown disease. The situation is being contained and monitored.

  —Centers for Disease Control Twitter Feed

  November 3, 2019

  * * *

  February 2020

  Omaha, Nebraska, undisclosed location

  The underground bunker had been compromised, and death now stalked the halls, moving invisibly beneath the flashing fluorescent lamps. Lincoln Atwood leaned back against the concrete wall inside the tunnel that would lead to freedom…and likely more death. He couldn’t breathe, his lungs strained for air, but with each panicked gasping inhalation, he smelled the sickly-sweet cloying scent of decayed and mummified flesh.

  Much farther down the hall, he could see the shadowy outlines of bodies. It had been seven weeks since those men had collapsed and died where they lay. Seven weeks and the virus that had ravaged their bodies had mummified them. Another two months and there would be nothing left but stark white bones. Before he’d been assigned to the bunker, he’d seen the disease destroy the world, the final tsunami of a pandemic storm that had started four months ago.

  He and the other survivors below ground hadn’t wanted to touch the bodies at first, but over the last three weeks as the sickness spread, he’d realized to his horror that he was immune. He could walk among the remains, touch them, inhale the infected air. There was nowhere to lay these last few men and women to rest. So they’d remained where they’d fallen, leaving him almost completely alone with the virus.

  The CDC had named the virus Hydra-1. Much like the mythological creature of many heads, this virus was an unstoppable killing machine. Victims bled out and then dried up, but rather than be preserved, the mummified remains quickly turned to dust or washed away in the rain, leaving behind only bones.

  “Lincoln…” His name came through the small walkie-talkie clipped to his hip, the sound scratchy and tinny as the signal struggled against the concrete barriers. Lincoln raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth, holding the button down, his hand shaking.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s time.”

  Those two words hung in the air, sizzling with dread like a live wire in a raging storm.

  He stood. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  For a second a wave of dizziness swamped him. Was it Hydra, or was it the low-protein diet and tiny rations from the food in the bunker? It didn’t really matter. He wouldn’t survive long once he ran out of food and water. He had been in the company of the shadow of death far too long not to fall prey to it. The men in his unit used to joke about death being an old friend, one who would greet them and walk them into the black sands of eternity.

  How wrong they’d all been. Death was an uncaring assassin, a complete bastard who stole everything and gave nothing in return, not even comfort.

  Lincoln started down the hall, toward the bodies. He paused in front of the first door on the right and entered. It had been his room for the last few months, not that it had ever been home. The peeling white paint on the walls exposed the concrete, and the metal-framed cot was worse than most prisons.

  Lincoln began to pluck the photos he had taped to the wall, one by one. He slid them into a plastic bag and put them in his sand-colored army-issued backpack. He had everything he needed to survive in that bag, or so he told himself. A compass, space blanket, knives, metal wire, rope, two guns, as much spare ammo as he could carry, bottled water, a filtration straw, a medical kit, and a dozen other items.

  He picked up a paperback copy of The Great Gatsby and his solar charging battery pack and added them to his bag.

  “Time to go,” he whispered to the empty room. He had been living in the cramped space for months. He was the last person alive down here…except for Adam Caine.

  It was Adam who needed him now.

  Lincoln paused by the door, startled for a moment by his own reflection. His instincts were razor-sharp now, and every movement had him tensing. The bearded stranger, hand resting on the doorjamb, didn’t look like Lincoln anymore. The young, happy face of his thirty-five-year-old self was gone. Hard-edged, cold, hollowed out, his brown eyes were dark with ancient sorrow. He looked like a man lost, who’d stepped into the deep woods of his own soul and had never been seen again, not once the wilderness within had swallowed him whole.

  “Lincoln…please hurry.” Adam’s voice echoed in the small room from the walkie-talkie.

  Lincoln’s shoulders dropped as he walked the rest of the way down the hall. He didn’t even see the bodies as he passed anymore. Over the last seven weeks, they had ceased to be there in his mind and were almost now as invisible as the concrete walls. To survive, he’d learned to tune out the horrors of the dying world around him.

  Look away… The ghostly whisper in his head made him shudder as he reached Adam’s room.

  Adam was lying on his cot, dressed in his best navy-blue suit, his bright red and white striped tie in a neat Windsor knot. Lincoln lifted his gaze up to his friend’s face, forcing himself to see the man and not the dying body. Adam managed a weak smile. His eyes were hollow and ringed with purple bruises, and sweat glistened on his skin, which had turned a sallow yellow.

  “Thought maybe you wouldn’t come.” Adam’s sigh carried a hint of a death rattle.

  Lincoln wanted to smile, wanted to give his friend some kind of final reassurance. But he couldn’t. Pain tore at him, and it took every ounce of strength to fight back the sting of tears in his eyes. He swallowed hard, and it felt like glass shards were tearing up his throat.

  “Here…” Adam patted a stack of photos sealed in a bag on his chest. Lincoln picked them up. Familiar faces, old places… All of it only made this worse.

  “Ten years,” Adam said. “Long time to serve together, brother.”

  Lincoln nodded, still unable to speak. They
weren’t brothers by blood, but they had been brothers in arms. Adam had taught him everything he knew. He was thirty-seven and had led their unit on over a hundred missions, saving the world a dozen times—not that it mattered now, because no one would be alive anymore to hear or care. Humanity was all but wiped out. Nature had reclaimed its bruised planet, and soon humanity would be but a dim memory in Earth’s history. Perhaps one best forgotten.

  Adam coughed, a light dotting of blood covering his lips as he gripped a handgun. He tried to lift it, but his arm collapsed back to his chest.

  “Afraid you’ll have to do the honors.” Adam managed a wry smile, but Lincoln shook his head.

  “No…I can’t…” He’d had to do this for too many others, but for Adam, he couldn’t stomach it.

  Adam’s gray eyes hardened. “You can. You have to.” He drew in a shaky breath. “You owe me. I don’t want to waste away like the others. Don’t make me pull rank.”

  Lincoln’s eyes snapped back to his friend’s face. The last two years they had been in Washington, DC, while Adam had moved up in the ranks and politics. It was how they had ended up here in the bunker after all. Not that it had saved them. But Adam always joked about pulling rank whenever Lincoln tried to resist orders.

  “Don’t you fucking bring that up now,” Lincoln said. His vision blurred as he tried to swallow down the knot of emotions raging inside him.

  “You have your orders, Major.” Adam shifted the gun on his chest.

  Lincoln reached out and took the gun, checking the chamber. The action was instinctive after so many years, but a chill crept over him when his brain caught up with his actions and the significance of what he was about to do became clear.

  Adam watched him, the war of fear and sorrow on his face now softened to a peacefulness Lincoln hadn’t ever seen before.

  “You know what to do, Lincoln.”

  But he didn’t. No one had ever trained him to kill his best friend.

  “Once I’m gone, get out of here. Don’t stay in the bunker. If you want to die, die in the open with the sky above you. At least topside, you’ve got a chance to survive.” They’d talked about it, the way they would end it, if it ever came to that. The blue sky above would be the way to go, not trapped here beneath the ground.

  “I could take you up there.” Lincoln tried not to choke on the words. “Before…”

  Adam shook his head, the faint move barely there. “No. I’d only spread the disease. Better to seal me down here with the others.”

  Lincoln nodded numbly. Adam had stayed here, manning the communication room as other outposts dropped off the comms one by one, everyone hoping a cure would be found before the end came. Last week Adam had started showing signs of infection. They had believed they were both immune since the last man to die had been five weeks ago, but for whatever reason, Adam had fallen ill. But he’d stayed on the radio each day for just a few minutes, broadcasting when he could, listening for any other signal. He’d never given up hope. But Lincoln knew there was none. After this, he would be alone.

  Adam’s face contorted with pain. “Better do it now.” The virus inside him would bleed him out, then dehydrate what was left. It was an agonizing death.

  Raising the gun, Lincoln aimed it at Adam’s head, but his hands started to shake. Adam closed his eyes.

  “Do it!”

  The harsh military tone snapped Lincoln into focus, and he pulled the trigger. The loud report made his ears ring, and the heavy silence that followed grew into a deafening roar. The tiny red, white, and blue flag pinned to Adam’s chest gleamed in the light. Lincoln removed the pin, slipped it into his backpack, and laid the pistol on Adam’s chest. There was no need to bury him, no need to remove him from this final resting place. Lincoln stood to attention as he saluted Adam one final time.

  “It has been an honor to serve and protect you, Mr. President.” He knew those may very well be the last words he would ever speak to another person. He should have said them before…but if he’d dared to, might not have had the strength to pull the trigger.

  He stood there for a long moment, his mind mercifully blank with grief, and he let the dark, agonizing emotion rip through him like a tidal wave. The silence haunted him, whispering softly in his head about the days before…the days when the world was still alive, when he could see children play and the bustle of the cities and the sunsets on farmhouse porches. There had been so much to love, so much to enjoy.

  Now it was all gone and so was Adam, his brother in arms, his best friend. Hope’s last wellspring had vanished with him.

  There’s nothing for me in the world now.

  But a man couldn’t die from grief alone, no matter how hard he might want to.

  He turned and walked away.

  At the bunker’s exit, he climbed up the steps and cranked the wheel that released the seal and locks on the latch and pushed it open. Bright sunlight poured into the darkness of the bunker. Lincoln shielded his eyes for a moment as his eyes adjusted. Fresh air surrounded him, the scent of prairie grasses and trees teasing his nostrils. He climbed out and closed the hatch behind him. An open meadow stretched endlessly in one direction, and a light wooded area spread in the other direction. Prairie wind rustled the grasses, and he suddenly felt homesick in a way he hadn’t in years.

  But home was gone, as was everything else. It was possible he was the last man on earth, and it was only a matter of time before death claimed him too.

  He started walking, the distant vision of the cityscape far ahead of him. Would there be any other survivors? Would he even be able to help them? He’d killed his best friend, the last leader of the free world. Whoever might be left in this dying land wouldn’t want his help. He was a murderer of a good man, a lost soul. Lincoln let go and chose to embrace the wilderness and the darkness inside him.

  It would be the only way to survive now.

  1

  @CDC: The virus in Beijing has been identified as a new disease named Hydra-1. The World Health Organization is monitoring the situation closely. We believe it is contained and there is no cause to worry.

  —Centers for Disease Control Twitter Feed

  November 10, 2019

  * * *

  March 2020

  Caroline Kelly crouched in the shadows outside the old supermarket on the outskirts of Omaha. Night was creeping closer. Usually she hated the dark, but tonight it was her friend. Whenever she entered a store or any dwelling, she knew she ran the risk of running into survivors. Ever since H–Day, as she called it, the day everyone truly realized there was a contagion sweeping over the world, people went insane.

  Common decency and the humanitarian spirit had been destroyed. Knowing they had nothing to lose, many had reverted to barbarism, violence, greed, and lust. The last legacy of a dying species. And those few who had survived hadn’t been much better.

  Caroline shuddered and pulled her coat tight around her body. She scanned the darkened entrance to the grocery store. The chances that anything edible was in there were slim, but she had to look. She would eat just about anything right now. Last week she had found a stash of canned sardines in someone’s house and had a feast that any cat would envy. Then she had thrown up because the oily texture of the tiny fish had made her nauseous. She’d never been into seafood, but starvation was still starvation.

  She checked the straps on her backpack, making sure they weren’t loose. Whenever she had a chance to fill up with supplies or food, she needed to make sure that the bag stayed tight to her body. She had already lost one bag when she was running from a man who tried to corner her inside a drugstore last month. The bag had been too loose and heavy. When she rounded a corner too fast, the momentum from the bag swung so hard it knocked her onto her ass. The man caught up with her and tried to grab it. She had to abandon it or risk him catching her. She knew all too well what would have been next if that had happened. In the early days of the contagion, she’d tried to trust other survivors, believing that they could
work together to survive. That had been a mistake, a nearly fatal one. She still believed deep down that humanity could survive this, but as the dark days stretched on, her hope was dying, like a candle sputtering in a violent wind. All too soon it would be snuffed out.

  The store had been quiet for the last hour. She had been hiding in the shadows across the street, and once darkness fell, she inched her way toward the store, using abandoned cars as cover. But she didn’t go inside, not yet. Someone was out there. She could feel their presence somehow, like a sixth sense warning her of danger. She couldn’t wait forever. Hunger and desperation would force her hand sooner or later. If she was being watched, she would have to brave it and just go.

  Caroline moved toward the door. The glass had shattered long ago, and all that remained was a metal frame laced with jagged edges. She didn’t bother to open it but instead slipped through where the glass had once been. Her boots crunched on the broken shards, but she couldn’t help that. Some things were unavoidable. She squinted at the signs hanging overhead, trying to see what was in each aisle.

  If she had been more certain she was alone, she would have pulled out her flashlight, but that would be a shining beacon to anyone close by. So she wandered down each aisle, careful to avoid any shelves that had toppled over. The stench of rotten produce a few aisles over made her eyes water, so she stayed closer to the center. The majority of the edible food was gone, but not all of it.

  When the virus had swept through the major cities like this one, it had killed so many so quickly that people didn’t have time to loot stores. People were too busy dying to steal TVs. There had been some looting, but not as much as she had expected. Not that it mattered without electricity. She couldn’t benefit from most of the things left behind. She would love a giant flat-screen as much as the next girl, but what would she do with it?