Primal Shift: Volume 2 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Read online

  PRIMAL SHIFT

  Volume 2

  Copyright © 2014 Griffin Hayes

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Keri Knutson

  Edited by Jason Whited

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  MAILING LIST

  PRIMAL SHIFT 6: Metamorphosis

  PRIMAL SHIFT 7: Sacrifice

  PRIMAL SHIFT 8: Invasion

  PRIMAL SHIFT 9: New World Order

  PRIMAL SHIFT 10: Judgement Day

  WHAT’S NEXT?

  MAILING LIST

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  On July 4, 2017, as the country prepared to celebrate its independence, the skies were shattered by strange shimmering lights that sent most of humanity into madness. In an instant, law and order crumbled, plunging the planet into anarchy.

  For those who survived The Shift, Rainbowland was supposed to be a safe haven from the chaos and barbarity around them, but sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Someone in the colony has turned to murder; killings connected to an old prophecy about two saviors with the power to rebuild a shattered world, or utterly destroy it.

  A special thank you to Craig McGray, Jason Whited, and above all, to you, loyal reader, for joining me on this journey.

  In Volume 1 of Primal Shift ...

  After surviving the devastation caused by The Shift, Finn, Dana Hatfield, Carole Cartright, and Larry Nowak struggled to find food and shelter.

  Lured by a mysterious radio transmission, each of them began the long and dangerous journey for Utah and the salvation they hoped to find there.

  But awaiting them in Uintah was no FEMA camp as they’d hoped, nor the last remnants of a fragile government. What they discovered instead was Rainbowland: a pacifist New Age cult hiding its own dark secrets.

  Obsessed with a past he can’t recall, Finn learns that a company called Tevatron may have been behind The Shift. A clue that leads him back to the desert of Nevada and the facility where he first awoke. There he discovers his own criminal past and treachery at the hands of Bud, a fellow Tevatron test subject.

  Always the opportunist, Larry Nowak slowly gained the cult’s trust after befriending a highly placed member. With more and more survivors trickling in every day and dangerous Wipers at their doorstep, Rainbowland’s lack of security became the excuse for a coup Larry needed. When the cult leader, All Father, died suddenly, Larry was quick to take the reins of power.

  After arriving in Rainbowland, Dana Hatfield struggled to find her place after a life spent following a strict chain of command. Shortly before his death, All Father offered her the role of sheriff; Dana jumped at the chance. But when the power shifted into Larry’s hands, Dana was tasked with retrieving dangerous explosives meant for defending Rainbowland that had been stolen by Bud.

  Following The Shift, Carole made it her objective to keep what was left of her family safe. But with her son, Aiden, lost at the Salt Lake City International Airport and her daughter, Nikki, kidnapped by Wipers, it seemed as though she failed on every level. A foolhardy mission to enter Alvarez’ lair at the Grand America Hotel and trade her life for Nikki’s ends when her truck is ambushed by Wipers, forcing her to flee into a nearby building.

  And now begins the final chapters of Primal Shift ...

  PRIMAL SHIFT 6: Metamorphosis

  Dana Hatfield

  Pulling up to what looked like a solar plant out in the middle of the Nevada desert, Dana kept hearing Larry’s frantic voice ringing in her ears. Bud had gone and taken the C4 right out of his Escalade, and Larry wanted it back. Least that’s about all Dana could make out from the man’s obscenity-filled tirade. It wasn’t a secret where Finn, Johnson, and Bud were going, only why and what exactly they’d hoped to find once they got there.

  Dana spotted Finn’s Land Rover parked up ahead and drew her own car alongside it. She stepped out into the baking noon day sun. The ticking sound coming from Finn’s SUV told her they hadn’t been here long. Removing the SIG from the holster that hugged her right leg, Dana pulled back the slide and chambered a round. Whatever Bud and the others were planning on doing with Larry’s C4, she couldn’t imagine they’d be anxious to hand it over. She wasn’t exactly ready to use deadly force, especially not against Finn, not that any of them needed to know that.

  Dusty tracks led from Finn’s car toward a set of double doors, and that’s where Dana headed. Inside to the right was a desk with a row of flickering computer monitors – “This place has power?” she thought, amazed – and beyond that a pair of elevator doors, which had been pried apart.

  The sound of a hand scrambling for purchase on the dirty floor at the foot of the elevator shaft made her heart jump wildly in her chest. Another hand appeared, this one holding a Beretta 9 mm, which it set down and slid a foot to the right so it wouldn’t be in the way as the person climbed up. But here was the important part: Whoever this was, they didn’t know she was there.

  Dana reached the pistol at about the same time she saw Bud’s bleeding and battered face emerge from the darkened shaft below. Swooping down, she scooped the Beretta up and slid it under the back waistband of her pants for safekeeping. Bud was up a second later, brushing himself off and wearing the panicked expression of a man who was about to miss a train.

  Dana took a step back, positioning herself between him and the door and laid a hand on the grip of her SIG.

  “What’re you doing here?” he asked, not even trying to hide his surprise.

  “That’s far enough,” Dana told him, watching a bloody tear roll down his cheek. “You know full well why I came, so let’s cut the foreplay, shall we? You took something that doesn’t belong to you, but judging by the way your face is busted up, I see now I caught you in the middle of something else entirely.”

  “I fell,” Bud said, wiping the blood away with the arm of his shirt. “But if Larry sent his guard dog for those explosives they’re in the car.”

  Dana could tell by the way Bud’s eyes dropped to the floor as he spoke that he was lying, but by the time it registered he was already charging at her. Out came the SIG, and she nearly got it into a decent firing positing before he chopped it out of her hand with a hard strike to her wrist. A straight punch to her face was coming next, and Dana saw the windup coming a mile away. Bud either didn’t know or didn’t care that she’d once been in the Coast Guard and had gone through basic combat training. Her forearm deflected that one and gave her the opening to plow her right elbow into the side of his face. Bud reeled back, stunned he’d just been hit by a girl.

  Plenty more where that came from, Asshole!

  She was about to pull the Beretta out from her waist when Bud rushed, tackling her to the floor. From here, he’d be able to use his weight to keep her pinned down and beat her into unconsciousness. With desperate speed, she brought her knee up against the back of his buttocks, but it wasn’t his ass she was aiming for. It was the back side of his balls, and the sudden grimace on his face told her right away the move had worked. She rolled him over, pulling the Beretta at the same time. Dana knew she could take care of herself, but someone had already worked Bud over before her.

  “Finn and Johnson?” she barked, cocking the hammer with her thumb. “Where a
re they?”

  “There isn’t any time,” Bud told her. “In case you haven’t figured it out already, this entire place is about to blow.”

  “You already set the C4. But why?”

  “For my family.”

  Dana pushed the barrel against his forehead. “You don’t look like the mujahedeen type to me, Dipshit. Defuse it.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  She moved the gun less than three inches and fired. The bullet skimmed Bud’s skull, tearing out a flap of hair as it went. Up went his hand to cover the wound, blood running between his fingers. Looked like he had his answer.

  •••

  Bud was about to start climbing down the ladder again, Dana’s SIG trained on his every move, when she stopped him and pressed the button to call the elevator.

  “How long do we have?”

  Bud grit his teeth. “I’m telling you we’re not gonna make it.”

  The two of them waited an agonizing minute, listening to the cables straining to pull the elevator up to their level. The building had clearly taken some damage during the quake that accompanied The Shift, but the facility seemed to have been built to withstand a decent amount of abuse. The elevator arrived a moment later, and Bud was the first one on, and almost at once he was mashing the button for basement level 2. Dana could feel her heart hammering up in her neck with anxiety. But to run away and leave Finn and Johnson to die when there was something she could do? No, she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself. They passed the first basement floor, and in the distance Dana caught what looked like a pair of legs sticking out into the hallway.

  “You killed them, didn’t you?”

  Bud didn’t bother answering that one. A moment later, they reached basement level 2, and Dana followed him out, her SIG aimed squarely at his back as he hurried along a corridor littered with wires and piping from places where the ceiling had fallen in. They arrived at a door marked Power and Maintenance and headed inside. There, sitting on the floor, was an open silver briefcase with two bricks of C4, one on top of another. Taped to the sides were two detonators. On top was a cell phone counting down.

  20 ... 19 ... 18 ...

  “You better do something quick,” she said. Dana knew enough about C4 to know it would be rendered completely safe once those detonators were removed. She’d even heard stories of soldiers in Vietnam lighting the Plasticine-like putty to cook meals and keep warm. Seemed hard to believe, but right now, all she really cared about was Bud doing what he needed to do or she’d rightly shoot him in the head before both of them lit up.

  17 ... 16 ... 15 ...

  Bud was tearing at the electrical tape to release the detonators. “I hadn’t exactly planned to deactivate this thing. You have a knife on you?”

  She didn’t.

  14 ... 13 ... 12 ...

  And she could feel the panic welling up within her.

  These are the last minutes of my life, and I’m spending them with the prick who murdered me.

  Bud was using his teeth now because he’d really taped those bastards on tight.

  11 ... 10 ... 9 ...

  Dana ran into the hall.

  “Where the hell you going?” Bud shouted after her.

  Across from where she was standing was the window into a laboratory filled with metal tables and fancy instruments, but it wasn’t the room’s contents she was interested in. Bud was counting down as she raised her pistol to the window. Shielding her eyes, she fired three rounds. The sound of shattering glass pierced her ears. She snatched one of the shards and tossed it to him.

  “Use this, for God’s sake.” And that’s when she saw the timer. It was down to five seconds. Bud started sawing through the electrical tape in short spastic motions, sweat pouring down his face. An almost overwhelming urge to run gripped Dana when the timer hit two seconds, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. In a single motion, Bud yanked the detonators free and threw them across the room as the digital read out went to 0.

  Dana pressed her back against the wall, suddenly aware her body was covered in perspiration. “You stupid son of a bitch,” was all she could say.

  •••

  They headed back to basement level 1. Dana was carrying the briefcase and the gun. Ahead of her was Bud, his hands tied behind his back with a length of wire she’d scavenged from the maintenance room downstairs. That same pair of legs she’d seen before were still poking into the hallway, and it wasn’t long before she recognized the blue coverall pants they were wearing.

  “They better still be alive,” she told Bud. “For your sake.”

  And when they reached them, Finn and Johnson looked dead. Perhaps Johnson more so since her mouth was open, along with her eyes, which were staring off into the distance. The ghostly moaning sound frightened her. But the noise wasn’t coming from Johnson. Finn’s eyes peeled open, barely slits, and Dana could see by the paleness of his face he’d lost a lot of blood. She felt for a pulse on Johnson’s neck and finding none, pulled off the black woman’s shirt. Desecrating a dead friend felt horribly sacrilegious, but Dana needed something to stem Finn’s blood loss.

  “What took you so long?” he whispered.

  She smiled, not about to tell him the real reason she’d been sent. She undid the buttons on his coveralls and found two holes. One in the abdomen and the other near the ribcage. Sliding the sleeves of Johnson’s shirt around him, she tightened it over the wound as a makeshift tourniquet.

  Now Finn had his hand in the air, his index finger pointing across the corridor and into the next room. From here, Dana could see inside although she couldn’t be sure what her eyes were seeing. It almost looked like a cryo-chamber straight out of a sci-fi movie. A glass porthole centered near the top and right below that a plate marked with a name:

  J. BLACKWOOD.

  Finn

  Seated in a leather chair, reclined ever so slightly, Finn glanced around, sure he’d been here before. He was in a sterile white room somewhere deep within Tevatron, and some guy with a tattoo gun was carving Finn’s convict number into his wrist. Johnny was his name, and under that lab coat he was wearing, nearly every square inch of his flesh was covered in ink. Only the letters along the knuckles of his right hand H A R D followed by A S S on the left offered the slightest hint he wasn’t like the other Poindexters Finn had seen running around this underground laboratory.

  You’re dreaming, a tiny voice somewhere in the back of his mind called out, but Finn didn’t care.

  “So, this guy comes into the shop last week,” Johnny says. “Musta been 6’5”, 6’6”. A real stretch with pasty-white skin like he hasn’t left his house in months. Tells me he’s never had a tat before, so I ask him, ‘You got something in mind?’ Guy says, ‘Sure do. I want my girlfriend’s name on my dick,’ and then the crazy sonbitch drops his pants. ‘Her name’s Elizabeth,’ he says, standing there with nothing bigger than a pinky finger poking out between his legs, and I say, ‘Buddy, I don’t think Elizabeth’s gonna fit. How does Liz sound?’ ”

  Tears were streaming down Finn’s cheeks. “Ah shit, that’s messed up.”

  “Hey, a job’s a job,” Johnny said, stopping briefly to wipe the blood from Finn’s wrist.

  Finn was still drying the tears when the door opened and in walked Harry Thomson. Hair as white as ash, cheeks sunken and ringed with prominent, almost spooky-looking cheekbones. The dark suit he was wearing made him look like some kind of undertaker. Johnny was back working on the tattoo, Thomson standing over him, watching the curve of the number five begin to take shape and for a moment the only sound in the room was the mechanical whir of the tattoo gun.

  “I trust your accommodations are acceptable?” Thomson asked, staring at the tattoo as though it were a topless woman.

  Finn scratched an itch on the tip of his nose with his free hand. “Sure beats the shit out of Ely State. But I got a question for you. You think this is gonna work?”

  Thomson looked up from the tattoo, puzzled.

&n
bsp; “You think it’ll make me forget?”

  “Your crimes? Is that what you’re asking me? Will the procedure make you forget your crimes?”

  “No,” Finn replied emphatically. “I’m talking about those women who were killed.”

  “The ones you murdered,” Thomson shot back. “Isn’t that what you’re really trying to say?”

  “It doesn’t matter one bit to you if I’m guilty or not, does it?”

  Thomson seemed to contemplate this. “The memory erosion process is designed to wipe your slate clean, so to speak. A reprieve from traumatic memories, that’s what we’re after. Rehabilitation. Guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it.”

  “So then, answer my question. That horrible look on their faces,” Finn said. “All I want is to stop seeing them every time I close my eyes.”

  Thomson laid a clammy hand on Finn’s shoulder, and the touch made his stomach turn. “You will, soon enough.”

  •••

  Finn came awake and threw up at once. He was in a tent stuffed with dead, still air, the heat stifling. The pillow his head rested on was soaked through, and even with so little to go on, he could tell the moisture wasn’t from his stomach spilling out its contents.

  A girl hovered over him.

  Nikki.

  She slid a bucket next to the cot he was lying on.

  “How long was I asleep?” Finn asked, still wondering if this were a dream. The fingers of his right hand went to his face and found a thick tangle of beard where his cleanly shaven cheeks used to be.

  “A long time,” Nikki said. Her eyes fell to the bandages covering his chest and abdomen. “We weren’t sure you were gonna make it. Count yourself lucky Kim was here.”

  “Kim? She a doctor?”

  “Sort of,” Nikki said, dabbing his forehead. “More of a veterinarian, but she was able to get the bullets out.”

  Nikki wasn’t telling him something.

  “How long have I been out?”

  The young girl’s eyes didn’t waver. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and the sleeves of her shirt were rolled up at the elbows. “A while.”