Primal Shift: Volume 1 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Read online

  Shining the light underneath each of the cots, it wasn’t long before Dana saw that the barracks were empty. They hadn’t sustained the same amount of damage as the rest of the base, but somehow she’d felt sure she’d find at least one of two stragglers hiding under their beds, or trapped beneath a piece of collapsed ceiling.

  She brought the radio to her lips. “Barracks clear.”

  Alvarez’ voice came back in response. “Roger that.”

  He was on the other side of the base, collecting Coons and any of the others he found outside. Keiths hadn’t given him a gun, and Dana was glad. Al should just be counting his lucky stars he was out of the brig and not locked away, watching them do the big boy work. If he played his cards right, maybe when things returned to normal, Keiths would see fit to give him some kind of pardon. Maybe even write a recommendation to have him reinstated.

  But try as she might, something inside her continued to niggle. On the one hand was her deep desire to stay and do her duty by helping her fellow sailors. On the other was her father, at home in Bernal Heights, about a 20-minute car ride away, all alone now that her brother and mother had passed on. Was he hurt somewhere or dead? Worse still, had he ended up like Coons and Hodge and all the others, babbling incoherently like a mental patient?

  Dana was pushing her way into the gymnasium when her walkie talkie came to life.

  “Dana, get over here right away. Something’s happened.”

  It was Alvarez.

  Spinning on her heels, she charged back through the barracks and into the main reception area, where she ran past the overturned desks Hodge had been hiding behind when she first returned to base. Past that was the hallway that led to the comms room and the brig.

  No sooner had she turned the corner than she saw the body lying on the ground. A few steps later, and she saw that it was Nash – one of the violent sailors they’d rounded up not long ago. His skull has been crushed by a blow to the head. Alvarez stood over him, clutching a Maglite covered in blood.

  “What the hell did you do?” Dana shouted.

  In the background, radio static crackled.

  “I heard a scuffle and ran in and saw him attacking Keiths. Nash hit him over the head, and when I got close, he came after me. Woulda killed me, too, if I hadn’t laid him out.”

  Dana’s hand was covering her mouth in disbelief. Her insides were quivering as though something in her belly wasn’t setting well. She was going to be sick, and she fought her way through the nausea.

  “Where’s Keiths?” she asked, trying not to sound panicked or fearful. “Is he ... ?”

  Alvarez glanced underneath the desk, and Dana stepped into the room, following his gaze. There was Keiths’ body. The CO’s right leg was bent at a strange angle. His head covered in dark, clotted blood.

  Dana felt her legs begin to give out. Alvarez caught her. He was still holding the bloody flashlight.

  “I-I don’t understand,” she said faintly. “All the survivors who’d been affected were secured away. How did Nash get out?”

  “Beats the shit outa me. I haven’t even checked the room we were holding them in.”

  The one cell they had was just off the comms room, but that was far too small for the numbers of sailors they’d collected.

  When the blood was flowing back to her head and the sparkles flashing before her eyes began to fade, Dana stood, removed her pistol, and aimed it at Alvarez.

  “What the hell are you doing, are you crazy?”

  “You let Nash out on purpose, didn’t you?”

  Al’s hands were in the air. “Dana, you’re not making any sense, why would I do something stupid like that?”

  “You were afraid Keiths would throw your ass back in the brig as soon as we were done. There was a reason he didn’t give your sorry ass a gun, and now I know he made the right decision.”

  Al removed the silver cross from around his neck and kissed it. “Dana, I swear to God I had nothing to do with Keiths’ death. You’ve got to believe me.” Beads of sweat were rolling down his forehead and into his eyes. He blinked them away, wincing, but his focus never wavered.

  Could he be telling the truth?

  Just then the radio came to life. It was a woman’s voice, but the words were hard to make out.

  The message stopped and then played again. It seemed to be on a loop.

  “What’s she saying?” Dana asked, her eyes glued to Alvarez’ every move.

  He let the flashlight fall to the floor with a loud clunk and sat down, adjusting the knob, careful not to disturb Keiths’ body at his feet. The signal was weak, and it wasn’t coming from DHS headquarters, that much was clear.

  Alvarez’ ear was practically pressed to the speaker. I think she’s saying “The end of the world is here. The rest sounds like coordinates.”

  “Coordinates to what?” Dana asked.

  Carole Cartright

  4:35 p.m. (MST), July 4th, 2017

  Salt Lake City International Airport, UT

  “He’s dead,” the silver-haired woman said solemnly, her fingers searching for a pulse at the man’s neck and not finding one.

  The words didn’t register. The love of Carole’s life was still on board the wreckage of Flight 317, surely dead by now. With no one to put out the flames, the fire in the cabin continued to burn. No one could live through that. She’d had a single chance to save her husband’s life, had done more than most would have dared, but it had all been in vain.

  Beside her, Aiden wiped the tears from his eyes. But crying was a luxury Carole didn’t have. Not anymore. She had to stay strong, for the kids. Nikki looked sad, a feeling that would soon turn to devastation, once the fog in her head began to clear. She was Daddy’s little girl, and when the loss finally hit her, it might prove to be more than she could bear.

  “Alice Reed,” the woman said, planting a hand on Carole’s shoulder. Carole laid a hand on top of hers. “I’m so sorry about your loss,” Alice said, “but we do need to get moving.”

  Carole nodded solemnly. With plump cheeks the color of cotton candy, Alice had a kind face, and Carole was thankful for that. She was well dressed, but not extravagantly so. Mid- to late 50s. Her glasses were cracked, but otherwise, she didn’t appear to be hurt.

  In the distance, against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains and a multicolored sky that was quickly filling with thick black smoke, was the control tower and Concourse B. Although little more than a blur from this distance, that was where they were headed, in the dim hope of finding someone who might help them.

  Aiden stepped across the skid marks on the runway where their plane had veered off and crashed. A deep gouge mark cut into the ground where the wheels assembly had been torn off.

  “I’m really thirsty, Mom,” he said.

  “We all are, Honey. We’re heading back to the terminal, and we’ll find some water there.”

  Nikki wasn’t saying anything, though her left leg was already showing improvement.

  Alice leaned toward Carole. “I’m worried about your daughter. She didn’t seem to know who you were.”

  Carole agreed. She’d already considered the idea. Her daughter was displaying signs of retrograde amnesia. She’d seen a program about it on the news not long ago. Sometimes things like this were short-lived after traumatic events. Sometimes they weren’t. Carole remained quiet, perhaps hoping that ignoring the problem might make it magically disappear. It was terribly foolish, of course, but right then there weren’t many options available, apart from hoping and praying

  Alice struggled to keep pace. She was slightly overweight and definitely out of shape. “I don’t know how the people were in your half of the plane,” Alice said, “but most of them couldn’t undo their own seat belts.”

  “Maybe they froze with fear.”

  Alice seemed to contemplate this. “I don’t think it was just fear. I think somehow they simply forgot how to do it. One guy near the exit needed help, and when I reached out to grab his arm, he tried to
attack me.”

  Carole was biting her thumbnail. “Aiden, don’t run too far ahead now.” She turned back to Alice. “The same thing happened to me. I chocked it up to plain old panic.”

  “I think it’s something else,” Alice said. “I run a home for the elderly, mostly folks with degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. It’s eats away at the memories, but it also takes the stuff you thought you’d never forget, like how to eat or speak or unfasten a seatbelt. As if they’ve become children again.”

  “But Nikki isn’t like that. Isn’t like those others on the plane suffering from the Alzheimer’s.”

  “No, and she’s lucky, but look at us. We weren’t affected at all, neither was Aiden, and yet look at everyone else. Maybe there are varying degrees of it.”

  Nikki was ahead of them now, walking next to Aiden, and Carole watched her, hoping that if Alice was right, that her daughter had suffered some mild form of Alzheimer’s, and that she’d snap out of it soon.

  Concord B was getting closer, and Carole couldn’t see any movement, either from the planes still docked at each terminal, or from any of the ground crew vehicles, which all appeared to have been left running.

  “I know it doesn’t make sense,” Alice went on. “Maybe I’m just in shock myself and don’t know it yet. Crazier things have happened.” She patted Carole’s hand with one of her own. It was dotted with age spots and bits of dried blood. “Your daughter’s amnesia,” she started to say.

  “It’ll pass,” Carole cut in firmly. She appreciated Alice’s concern. Heck, she knew herself something was terribly wrong, but her mind would only allow her to deal with one trauma at a time. The crash and resulting loss of her husband still hadn’t relinquished their grip on her. Maybe they never would.

  Before long, they were in the shadow of a giant airliner, parked at the gate.

  “Oh my goodness,” Nikki said pointing up toward the windows.

  There were people inside, writhing in their seats. Some were running up and down the aisle.

  “What’s wrong with them, Mom?” Aiden asked.

  “I’m not sure, Honey, I think they’re just scared.” The words came out effortlessly, but even she no longer believed it.

  A pair of sliding glass doors loomed ahead of them. Beyond that were stairs that led up to the various gates for Concourse B. It looked dark inside, and the group paused when they reached the entrance.

  Carole waved her hand in front of the sensor, and nothing happened.

  “The power’s off,” Alice said. “We’ll need to pry it open.”

  Aiden pushed between them and slid his fingers into the cracks, straining to push the two halves apart. A slim crack appeared. “Stick your hands in and help me,” he squealed.

  They did, and slowly the two doors began to part.

  Inside, the blast of frightened voices hit them at once.

  Would this place be any safer than the plane they’d barely escaped from? Carole wasn’t sure, but the right now the airport represented shelter, and that beat sitting on the tarmac, waiting for help that may never arrive.

  They crested the stairs, and their noses were immediately assaulted by the warm smell of sewage, as though every toilet in the airport was backed up.

  Or maybe people forgot how to use the bathroom.

  But the thought didn’t have a chance to do more than glance fleetingly across her mind because the scene before them was sheer chaos: People were running in every direction, some cowering between the rows of airport seats. There was something odd about each and every one of them, and it took Carole less than a second to spot what it was. None of them were carrying any suitcases. How many times had she heard stories of passengers dying in accidents because they’d refused to release a bag of clothes? It didn’t make any sense, but seeing suitcases left scattered the length of the concourse like worthless pieces of trash made it obvious these people weren’t thinking clearly.

  Maybe they’ve forgotten the suitcases belonged to them, a little voice told her.

  The sound of grunting behind them drew their attention at once. Two figures had entered from outside. A man in a torn Hawaiian shirt, blood smeared across his face, reminding Carole of a Plains Indian, smeared in battle paint. Beside him was a black man in mechanic’s overalls. They were wielding enormous socket wrenches the size of medieval maces. Fixed in the men’s cold glare, Carole knew at once that these men weren’t here to help. They were here for an altogether different purpose, and judging by the snarls on their faces, it was a purpose that wouldn’t end well for anyone in their way. And that predatory look in their eye, as though they’d spotted an easy kill, and it wasn’t a moment later when they began charging up the stairs, grunting like a pair of cavemen, that Carole screamed the only thing she could.

  “Run!”

  Shadows whipped by them as they ran for their lives. Thin strips of light bled in from outside, casting long, distorted shadows, Concourse B stretching out to an almost nightmarish length before them.

  The two men, Hawaiian shirt and Mechanic’s Overalls, had set their sights on Carole, Alice, Nikki, and Aiden for no discernible reason and were unrelenting in their pursuit, other than to occasionally club an innocent person who had strayed too close to them.

  Bodies were strewn everywhere in the shattered guts of the airport. Some under rubble from a collapsed section of roof. Others had gone over railings and had obviously died when they hit the floor below. More than once, a prone corpse appeared out of the gloom and forced the group to jump over it or risk falling to the ground and face being captured by the psychos chasing them.

  They had escaped the burning plane where Carole’s husband had perished, only to find themselves trapped in this new hell. Carole was sucking air in greedily and running at a pace she knew she couldn’t keep up forever. Beside her, Alice was struggling to keep moving, and it was clear she’d be the first to run out of steam.

  The men were maybe 30 yards behind them. A distance they could cover in less than 10 seconds.

  An airport transportation cart used to move the elderly and the handicapped from gate to gate had crashed into the wall on their right. A figure lay dead underneath the front tires.

  “Keep running,” Carole shouted as she jumped onboard. She had exactly 10 seconds to figure out how this thing worked before her head was opened up like a watermelon. Jim had taken her golfing a few times in years past and he had been the one to drive the cart, the way he always drove the family van when they went anywhere, but she knew there was a lever at her feet that needed to be flipped, if only she could only find it in time.

  The others had continued ahead, but were slowing down.

  Aiden turned and shouted through cupped hands. “Mom, forget that thing, just come,”

  She glanced back and saw the two men, bearing down on her, both of them grinning menacingly, their chests heaving. They were glad she’d stopped and also angry that she’d run in the first place, and more importantly, they were eager to show her who the boss was around here.

  So was Carole.

  She jerked the lever and floored the accelerator.

  A loud methodical beeping cut through the air as the cart shot backward, up over the dead body and right into Hawaiian shirt and Overalls. The cart shuddered as Hawaiian disappeared underneath, his muffled cries becoming shrieks of pain. Then she crashed into Overalls, and the impact threw him back toward the large glass windows where he hit his head, leaving a bloody smear. But he didn’t fall. The large wrench dropped from his hands and went clanging to the floor. His eyes became dazed, and Carole flipped the switch, the wheels spinning for traction as she headed in the other direction.

  She felt the cart pass over Hawaiian Shirt once again before it spat him out the back end, leaving a mangled and bloody mess. She glanced back and saw he was moving, albeit barely, and comforted herself with the knowledge that they’d left her no other choice.

  Slowing only long enough for the others to hop onto the cart, she could see
the intersection where Concourse B met Concourse C. There were people in there, darting around the shadows like frightened spirits. All Carole wanted was to get the hell out of there and find someplace safe. She was in a nightmare that she couldn’t wake from. A nightmare that had already taken her beloved husband. A nightmare that was only just beginning.

  Larry Nowak

  7:45 p.m. (EST), July 4th, 2017

  Manhattan, N.Y.

  The sunlight outside was starting to fade by the time Larry finally exited through the fire escape into the alley. The smells of New York in the summer were all there, assaulting his senses almost at once. Urine mixed with hot dogs from the street vendors nearby. Except that was where the normality ended. In the distance, the wail of car alarms blared in a cacophony of competing rhythms. Beyond that were the screams.

  At the end of the alley, he saw a group of people running, but from what?

  Even from his limited vantage point, the city looked like a war zone. Chunks of debris from skyscrapers mingled on the ground with shards of broken glass and bodies.

  Larry glanced up, past the towering buildings, into the late afternoon sky. The shimmering lights he’d spotted as he left the shattered hole he’d once called his office were still dancing, high in the atmosphere. Orange, green, and blue, all weaving in and out of one another. He stood in awe for a moment, oblivious to the death and the mayhem going on all around him. A shriek pierced the air, and his hand instinctively went for his .38 in his suit pocket.