Sanctuary Read online

  ​Bryce noticed Catori slipping away from the group and walking up to her horse, beginning to rub his face. He walked over to her and began to stroke the animal’s back. "You know it's going to be alright, we're going to be alright." He said.

  ​"I doubt it." She replied honestly.

  ​Bryce wanted to push his point and give her some impassioned speech about how they would all make it through this together, but he knew she was right, and he wasn't in the mood to lie or talk out of his ass. So, he stayed quiet, and just continued to stroke the horse with her in silence. After a few moments, Byark walked out of the thick woods and towards them, three squirrels hanging from his waist by their necks. "Hey man, glad you guys all made it back okay." Bryce called out to him.

  ​Byark held a finger to his lips as he approached. "Infected all around us, closing in fast, dozens of them." He whispered as he walked by, continuing towards the rest of the group. Bryce and Catori shared a fearful expression before turning and following the big Swede. "Everyone quiet." Byark whispered harshly as he approached the others, and before he could continue his warning, shrieks and screams echoed through the woods all around them. They all waited in frozen silence in the hopes that they would get lucky and that the creatures would pass them by without noticing them, but luck wasn't on their side.

  ​One of the creatures rushed out from behind a tree, heading directly for Alejandro. He raised his M4 and fired a three-round burst into the top of its head just before it reached him, and the attack was sprung. Infected rushed at them from every direction, and gunfire erupted as bodies began to drop rapidly. Catori's horse reared up and pulled at the reigns that were tied to a tree in fear and panic. The leather strap connecting to its saddle snapped in half, and the large animal began to run into the woods. Three infected leapt onto it, almost simultaneously, and began to bite and claw into the poor creature’s hide, ripping chunks of flesh from it and eating it alive as it screamed out in tortured pain. Blood splattered across the trees and ground.

  ​"No!" Catori cried out in horror as she watched her animal friend being killed. She brought up her rifle and fired at the group of infected on top of it. Those in the group that were armed and still had ammunition fired round after round, but for every infected they dropped, two more appeared into their view.

  ​"There's too many of them, we have to move!" Bryce yelled out as he grabbed two, random bags of things that they had scavenged from the cabin and hefted them over his shoulders.

  ​"Let's go!" Byark called out as he freed the blade of his axe from the chest of an infected woman. Bryce could see Sarah and Vincent helping Matt to his feet and following Catori into the woods. Lauren and Tara quickly followed the others. Connor fired off the last shot in his shotgun into the side of an infected woman’s head just as she was about to pounce on Byark from behind. The big Viking turned, and upon realizing what just happened, nodded at the younger man. They both ran forward to join the others. Bryce started deeper into the woods with Grunt on his heels when he noticed that Alejandro hadn't started his retreat like the rest of them, continuing to fire into the never-ending wave of infected.

  ​"Alejandro! Let's move! We have to go, now!" Bryce called out to the man as the infected masses continued to close in on them.

  ​Alejandro turned and locked eyes with Bryce for a moment before opening his mouth and letting out an enraged scream, his stitches ripping and blood drenching his face and neck as he did so. "Over here! Come on mother fuckers!" He yelled in a mushed voice from his injuries as he started to run in the opposite direction, firing rounds into the crowd and trying to draw their attention, leading them away from the others.

  ​"No! Don't do this!" Bryce pleaded.

  ​"Run!" Alejandro replied as he continued to move further and further away, the mass majority of the infected following him, their closest and loudest food source.

  ​"Fuck!" Bryce yelled in sad frustration, turning and following the others. The remaining infected cried out from just a few yards away as they followed, gaining on him quickly.

  EPILOGUE

  ​John walked down the metal hallway leading to the bunker’s command center, Pyotr and Ezrah walking beside him. He scanned his badge at the little, black box on the wall next to the door and the thick piece of metal quietly slid open. The three of them entered the room. "Master Chief, what do we owe the pleasure?" Colonel Danvers greeted him.

  ​Ezrah and Pyotr moved quickly, taking out the Colonel's two, armed guards. Pyotr slitting the throat of one, while Ezrah shoved his blade into the base of the other man's skull. John drew his sidearm and leveled it on the Colonel just as the older man was about to reach for his own weapon. "Don't." He said calmly.

  ​"What is the meaning of this?!" Danvers barked, the fear welling up inside of him evident from the cracking of his voice.

  ​"You're being relieved of your duty Colonel." John said as Ezrah grabbed the man and forced him to his knees, disarming him.

  ​"Think about what you're doing you fucking fool, this is treason against the united states military and those that govern it. You're signing your own death warrant." Danvers tried to reason.

  ​"This might get us killed, but we're no traitors. You're the ones that have betrayed the united states and its people. You destroyed the fucking world and when the few survivors show up at your doorstep begging for protection and mercy, you turn them away to die at the hands of the monsters that you idiots created. No more. This will be a place of sanctuary for survivors. You're no longer calling the shots." John said, raising his pistol to the Colonel's head.

  ​"Please, don't" Danvers started to beg, but his words were cut short when John squeezed the trigger.

  ​"We've seized control of the CC, begin your approach." Ezrah said, holding a finger to his ear piece.

  ​They watched on the room’s camera monitors as over two dozen civilians were led to the bunker entrance by some of the other men and women on their side of the coup. "Permission to unseal the bunker doors chief?" Pyotr asked in his thick, Russian accent.

  ​"Permission granted, let's welcome our guests to their new home." John replied with a huge grin; his honor finally being restored.

  Thanks for reading! Please leave a review on Amazon to let me know what you thought.

  Upcoming release schedule:

  The Cult of Aamon: Volume One-(Mid 2019)

  ​The Cult of Aamon: Volume One is a collection of five, interconnecting short stories that all loosely revolve around the awakening of a demon king and his rebirth into the mortal world. In They’re Laughing in the Fog- A bus filled with high schoolers and a detective transporting a young woman and her son, who happen to have a mysterious and violent past, wreck outside of a fog filled town. As the survivors of the wreck start getting picked off one by one, those that remain start to realize that something unbelievably sinister is going on, and that somehow the young boy is at the center of it.

  In Porphyria- A young girl with an extremely rare illness spends her life indoors, never able to see the light of day or feel the sun on her skin. After falling in love with a boy on the internet, she’s no longer able to control her more carnal desires and the strange urges that have been building inside of her. When she leaves her house during the cover of night, violence ensues.

  In Duality of Man- Jonas gets to experience being on both ends of a violent home invasion, having to decide which he would rather be, the criminal or the victim.

  In A Sibling’s Peril- Ian spends time at home with his family. The more he interacts with his family however, the more he realizes something is off, that they aren’t exactly…. Right. He starts to realize that one member of his family is missing and that the others will cover up the truth no matter what the cost. Even if it means imprisoning Ian in his home.

  In Virtual Therapy- Jim is a mental patient in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. He has no memory of his life before the hospital, or even his life in the hospital for that matter. When he is offe
red the chance to try out a new and state of the art virtual reality system that is supposed to be able to access his suppressed memories and help him relive the events of his past, his doctor advises him to take part in the experimental treatment. Once Jim’s consciousness is transported into the virtual world however, he is forced to live through horrific, nightmare versions of his already violent and tragic past.

  The End We Chose: (Book Two) Firefight-(Late 2019)

  ​Firefight will see our survivors continuing their fight against the infected and humans alike, finding new allies in their quest for survival as the world deteriorates and quite literally burns around them.

  The Reclaiming-(Late 2019)

  ​In this novella, Mark is an outdoorsman and an avid hunter who lives just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. On his routine hunting trip to bag a moose for the winter, he’s attacked by a pack of vicious wolves with blood leaking from their eyes. Bloody and broken from the attack he just barely managed to survive, Mark makes his way back to Fairbanks to get emergency medical treatment for both himself and his dog. Dead animals and humans alike liter the streets of Fairbanks when he arrives, and he soon realizes that the world he knew has changed drastically. Animals are banding together and coming for human beings, reclaiming what is rightfully theirs from the one species that seeks to destroy it.

  The End We Chose: (Book Three) Hybrids-(2020)

  ​No spoilers! You haven’t even read book two yet.