The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Read online

  THE LAST DAYS

  Six post-apocalyptic thrillers

  Bitter Harvest (Season of the Harvest #2)

  by Michael R. Hicks

  Origins (The Wasteland Chronicles #2)

  by Kyle West

  Infected (Slow Burn #2)

  by Bobby Adair

  The Shock (After #1)

  by Scott Nicholson

  The Onset (Contamination #1)

  byT.W. Piperbrook

  Melt Down (Breakers #2)

  by Edward W. Robertson

  BITTER HARVEST

  (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2)

  Michael R. Hicks

  Get the first Harvest book free!

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978-0984673087

  BITTER HARVEST (HARVEST TRILOGY, BOOK 2)

  Copyright © 2012 by Imperial Guard Publishing, LLC

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

  Published by Imperial Guard Publishing

  AuthorMichaelHicks.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing a book is always a team effort, and this one is certainly no exception.

  To start off, I’d like to thank Tom Swigart, a longtime friend and colleague who taught me how to add, and helped me figure out just how bad the harvester plague was going to be.

  Then there’s my primary editing team: Mindy Schwartz, Steph Hansen, Marianne Søiland, and Frode Hauge. They spent a lot of time going through my mishmash of prose, and through their efforts my writing skills (and your reading experience) continue to improve.

  After the editors come the beta readers, who had the joyful task of reading through the edited draft and helping me refine it. I’d like to offer a big round of applause to Melody Rose, Kevin Boucher, Jay Lamborn, Rich Duncan, Patricia Egen, and Tera Montgomery for their time and patience in helping me make this book a better reading experience for my readers (like you).

  Last, but certainly not least, I’d like to thank my wife, Jan, who is my alpha reader. Her support and faith in what I can do have helped lead us into a new life, and I love her all the more for it.

  FOREWORD

  This is the second book of the Harvest Trilogy, and picks up the tale a year after the events described in Season Of The Harvest. If you haven’t read that first book yet, I highly recommend that you do, especially since it’s free as an ebook. If you just want to dive into Bitter Harvest, that’s okay, too, as there’s enough backstory in this book that you won’t be completely lost. I hope.

  Now it’s time to buckle up, dear reader, for the ride is about to begin…

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you worried?”

  Bryce Moore glanced over at Angelina Matheson, who rode in the passenger seat as he drove the rented sedan east across the Arlington Memorial Bridge into Washington, D.C. It was late January, and the temperature was hovering in the mid-thirties. The landscape was still draped in a mantle of snow left by the worst storm of the winter, two days before. White sheets of ice clung to the banks of the Potomac River, a stark contrast to the dingy gray frozen muck that lined the roads. Directly ahead, the Lincoln Monument rose from the white landscape like a tremendous ice sculpture, framed by yet more threatening, gray clouds. The weather forecasts all predicted more snow.

  Fortunately for those concerned about such things, the previous storm had hit after the inauguration ceremony. Bryce suppressed a cringe as he recalled the election campaign that had culminated in a crushing defeat for the incumbent party in November. To call it acrimonious would have been a ridiculous understatement. President Norman Curtis had made clear early on that he had no plans to run for reelection. This had saved him the embarrassment of not being offered the nomination. There would be no political redemption for a president who had authorized a nuclear strike on American soil during peacetime, no matter the reason. Most of his remaining time in office had been divided between helping people in central California where the bomb had detonated, and fending off impeachment proceedings by Congress. There had also been a lot of talk on the Hill about forming a war crimes commission.

  The opposing party’s candidate had carried the election in a landslide.

  But the question of what to do about Curtis lingered. As far as the public knew, the bomb he had ordered dropped over Sutter Buttes in California had been to save the world from a biological super-weapon developed by the Earth Defense Society. The EDS, as it was more popularly known, had been described as a terrorist group, and was blamed for a series of worldwide attacks that had destroyed the world’s largest repositories of seeds, killing thousands of people in the process. The public story was that the FBI had hunted down the Earth Defense Society and cornered its members in a Cold War-era missile base north of Sutter Buttes. That was when the government found out, or so the story went, that there was a biological weapon in the base that, were it ever released into the atmosphere, could potentially obliterate human life on the planet.

  Faced with that nightmare possibility, Curtis had ordered a B-52 to destroy the base with a nuclear weapon.

  In the aftermath, the administration had proclaimed that the Earth Defense Society had been destroyed, and that the FBI and the United States Air Force had saved the human species from extinction.

  As Bryce, Angelina, and a handful of others knew, this story was a lie carefully bound by strands of truth. If a war crimes commission were formed to investigate the dropping of the bomb, it would inevitably lead to the exposure of that truth.

  More than that, it would no doubt lead to the revelation that two of the Earth Defense Society’s most prominent members, Jack Dawson and Naomi Perrault, who had both been at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list, were alive. Not only that, President Curtis had created a highly secret agency to investigate the true origins of what insiders had come to call the “EDS affair,” and had put Dawson and Perrault, with fabricated identities, in charge. If that secret ever leaked, though the EDS had been the “good guys,” the political ramifications, at home and abroad, would be staggering.

  The personal implications for Jack and Naomi, who had accepted Curtis’s offer to start new lives as Bryce Moore and Angelina Matheson, could be fatal.

  Jack grimaced as he recalled the last video teleconference he and Naomi had held with Curtis, who had always used their real names in the tightly controlled meetings and video sessions. The now-former president had held meetings, by video or face to face in the White House, every two weeks. For a long time, before the truth had been revealed, Jack and Naomi had thought he was a collaborator with the true enemy, what they called the harvesters. But like the other “collaborators” the harvesters had gathered around them, Curtis had been duped, and had spent the rest of his time in office trying to atone for the sin of ignorance. While Jack had never liked the man, he had come to respect him.

  But the last words he spoke to Jack and Naomi as the President of the United States offered little comfort. “This is it,” he had told them. Deep lines of worry were etched across his forehead. “I’ve spoken to the incoming administration and briefed President Elect Miller on your agency and mission. Unfortunately…” He bit his lip and looked away for a moment in a gesture that had profoundly disturbed Jack. It was the first time he had ever seen Curtis falter. “Unfortunately, he thought the entire thing was a bu
nch of hogwash.”

  “What?” Naomi had leaned forward, her face a mask of disbelief.

  “I assume you had the Secret Service detail verify his status?” Jack asked.

  Curtis nodded. “Yes, it was done with our feline friends and thermal imagers.” He looked down at the top of the conference room table for a moment. Then he said, “The transition between the administrations has been strained, to say the least. Daniel Miller doesn’t want anything more to do with me than is necessary, and I can’t really blame him. Who would believe any of this? The only reason I do is that one of the bloody things tried to kill me. And the rest of it…” He waved a hand dismissively.

  “Where does that leave our agency?” Beyond their own safety, Jack and Naomi had been worried about the vital work they had been doing at the Soil Erosion Analysis Laboratory, or SEAL, the boring-sounding name given as a cover to their agency. “There’s still an enormous threat out there.”

  “I just don’t know,” Curtis told him. “I just don’t know.”

  The summons to come to Washington and meet with the new administration officials had finally come after Curtis was out of the White House and Miller had been sworn in as president. Jack and Naomi, using their aliases, of course, had flown from their small agency’s headquarters in San Antonio, Texas to Reagan National Airport. It had been the first communication from the administration, despite repeated calls and emails. They had simply been stonewalled.

  Upon their arrival in Washington, instead of being met by a limousine and driven to the White House as they had been in the past, they’d had to rent a car for the drive to the vice president’s residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in northwest D.C.

  It was not an auspicious beginning.

  “Jack, did you hear me?” Naomi always called him Jack, because the middle name of his alias was John, just as her identity conveniently had Naomi as one of two middle names. It hadn’t been intended for convenience, although they tended to use it as such, but for security. In case they slipped in public, there was a plausible explanation. She reached over and gently gripped his arm.

  “I’m sorry.” He blew out a breath. “Yeah, I’m worried. I understand Miller wanting to keep Curtis at the end of a ten foot pole. But giving us the cold shoulder all this time…”

  “I know. I think what worries me more is that we haven’t heard from Richards.”

  Carl Richards had been a senior Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent who, through a series of tragedies in the EDS affair and his status of hero at its explosive conclusion, had wound up as the acting Director of the FBI. He had worked closely with Jack and Naomi, but a week ago had stopped returning their calls. Jack had been worried that something had happened to the irascible man, but Dr. Renee Vintner, another survivor of the Earth Defense Society who worked as a consultant for the FBI, had assured him that Richards was fine, at least physically.

  “But something’s up,” Renee had said. “He won’t tell me anything about it, but I know he’s really upset.”

  Jack took the exit for the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway and headed north past the Kennedy Center and the Watergate Hotel. “I can’t believe Carl would hang us out to dry.”

  “I know he wouldn’t if we were in danger,” Naomi answered. “But he’s also a creature of duty, Jack. If Miller’s tightened his leash, Carl isn’t going to fight it. That’s just the way he is.”

  Jack couldn’t think of anyone he’d want covering his back more than Richards, but Naomi was right. So long as Richards wasn’t asked to do anything illegal or downright underhanded, he would do what his boss said.

  They drove in silence the rest of the way, both too preoccupied with whatever awaited them to enjoy the winter beauty of snow-covered Montrose Park. Jack got off on Waterside Drive, then took a left onto Massachusetts Avenue. He drove around to the north entrance of the Naval Observatory compound, where he and Naomi presented their identification to the guards. After checking the computer in the guard post, the anti-vehicle gates were lowered, and they headed in.

  The vice president’s residence at Number One Observatory Circle was originally built to house the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory, and was located in the northeast quadrant of the circular compound. Jack parked where the guard had indicated.

  Naomi had read that the house boasted more than nine thousand square feet of living space, but Jack wasn’t sure how they had shoehorned that much into the compact-looking structure that had been built in the Queen Anne style, with a prominent turret and large veranda gracing the front.

  As they got out of the car, they were met by four Secret Service agents, who again checked their identification cards and drivers licenses before escorting them up a set of stairs and into the house through the rear entrance.

  Jack had to restrain himself from shaking his head as they were led through the kitchen. Leaning close to Naomi, he whispered, “Are we such an embarrassment that we can’t just come through the front door like everyone else?”

  “Looks like it.” She spoke the words through gritted teeth, and Jack could see the color rising in her cheeks. She was furious.

  The Secret Service agents led them from the kitchen past the staircase that rose from the reception hall, then ushered them into the sitting room.

  There, waiting for them, was Vice President Andrew Lynch.

  Two other men were also in the room. Carl Richards, whose expression was carefully neutral, and another man that Jack didn’t recognize.

  “Mr. Dawson. Dr. Perrault.” The vice president stood and extended his hand to shake theirs, even as they stood there, gaping at his use of their real names. “You know acting Director Carl Richards, of course. And this is his replacement, Kyle Harmon. He’ll be taking over the FBI shortly, as the Senate has already confirmed his nomination, although that isn’t public knowledge yet.”

  After Jack and Naomi shook hands, trying to recover from the double shock of having their identities exposed and discovering that Richards had been ousted as the FBI’s Director, Lynch said, “Please, sit down.”

  Jack and Naomi sat on the white sofa that backed onto the north-facing windows, while Lynch, Harmon, and Richards sat in matching armchairs facing them.

  “Sir…” Jack began, but closed his mouth as the vice president held up his hand.

  “Let me do the talking for now.” Lynch made it quite clear he was in control of this meeting. “You’ll have a chance to ask questions when I’m through.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jack sat back in the sofa, forcing down his temper as he crossed his legs, trying to look relaxed. He flicked a glance at Richards, who was examining his shoes with rapt attention.

  “Unlike the president, I’m not one to mince words,” the vice president continued, “so I’ll come right to the point. The Soil Erosion Analysis Laboratory, the cover for the agency that former President Curtis created to investigate the so-called harvesters, is disbanded as of today. All the government assets will be turned to the Department of Homeland Security. All the personnel who had been assigned to the agency will be given two weeks severance.” He looked Jack, then Naomi, in the eye. “That includes the two of you.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Naomi interrupted Lynch’s monologue. “There’s still a terrible threat hanging over the country, and probably the world. We’re the only thing that stands against it!”

  Lynch shook his head. “Dr. Perrault, with all due respect, please tell me one thing, just one, of significance that you and Mr. Dawson have unearthed since your agency was formed?”

  “If our work is going to be judged simply on a metric of reports produced, or…”

  “Just one, Dr. Perrault.” Lynch held up a hand with his index finger raised. “Just one thing that could either substantiate the threat or prove that you could do something against it with the millions of tax dollars the government has given you, other than rewriting or refining data that you already had.”

  “We’v
e made huge strides in understanding the harvester genetic code, and we’ve also learned a great deal about how they manipulated people like President Curtis and FBI Director Ridley.”

  At the mention of Ridley’s name, Richards looked up from the floor, a haunted expression on his face.

  “We’ve also mapped their social network,” Jack added. “That allowed us to identify the industrial areas they were targeting, and…”

  Lynch cut him off. “What about the bag?”

  Jack and Naomi exchanged glances. Richards looked up again at that one.

  The Bag, as it had come to be known, was their boogeyman. The harvesters had used humanity’s technological base to create strains of genetically engineered crops, starting with corn, that served as a means of artificial procreation. Any earthly creature, including human beings, that consumed the seeds or the fruits of the resulting plants would literally be transformed into one of the monsters. They had seen the results during the terrifying last hours in the old Cold War missile base in California that had served as the secret headquarters of the Earth Defense Society. The harvesters, through their proxy corporation New Horizons, had created thousands of tons of the lethal corn seed, and with great fanfare had shipped them from a central processing facility. It would have been a global disaster, except that Renee Vintner had pulled off a brilliant infiltration of the routing information for the tractor trailers hauling the seed, directing them to secure disposal facilities instead of distribution centers.

  Everything had gone well, except for one thing: a solitary bag of seed, perhaps a hundred pounds, was missing. That could be anywhere from one hundred and twenty-thousand to more than three hundred thousand individual seeds. Each could produce a corn stalk, and every kernel on every ear of corn was a biological weapon. The bag had been on the manifests, but had not been on the truck. And there was no record of what had happened to it.