Plagued: Book 1
Authors: Eden Crowne
Plagued
,
Book 1
By Eden Crowne
Copyright 2015. All rights reserved
Published by CoolCats Publishing at Smashwords.
ISBN:
9781310320569
Discover other titles by Eden Crowne at
http://www.edencrowne.com
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely unintentional.
Time Capsule essay
Skylar Christensen
English 303, Mrs. Schneider.
The apocalypse is actually not as bad as you might think. My mom says the world today is still recognizable as the world she grew up in. Quieter, of course. Two thirds of the population – depending on who's counting – wiped out in the blood plagues following the bird flu epidemics equals a lot of quiet.
Stupid birds.
There are no zombies in our apocalypse. Lots of corpses and empty cities and towns, but no walking dead. America has a government and electricity and sanitation and water, TV and the internet. Negatives are trying to make sure that doesn't change. No matter how much the Victims Army and the Hemogoblin blood gangs might try. Redneck power!
That's what people call Negatives – people with negative blood types -- like me. Rednecks. The scarlet barcode tattooed on our necks once we turn sixteen and enter active duty marks us as 'safe'. We can go anywhere, even during the winter flu season. The only ones perfectly and completely immune. As such, we have a duty to our country. To serve and protect. Not just for the ten years of mandatory government or military work after high school, but always.
Civilization doesn't just rebuild itself, you know!
Unfortunately for the world, negatives are a single digit percent of the population, no matter the ethnicity.
Of course a lot of Positives survived the initial die offs. Some people have a natural immunity to viruses. Others are just really, really good at keeping their hands clean and wearing filters during the winter. Survival rates are way up now that the blood lottery is in place. Completely draining an infected person's blood and replacing it with clean blood cures the plague. The problem is, there's just not enough clean blood to go around. That's why we need the lottery. The lottery is a good thing.
Rednecks are trained and taught to serve their country with weapons handling and at fifteen, military tactical training. From sixteen, we go active. Active duty means HK's, Hunter Killer patrols. Blood has become the ultimate currency – that's what the news calls it – and there are people willing to kill to take i
t
.
I hope that whoever digs up our time capsule lives in a world we helped to make better. Peace out!
Sky, this is
much
to general. They can read facts in the history books twenty years from now when they dig up the time capsule. Make it more
personal.
A real slice of your life. Put in some family anecdotes.
Mrs. S.
New Blood
The body was tied to a tree; spread-eagled, arms wide. A bloody mess. Naked, deep cuts on the throat, wrists, and inner thighs. Sara Anne took one look and threw up. Which was not unusual, Sara Anne threw up on most patrols, body or no body.
Sky was okay. She knew he'd probably been dead before those wounds were inflicted. The Hemogoblin gangs would have drained him of every drop of blood before leaving the mutilated corpse to taunt the patrols and frighten civilians. To show everyone they weren't afraid of the Home Guard or Tactical Police.
Her squad scrambled after Control received an anonymous 911 call about a scarecrow in the University woods near the stadium. The team set up operations fast and quiet. They'd done this many times over the last six months.
Sergeant McNeil ordered Rickey in the mobile command van to send in a swarm of dragonfly shaped flybots. The tiny robots would scan for organics and explosives. Sky and the others fanned out, keeping about ten yards between them. Anonymous calls often came from the goblins themselves. They planted booby traps around the bodies and waited nearby to film the fun and slap it up on the Net.
The air surveillance 'bots swept the ground ahead as the squad moved forward. Their info was downloading to the screens on the right side of each helmet's visor. The 'bots were looking for heat signatures and formations that could mean pocket mines or trip wires.
Sky didn't watch the read-outs, using her eyes to search for heat flares that would mean a living body. Her level-up from the plague vaccine-- a side effect everyone with negative blood types experienced – had given her the ability to see far beyond the normal spectrum of light. Too far sometimes, she thought ruefully.
Sara Anne and Sky had been the first to reach the scarecrow.
Her eyes registered him as navy blue. Dead and gone. She and the flybots picked out two more bodies further on at almost the same time. They were an icy blue. That meant they hadn't been dead as long.
“Two more bodies at eleven o'clock from our position,” she radioed.
“''Bots have picked them up.” Rickey acknowledged. “Copy that.”
“Checking for infection” That was Chase, to her left.
Sky trotted over to his position. He had the scanner on one of the wounds. “Negative for infection, both of them. They're clean.” He clipped the scanner back on his belt. “This one's B positive, the other AB positive.”
Sergeant McNeil reached them, cursing long and loud. “Goddamn it.” He kicked at the dirt. “What a waste. Two uninfected human beings. We need every person we can get and those bastards just drain them. Bastards, bastards,
bastards
.”
It was true. The world needed repopulating. Every life lost affected all of them.
“Sir! Over here! I've got a breather.” Daphne, their Med Tech, waved several trees back and to the right. “Not a scarecrow. She's a Negative, but no barcode, sir. No immigration band, either.”
Sky looked towards Daphne and saw the warm pulse of yellow and orange next to Daphne's healthy red glow.
“Med team E.T.A. five minutes,” Rickey's voice came over their com.
“Copy that. Keep that Negative alive for intel, Daphne!”
“Do my best, sir!”
No code on a Negative meant Victims Army guerilla or a foreign infiltrator. Only American's wore the red code, and it was mandatory for all registered Negatives. Legal foreign visitors were issued a digital wristband with all their personal information when they passed through immigration.
Skylar's screen read-out flashed a proximity warning and the directional targeting in her helmet began to click. She tapped the motion tracker on her gun's screen and scanned it left and right ,waiting for the clicks to get faster and show her the direction.
“Two targets, Sarge.” They must be wearing some sort of stealth suit, neither of them was giving off any heat she could see. “In pursuit.”
The targets began to run and so did she.
The eucalyptus forest surrounding this side of the University was a good place to hide but not somewhere to slip out of silently. A thick layer of dead leaves and broken branches covered the forest floor, and every step was a snap, crackle, of sound. Sky could hear them a short way ahead; they were not even trying to hide their progress.
Another figure blipped on her screen. Looking up, she saw a red glow. No suit on that one.
Three now. Two in front, one following close. The clicks from her ear piece faded in and out as they ran between the close-set trees. They'd split soon. Either that or lead her into a trap.
“Christensen!” Sergeant McNeil's voice blared in her ear making her flinch. “Wait for back-up, Reynolds and Stephenson are behind you.”
If she waited for Daphne and Chase to catch up, she'd lose the goblins. The clicks in her ear were almost non-stop, she was practically on top of them; close enough to get a hit.
“Engaging target,” she said into her mic as she flicked her weapon to lock-on mode for motion seeking. It was after curfew. If anyone was in the forest beside goblins; they deserved what they got. The gunsight blinked green, and she fired four rounds in quick succession. They were just blips on a screen, she told herself. Hemogoblins are killers. Put them down.
There was a sharp cry and another and what sounded like a fall. Two lights blinked out. Two hits. One kept moving. The one without the suit.
“One active,” she called in. “Perp headed for University Drive. Pursuing.”
“Christensen hold your position!” She heard the words just before a hot red blur loomed out of the darkness, right on top of her. There was only enough time to think,
'wait, what?'
before something slammed into the side of her helmet, knocking her to the ground.
Flat on her back, the world spun in slow motion.
Blinking, she saw a figure move to straddle her. Glowing brightly from heat to her enhanced vision. A big man wearing a thick parka. He had a jagged combat knife in one hand that glinted under the full moon. He was grinning. Skylar fumbled for her weapon, trying to bring it up, but she couldn't seem to get her fingers to do what she wanted. Skylar met his eyes and saw her death mirrored there.
He raised the knife and she couldn't breath. The weight on her chest was crushing the air out of her lungs. It was a heartbeat before she realized the man was on top of her. Instinctively she struggled. Punching at his face and windpipe before realizing he was struggling as well. Someone was on top of him. No wonder she couldn't breath. The weight shifted. Something hit her hard in the stomach, and she choked on the pain.
Indistinctly, she saw two figures tumbling together near her. Crashing back and forth. Or maybe they were standing still and the ground was moving. She couldn't focus. She was dizzy and couldn't think. There was cursing and a shot. Just one short, sharp burst.
A face loomed over her just as she finally managed to close her fingers around the gun grip. A different face. Boy? Man? The features fuzzy, blurred. He pushed the gun aside.
“
Shh
,” his voice was low, soothing. “
Shh
, don't be afraid.” He pulled off her helmet and ran a hand carefully over her head.
She yelped as he pushed on her temple. Everything started to spin, and she had to turn on her side to be seriously and thoroughly sick.
Branches snapped nearby. She reached for her gun.
A figure in tactical gear held up both hands. “Skylar! It's me, Daphne.”
“Where'd he go?” Her voice was hoarse from being sick; her throat burning.
Daphne knelt close, the leaves crackling under her combat boots. Gently pulling Skylar's eyes wider, she shone her penlight on each pupil. “Who?”
“The guy.”
Daphne looked to Sky's left, bringing up her little light. “There's a body there. You mean that one?” Without waiting for an answer, Daphne stood and prodded the body with her foot until she could kick it over. “Damn girl. You nailed him good. Right in the heart.”
While calling in her report and position to Sergeant McNeil, Daphne tugged at the body's clothing. “Full on Goblin bastard. Tattoos and everything. Jerk off.” Standing, she kicked the body hard.
“No, the boy...man. The one who saved me.”
Daphne used the light on her gunsight to illuminate the area.
“There is no other boy, Sky. Just you and the corpse.”