The Living Saga (Book 2): Enduring

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  Edition 1.0

  ISBN: 9781072270140

  Published 2019. Morristown, TN.

  Copyright © 2019 Jaron McFall

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the legally binding copyright holder.

  Please address all letters to:

  Jaron McFall

  P.O. Box 151

  Russellville, TN 37860

  For Annabeth.

  You’ll never know how brightly your light shines. Daddy loves you, sweet little angel.

  Notes from the Author:

  1. All of the characters in this book are fictional. Any similarities to real people or situations are merely coincidence.

  2. Don’t forget to leave feedback on Amazon and social media. I appreciate any and all feedback (even negative feedback). It can only make my writing better.

  3. This is book number 2 in the series. But, there is also a novella, Journals of the Survivors. It takes place between books 1 and 2.

  Thank you for choosing this book!

  The Living Saga - Book Two:

  ENDURING

  By: Jaron McFall

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter One: HOMELIFE

  Chapter Two: THE ELECTION

  Chapter Three: SETTLING DEBT

  Chapter Four: PROPANE RUN

  Chapter Five: INTO THE HORNET’S NEST

  Chapter Six: TRUTH

  Chapter Seven: MISSION PLANNING

  Chapter Eight: THOSE WHO CREATE

  Chapter Nine: THE WORST OF LUCK

  Chapter Ten: NEW PLANS

  Chapter Eleven: PREPARATIONS

  Chapter Twelve: LEAVING

  Chapter Thirteen: THOSE WHO DESTROY

  Chapter Fourteen: STOWAWAY

  Chapter Fifteen: DEEP SHADES OF GREEN

  Chapter Sixteen: THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

  Chapter Seventeen: THE END OF A BAD THING

  Chapter Eighteen: THE END OF A GOOD THING

  EPILOUGUE

  PROLOGUE

  High-pitched growls slipped from the lips of the dog as a crowd came thundering down a long alleyway. He barked violently as the crowd drew nearer.

  Standing behind the dog was a young man. His hair, like his dog’s hair, was long and shaggy. They both looked like they had been rolling around in something foul.

  “Well, this is one way to spend my eighteenth birthday, Blitzstark,” the boy said to his dog.

  Blitzstark continued growling with his occasional high-pitched bark ringing in the morning. Though the dog was only twenty pounds and didn’t even stand two feet tall, he was ferocious.

  The boy knew that less than a minute had passed since he was backed into the corner. It was not part of his plan, but he hadn’t planned on a dead-end ally being in his way.

  He drew a short steel pipe in each hand from leather sheathes on his belt. The sheaths were tucked behind empty gun holsters.

  When the infected humans were less than five feet away, the boy lurched forward. The moment he did, Blitzstark followed his master into battle.

  The boy swung his pipes like a whirlwind. He felt his forearms rattle with each strike. Despite the discomfort from his exhaustion, he continued to strike.

  To his left, just inside his peripheral vision, he could see his dog grab an infected human by the neck and pull it to the ground. Before the boy fully comprehended his dog’s actions, Blitzstark was already gone. The boy followed through with fluid-like grace and bashed the skull of the man the dog had taken down.

  Spit flew from the boy’s mouth as he shrieked in pain. His knuckles had caught an unseen piece of metal rebar protruding from the concrete. Blood splattered the street as the boy swung his pipe again and again. The spatter drove the infected insane with hunger. The boy used this tactic to his advantage.

  He turned and jumped onto a metal trash bin. It was only four feet tall and completely unstable, but it had just enough height to give him a small advantage.

  The boy jumped with all of his might. He felt the trash can tip over with the force of his leap as he sailed over the tops of the infected. The boy landed exactly where most people would find themselves in a nightmare: directly in the center of a pack of infected humans.

  Chapter One:

  HOMELIFE

  “Hit the showers!” Eric shouted over top of the roar of the truck engine. He turned the ignition key to the off position and the noise died before he climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  Cedric was sitting in the bed of the truck in the dark shop. The truck was a large diesel, but it wasn’t easily recognizable what the make and model of the truck was anymore. It was covered in makeshift metal armor. Even the bed of the truck was covered in an iron bar cage.

  Cedric popped open the cage door at the bed of the truck and nearly fell out. Steph jumped out behind him and patted him on the back. When she pulled her hand away, it was wet and sticky.

  “Yeah,” Steph said, “shouldn’t have done that. You need a shower the most.”

  “Did it get on me?” Cedric asked with a smile.

  Steph shined a flashlight across her hand. It glinted red in the dim light. “A little bit,” she answered.

  Before Cedric and the others could get to the decontamination showers, the barrier door burst open and a large African American man came inside the anti-chamber of the shop.

  “The Hell ya’ll doing out there past curfew?” Ben shouted. “And the Hell ya’ll going on a mission without approval and with only three people?”

  “Stick it somewhere,” Eric said as he pushed past Ben.

  Ben reached out to grab Eric’s arm but thought better of it and lowered his hand.

  “At least tell me what you were out there doing,” Ben said.

  “Why?” Steph asked. “You’re not in charge.”

  “Someone has to be accountable. Tell me what happened out there.” Ben demanded.

  “Sixteen infected within the perimeter of outpost one,” Cedric said pulling his gun belt off. He dropped it in a metal pan and it clanked with the heavy weight.

  “Why wasn’t I informed?” Ben asked.

  “Like the girl said,” Eric answered. “You ain’t in charge around here.”

  Ben reached out again, but this time grabbed Cedric’s right arm. Without thinking, Cedric whipped his left hand out. He planted a fist directly in Ben’s forehead, knocking his head backwards. It was just instinct and reaction that he had built up since fighting the infected.

  Ben took a step backwards and snarled, “Freakin’ jerk.”

  “If you don’t want to be met with force, don’t use force,” Eric said calmly.

  Ben, finally realizing he was outnumbered, turned, and stalked away.

  “Now,” Steph said talking to no one in particular, “I’m getting this blood off.”

  The three of them finished the short walk to the decontamination showers. The system was set up to mix a small cocktail of disinfectants with the water. The crew stayed fully dressed, except their weapon belts, and let the sanitizing water soak into their clothes to wash away the blood and gore.

  After a few minutes, the men parted ways with Steph and went to separate locker rooms to properly shower and change clothes.

  After the few short hours of sleep he was able to get, Cedric laid in his bed staring at the ceiling. It had been alm
ost six months to the day since he had moved into the vocational building of Cherokee High School. His family had been violently uprooted due to the plague sweeping the nation.

  Cedric’s family, along with their small group of friends, were the first to arrive at the vocational building. But since their arrival, they had grown to almost a hundred people.

  He glanced at his watch. “Well,” he muttered to himself, “let’s get this day going.” As he rolled out of bed, he felt the stiffness in his joints and muscles from the fight the night before.

  Cedric immediately started his morning routine. He quietly got dressed so he wouldn’t wake his roommate, Adam. Adam wasn’t really Cedric’s little brother, but he might as well have been now. His parent’s had died at the start of the plague and Cedric had saved his life. He’d even saved him from the boy’s own infected father.

  After he was fully dressed in his normal clothes, Cedric started packing on his gear. All of his gear and weapons had been cleaned by the inventory crew while he was showering. Overtop of his flannel shirt, Cedric piled on homemade armor that had been cobbled together from paintball armor and scrap metal. His armor continued over his blue jeans with a pair of plastic lined ATV riding pants.

  He then started humming the Batman theme from the old Adam West tv show in his head as he strapped on his belt. This had started because of the jokes his brother made. The belts that the Nighthawks wore were not typical belts. They were wide leather belts used by construction workers to hold up tools. Cedric had scavenged a lot of these materials from the local hardware store. On the belts were at least a dozen different pouches and holsters.

  He had a gun strapped to each hip. Right behind the guns were homemade holsters that held short steel pipes. On the back of the belt, where police officers normally held their handcuffs, Cedric had a pouch that held a pair of cut-proof kitchen gloves. They were the kind with silicone grips on the fingertips. Every one of the Nighthawks had the same setup on their own belts.

  After he was mostly armored and geared up, Cedric grabbed the small gym bag that held the rest of his accouterments. He quietly unbolted the door and slipped into the hallway. Cedric peered down each way to make sure that the doors on either end of the hallway were still clear.

  Cedric’s room was above the workshops of the vocational building of the high school. Since it was the smaller of the two buildings in the high school, it was the easiest to clear out. Unlike the main building, this building had running well water. However, once the numbers of people had gotten to around fifty, the group had started an expansion project to move into the main building.

  “Two more days,” Charlie said from Cedric’s right.

  Cedric jumped at the noise. He hadn’t heard his brother leave his room. “Yeah,” Cedric said, “I just feel bad that they’re down there. I really want everything to be finished. It’s not exactly safe.”

  Charlie, Cedric’s older brother, was heading up the expansion project. Cedric peered out of the hallway windows into the shop below. He could see a dozen or so tents scattered where the trucks were normally parked.

  “We’re safe inside the walls,” Charlie replied.

  “We’re safer than they are,” Cedric rebuffed pointing his finger out of the window. “We have doors that actually lock.” Cedric had installed old fashioned door bolts on each of the classroom doors. Every night, the occupants bolted themselves in for the evening in case any threats managed to get inside.

  “They’re still inside these walls,” Charlie said. “That’s better than they did have. Besides, like I said, two more days and the project will be done.”

  Cedric and Charlie, along with a group of other men and women, had managed to completely clear out the main building of Cherokee High School of the infected. In the last two months, Charlie and a group of workers had been working to reinforce windows and doors, block off unnecessary access, and generally reformat and secure the building for habitation. This included running water lines and electrical wiring to the building.

  “Besides,” Charlie continued, “you need to be more worried about you and your team today.”

  “They aren’t my team,” Cedric said a little defensively. He put emphasis on the word my.

  “Yet,” Charlie amended. “But once we vote today, I’m sure they will be.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m voting for Eric. And I’m telling everyone else to vote for Eric. I don’t want to lead the Nighthawks,” Cedric replied.

  After the group had grown in population to the fifties, they began dividing their labor and specializing their jobs. Cedric, along with a combat wounded veteran named Eric, had started a group of people to go outside of the walls. Their job was to “find and secure necessities and people,” as Eric put it. When they started to organize the groups and begin nominating leaders, Cedric had nominated Eric to lead the Nighthawks. Eric had nominated Cedric, but Cedric was sure it was just him being polite.

  “Either way,” Charlie pushed on, “You guys have a job today. Right after the election, you’ll be in harm’s way again. It’s really stressing mom and dad out.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Cedric said. “This one’s a cakewalk. I scouted it two days ago. The building is fenced in, no movement. Even when I blew the whistle, nothing came. It should be smooth sailing.”

  “God, Cedric, don’t let that be the phrase that jinxes you.” Charlie chided.

  Cedric and Charlie left the hallway and continued to the mess hall. Originally, this room had been a culinary arts classroom, but it had a full restaurant style kitchen, so it was perfect for the group.

  “You know,” Charlie said laughing, “if you do lose the election, you lose your bedroom too, right?”

  “Eric can have it,” Cedric said. “It’s not worth it.”

  In his mind, Cedric wasn’t a leader. He didn’t want to lead. He didn’t need to lead. He was only seventeen. Charlie had argued that since Cedric turned eighteen soon, it was close enough, but Cedric wasn’t convinced.

  Once in the mess hall, Cedric found that breakfast wasn’t quite ready yet. Some of the others were already sitting at tables drinking coffee and tea, but the food was still being cooked. Cedric waved at the cooks, which included his mother, and sat down with his friend, Ross. Charlie veered to a different table and sat with his wife, Denise, and father-in-law, Ben. Cedric wasn’t currently on speaking terms with Ben after the previous night. They used to be friends, but now they had some bad history.

  “What’s up?” Cedric asked as he sat down with Ross.

  “I’m just finishing up the numbers,” Ross responded. Cedric had recently begun to notice Ross’s accent was changing. He figured that it was due to being stuck in a building with so many southern accents. Ross was a military brat, so he didn’t really have a single accent. He did occasionally say some southern words, like “mashed taters” instead of “creamed potatoes,” but for the most part, it sounded more like how standard American-English sounds on television sitcoms. Now, Ross was starting to speak with a slight East Tennessee accent—dropped G’s and combined syllables.

  “Which numbers?” Cedric asked.

  “Food stores, supply needs, wish lists… You know, the fun stuff.”

  “Right,” Cedric said, “my shopping list.”

  Ross chuckled as he scribbled notes in the margins of his papers. “When do you think you’ll be out on the next run?” he asked.

  “Today,” Cedric said. “But it's just for propane. Winter drained the last of it.”

  “Yeah, I think we have a week left. But I don’t see how the generator can use that much propane,” Ross remarked.

  “Not by itself,” Cedric said, “but the stoves, ovens, and water heaters use a lot. Plus, we had a really cold winter. The heaters in the greenhouse and shops use propane, too.”

  “Right,” Ross said. “But at least Ron said the solar panels should be finished in a week or so.”

  Ron had been an electrical engineer before the world ended, so it was the perf
ect job for him now. The school had installed the solar panels years ago, but they weren’t directly tied to the electrical systems of the school building. Ron was working on resolving that issue so that the school could reserve its limited propane supply. It was their hope that they could have enough electricity for all of the basic necessities and only use the propane in emergencies.

  “Yeah, if he can manage it, that is,” Cedric said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be able to repair them?” Ron said as he came up from behind Cedric and sat down. He didn’t sound offended, but rather curious.

  Cedric turned to see Ron and his family standing behind him. Karli, Ron’s daughter was smirking because Cedric had been caught talking about her father. While they hadn’t passed notes with a “check yes or no” box, Cedric had considered Karli his girlfriend for nearly as long as they had been stuck in the school building. He knew that Karli felt the same way. Because of their relationship, Cedric knew her father pretty well now.

  “Well,” Cedric said to Ron in an explanatory tone, “I didn’t know if you had all of the tools and materials you needed. Do you?”

  “Actually,” Ron said, “I don’t. I have most of the materials, but I’m out of propane. I need it for the cutting torch.”

  “Are the tanks completely dry?” Cedric asked. He turned back to Ross to make sure he had heard him right.

  “No,” Ross said looking through his papers. “I just did those figures yesterday.” Ross quickly flipped pages for a few seconds. “Thirty gallons in tank three,” he read robotically, “Fifty in tank two. Tank one is dry.”

  “So, what’s the holdup?” Cedric asked.

  Ron stared at his cup of coffee, refusing to answer.

  “Ron…” Cedric said, prodding. He knew Ron didn’t like to get in the middle of arguments, much less instigate them.

  “Ben wouldn’t let my crew get any for the torches. He flat out refused.” Ron said. He didn’t sound scared or upset about being bullied by Ben, he just kept his matter-of-fact tone.