Hunger (The Hunger Series Book 1) (29 page)

Ella’s eyes met Peter’s. She looked grim, but not without hope. Then she mouthed the words, ‘Get ready.’

Peter fought against his widening eyes when Anne’s right hand came back out from behind her back, clutching a handgun. Jakob must have reacted, though, because Kenyon started to turn around. But he wasn’t fast enough. Anne pulled the trigger twice, both rounds striking Kenyon’s back. He flailed, arms open wide, releasing Ella, who dived away. Peter adjusted his aim, firing a single round near Mackenzie, the Marine diving for the ground, and then turned his weapon on the pilots through the Black Hawk’s glass windshield. Both pairs of hands went up.

Anne stepped away from Kenyon, joining her mother. They retreated together, heading back toward the truck.

Kenyon gasped and pushed himself up, the two rounds stopped by a bulletproof vest.

“Start changing the tire,” Peter said to Jakob, and then to Ella, “Help him.”

While they headed for the truck, Peter approached Kenyon and kicked his arms out, knocking him back down to the pavement. “Stay down, asshole.”

He looked back at Mackenzie, who still had a weapon, but hadn’t tried aiming it again. “Will they follow your orders?”

Mackenzie nodded. “If he’s dead.”

“He’s dead,” Peter said, keeping his weapon trained on the back of Kenyon’s head. “He’s still breathing, but he’s dead.”

Mackenzie pushed himself up with a grunt. He understood the situation. It was a truce. Mackenzie and the pilots would live, and in return, they’d leave with the other choppers. But Kenyon wasn’t going anywhere. The choppers could swing back and finish them, but Mackenzie had proven himself to be an honorable soldier. Peter didn’t exactly trust him to keep his word, but he had no choice. Even if he could hijack the Black Hawk, the other two helicopters would shoot it down.

“Done,” Mackenzie said. “We’ll give you a few minutes to get sorted. But...you know they’ll come back for you.” Peter thought he was talking about the Stalkers until he added, “It might even be me.”

ExoGen would come for them. For Ella and Anne.

“It’s a big country to get lost in,” Peter said.

“Yes, sir,” Mackenzie said.

“Asshole traitor.” Kenyon spat at Mackenzie’s feet. The action drew everyone’s eyes to the fresh wad on the black boot, and it gave Kenyon a fraction of a second to move.

And he did.

One moment, Peter was standing over the man, the next he was flat on his back, coughing, his weapon fallen several feet away. He heard a scuffle and sat up in time to see Kenyon knock Mackenzie down with a solid punch.

Peter climbed to his feet just as Kenyon whirled around toward him, extending his leg for a vicious spinning kick. Peter leaned away from the kick, but Kenyon wasn’t done. The missed kick propelled Kenyon around, and he put the speed into a back kick that Peter managed to avoid, but not without stumbling. The barrage continued, Kenyon throwing kicks and punches with the fluidity of a man who could take on a gang of men and never stop moving. The rounds that had struck his back definitely hurt him, but he was good at ignoring the pain. Peter had been through days of similar punishment.

Physically, Kenyon had the advantage, and he delivered several hard punches, driving Peter back, further out of reach of his weapon.

And then Peter got pissed.

He stepped into a kick, letting Kenyon’s shin snap his rib. Then he locked down the man’s leg with this arm. Kenyon threw a punch, connecting with Peter’s cheek, but the blow left his arm extended long enough for Peter to take hold of it also. As his head pulled back up, recovering from the punch, he put the motion into his neck, while pulling Kenyon with both hands. When his forehead connected with Kenyon’s face, there was a crunch and a whimper. Then Kenyon’s body fell slack, and Peter dropped him on the pavement.

Sometimes all the finesse in the world couldn’t stand up against a good headbutt.

Peter stumbled back as both he and Mackenzie reached for their weapons. But when they stood again, neither took aim.

“Five minutes,” Peter asked.

“We need them alive,” Mackenzie replied. “Right now, letting you go is the only way to make sure that happens.”

Peter took a step back. “You won’t find them.”

Mackenzie climbed into the chopper. “For both our sakes, I hope you’re right.” Then the door slid shut and the rotors spun faster.

Peter hobbled back to the truck. “Jakob!”

“Almost done!” Jakob shouted. He was crouched down by the tire, Ella by his side, spinning the nuts back onto the wheel. The shredded tire was on the road next to him. Peter rounded to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel. He turned the key, and the engine bellowed. He felt the back end lower and then heard the clang of the tire kit landing in the truck bed. Both passenger-side doors opened. Ella climbed in the front. Jakob in the back beside Anne and Alia.

“Next stop Boston,” Peter said, “Or wherever we end up before that.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Anne said.

“
Anne,
” Ella said, sounding surprised.

Peter shrugged and grinned. “It’s a thing we do now.”

“End of the world lingo,” Jakob added.

“Fuckin’ A,” Alia said, trying it on for size, but sounding fragile and small.

Ella sighed. “Fuckin’ A. Now let’s go.”

As the sound of the helicopters faded, Peter sped away in the opposite direction, leaving the open small town behind them and heading into a maze of roads through a thickly forested area. They’d come close to dying, again, and he hurt even more than he had just ten minutes ago, but they were back together. A family again. And the man who tried to pull them apart... He was in for a rude awakening.

Boston or bust,
Peter thought.
Fuckin’ A.

Epilogue

Danger, like the odor of a rotting body, can be sensed before its source is seen by the eyes. Kenyon knew that. So when he awoke, his face tacky with congealed blood, he lay still, keeping his breathing shallow and even. He didn’t move his eyes. Even movement below the lids would give him away.

He smelled blood. His own.

But there was something beyond it. Something tangy. An animal musk.

He heard the flow of air, moving in and out of oversized lungs. Felt the tickle of it sliding through his arm hair. Smelled the breath of a predator. Pictured the old meat caught between teeth.

He could feel the pressure of the bodies surrounding him. Felt the shifting sun on his skin as they swayed back and forth.

Without opening his eyes, he knew he was surrounded by Rattletails.

That there was no escape.

To open his eyes was to die.

So he remained motionless, hoping that like some predators, the Rattletails would only consume meals they killed. If they believed he was already dead, they might leave him be. But if they were scavengers... The first bite would let them know he was still alive.

He tried to think of ways to fend off the attack, but he was unarmed and he doubted the CSO or that bastard Mackenzie had left him anything. They wouldn’t risk banishing him. This was a death sentence, pure and simple.

They knew it.

He knew it.

And the Rattletails looking down at him knew it.

So why weren’t they attacking?

Without an answer, his thoughts turned to Ella. Like Mackenzie, she had betrayed him. But it was
her
treachery that really stung. It burned him to the core. Filled him with a rage that was beyond description. He had loved her. Had protected her. Had endured hell and crossed two thirds of the country to bring her back to safety. But she had used him. Maybe from the very beginning. She had taken advantage of his affection, manipulated him to her ends and left with a man who was a stranger to him, but clearly not to her.

How did she know him?

Who was he?

Kenyon ran the man’s face through his mind, inspecting it for some sort of familiarity. Something about him... The eyes. It was his eyes. He knew those eyes.

They were Anne’s eyes.

The realization cut through his fear and sent his mind spiraling toward mania. Lacking any concern for his own safety or future, he shouted, “What the hell are you waiting for?”

When there was no sudden bite, or surprised roar, or any response at all, he slowly opened his eyes. The sun burned his retinas, forcing his eyes nearly shut. Then a silhouette slid into the light.

This is it...

Burn in hell, Ella.

The silhouette resolved slowly, shifting from a large mass, to a distinct shape.

Not a Rattletail. A humanoid shape.

“Alive,” said a gruff, feminine voice.

Kenyon tried to push himself up, but a spear tip poked his chest, holding him in place.

“Truck man enemy,” the woman said. There was no inflection, but he thought she was asking a question.

He leaned to the side and viewed his interrogator, free of the sun’s glare. The face was long and feminine, sporting long, curled teeth that rose from the mouth and punctured holes in the cheeks. Her lean body was framed by a mane of wild hair that hung from her head and grew from her back.

She crouched over him, pushing the spear tip into his armor, snarling as she spoke again. “Truck man enemy.”

Kenyon grinned. “Yes. Truck man enemy.
Hate
truck man.”

The woman stood and withdrew the spear. “Kill truck man?”

Another question.

Kenyon sat up and wasn’t stopped this time. He rose to find himself at the center of a battlefield. Three large, hairy beasts lay dead and dying. Two male versions of the humanoid monster beside him were dead as well. And all four Rattletails, including the thirty-foot specimen. These ExoGen creatures had fought a life-and-death battle around his unconscious form, one side eager to consume him, the other something else. He saw that same primal hunger in the woman’s eyes, but something else. She hadn’t lost all of her humanity, or perhaps had simply regained some of it to survive. The result was an ExoGen with real emotions and complex thoughts, all leading to a desire he recognized as a mirror of his own heart.

“Revenge?” he asked.

The woman grinned, stabbing her face with her teeth. “Revenge. Kill truck man.”

“Kill them all,” he added.

The woman offered her long fingered, talon-tipped hand.

Kenyon accepted.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

You have just finished the very first Jeremiah Knight novel. I hope you enjoyed it! It’s been a wild ride (not ExoGen wild, but wild enough) and I’m thrilled with the final product. I’ll be releasing two post-apocalyptic books a year, one in the Hunger series and the other in the upcoming Berserker Saga, which is about Vikings living in a world rocked by multiple apocalyptic events. Enough said.

So, you might be wondering who the heck I am. While
Hunger
is the first book in a new series and the first title with ‘Jeremiah Knight’ on the cover, I’m not a first time author. I’m actually an international bestselling author with 50+ books under my belt and have been published by a ‘Big 5’ publisher for the past eight years, under a different name. During this time, I’ve also self-published a number of books under multiple names and in partnership with other indie authors. Jeremiah Knight is the most recent of those names.

Why multiple names? Two reasons. First is contract issues. I wouldn’t have been able to publish
Hunger
under my real name because of my contract with my publisher. Second is over-saturation. I’m fairly prolific on my own, but because there are other authors writing in my worlds, I often release more books a year than a small press. Having that many books under one name is overwhelming to readers. So I break them up by genre and style and let myself slip into those various author mindsets when writing their books. It’s a little split-personality of me, but it works. So now, when I want to explore a world on the brink, recovering from global catastrophe, I become Jeremiah Knight.

If you enjoyed this freakish take on the end of humanity, and have time to post a review on the websites of your online retailer or Goodreads, that would be amazing. It might not seem like a big deal, but they really do help sell books online. And the more we sell, the more I get to put the human race through the wringer...or blender. I read every review and truly appreciate them.

If you’d like to know my not so secret identities, visit me at
www.bewareofmonsters.com
, where you can sign up for the newsletter, connect on Facebook, and find scads of novels in numerous genres, under different names, but unified by a central theme: monsters. Big surprise, right?

Thanks for reading!

—Jeremiah Knight