Read What We Left Behind Online
Authors: Peter Cawdron
What We Left Behind (22 page)
My thanks also go to Ellen Campbell, but not just for her assistance with editing. Her encouragement is invaluable.
Kindle Scout is an exciting innovation by Amazon, giving independent writers like myself the chance to breakout and reach a larger audience. My thanks go to the Kindle Press team, editor Scott Calamar, and all the readers that supported this book while it was on display on Kindle Scout.
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What We Left Behind.
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All Our Tomorrows
has been included after a few short words from our sponsor.
Thank you for supporting independent science fiction. You might enjoy the following novels also written by Peter Cawdron
The crew of the Copernicus is sent to investigate Bestla, one of the remote moons of Saturn. Bestla has always been an oddball, orbiting Saturn in the wrong direction and at a distance of fifteen million miles, so far away that Saturn appears smaller than Earth’s moon in the night sky. Bestla hides a secret. When mapped by an unmanned probe, Bestla awoke and began transmitting a message, only it’s a message no one wants to hear: “
I want to live and die for you, Satan
.”
Shadows
is fan fiction set in Hugh Howey’s Wool universe as part of the Kindle Worlds Silo Saga.
Life within the silos follows a well-worn pattern passed down through the generations from master to apprentice, ’caster to shadow. “Don’t ask! Don’t think! Don’t question! Just stay in the shadows.” But not everyone is content to follow the past.
THE WORLD OF KURT VONNEGUT: CHILDREN’S CRUSADE
Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece
Slaughterhouse-Five
:
The Children
’s Crusade
explored the fictional life of Billy Pilgrim as he stumbled through the real world devastation of Dresden during World War II.
Children’s Crusade
picks up the story of Billy Pilgrim on the planet of Tralfamadore as Billy and his partner Montana Wildhack struggle to accept life in an alien zoo.
The Man Who Remembered Today
is a novella originally appearing in
From the Indie Side
anthology, highlighting independent science fiction writers from around the world. You can pick up this story as a stand-alone novella or get twelve distinctly unique stories by purchasing
From the Indie Side
.
Kareem wakes with a headache. A bloody bandage wrapped around his head tells him this isn’t just another day in the Big Apple. The problem is, he can’t remember what happened to him. He can’t recall anything from yesterday. The only memories he has are from events that are about to unfold today, and today is no ordinary day.
Anomaly
examines the prospect of an alien intelligence discovering life on Earth.
Mankind’s first contact with an alien intelligence is far more radical than anyone has ever dared imagine. The technological gulf between mankind and the alien species is measured in terms of millions of years. The only way to communicate is using science, but not everyone is so patient with the arrival of an alien spacecraft outside the gates of the United Nations in New York.
The Road to Hell
is paved with good intentions.
How do you solve a murder when the victim comes back to life with no memory of recent events?
In the twenty-second century, America struggles to rebuild after the second civil war. Democracy has been suspended while the reconstruction effort lifts the country out of the ruins of conflict. America’s fate lies in the hands of a genetically engineered soldier with the ability to move through time.
The Road to Hell
deals with a futuristic world and the advent of limited time travel. It explores social issues such as the nature of trust and the conflict between loyalty and honesty.
Monsters
is a dystopian novel exploring the importance of reading.
Monsters
is set against the backdrop of the collapse of civilization.
The fallout from a passing comet contains a biological pathogen, not a virus or a living organism, just a collection of amino acids. But these cause animals to revert to the age of the mega-fauna, when monsters roamed Earth.
Bruce Dobson is a reader. With the fall of civilization, reading has become outlawed. Superstitions prevail, and readers are persecuted like the witches and wizards of old. Bruce and his son James seek to overturn the prejudices of their day and restore the scientific knowledge central to their survival, but monsters lurk in the dark.
Twenty years ago, a UFO crashed into the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula. The only survivor was a young English-speaking child, captured by the North Koreans. Two decades later, a physics student watches his girlfriend disappear before his eyes, abducted from the streets of New York by what appears to be the same UFO.
Feedback
will carry you from the desolate, windswept coastline of North Korea to the bustling streets of New York and on into the depths of space as you journey to the outer edge of our solar system looking for answers.
Galactic Exploration
is a compilation of four closely related science fiction stories following the exploration of the Milky Way by the spaceships Serengeti, Savannah, and The Rift Valley. These three generational starships are manned by clones and form part of the ongoing search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. With the Serengeti heading out above the plane of the Milky Way, the Savannah exploring the outer reaches of the galaxy, and The Rift Valley investigating possible alien signals within the galactic core, this story examines the Rare Earth Hypothesis from a number of different angles.
This volume contains the novellas
Serengeti
,
Trixie and Me
,
Savannah
, and
War
.
Xenophobia
examines the impact of first contact on the Third World.
Dr. Elizabeth Bower works at a field hospital in Malawi as a civil war smolders around her. With an alien spacecraft in orbit around Earth, the US withdraws its troops to deal with the growing unrest in America. Dr. Bower refuses to abandon her hospital. A troop of US Rangers accompanies Dr. Bower as she attempts to get her staff and patients to safety. Isolated and alone, cut off from contact with the West, they watch as the world descends into chaos with alien contact.
Little Green Men
is a tribute to the works of Philip K. Dick, hailing back to classic science fiction stories of the 1950s.
The crew of the Dei Gratia set down on a frozen planet and are attacked by little green men. Chief Science Officer David Michaels struggles with the impossible situation unfolding around him as the crew members are murdered one by one. With the engines offline and power fading, he races against time to understand this mysterious threat and escape the planet alive.
Chapter 01: Moonlight
I’m sitting in the lounge, listening as Steve creeps down the stairs. It’s late. Moonlight falls through the window, lighting the darkness. A cool breeze blows through the opening, causing the lace curtains to drift to one side. The last of the candles burns down, leaving barely a lick of flame as it fights against the night.
A shadowy figure appears in the hallway.
“Haze?”
I’m feeling playful, frisky. I get up and walk silently toward Steve.
“David said it was urgent.”
“Oh, it is,” I say, running my hands up over his chest and around his neck.
Our lips touch, but Steve is hesitant.
“Is everything OK?”
“Life,” I say, pausing for a moment. “Life is wonderful.”
I pull the flap of his thick flannel shirt from beneath his belt and slip my fingers under the warm material, touching his skin. Our lips meet. My hands crumple his shirt as my fingernails run up over his bare chest.
“Wow,” he says, pulling away for a second. “What’s brought this on?”
“You’re surprised?” I ask, pushing him gently back into a sideboard by the window.
“Delighted would be a better term,” he replies, smiling in the soft light of the candle flickering on the mantle. “It’s just, I thought . . .”
My fingers fumble with the buttons on his shirt. I’m ready to tear the shirt open in frustration.
“You thought what?” I ask, between kisses.
“Nothing,” he says, pulling his shirt off. There’s a bandage on the side of his neck, and his right arm is wrapped from his elbow to his wrist.
“What if someone hears us?” he asks.
“Try not to squeal,” I reply, laughing playfully as he turns me around and lifts me up, sitting me on the sideboard. I lean back on the polished wood and wrap my legs around his waist, holding him tight. His hands slip under my shirt and up over my back as we kiss. I can feel him fiddling with my bra strap. My skin tingles.
Fingers wrap around my wrist, holding me tight. At first, I think nothing of them until my bra clasp comes loose and I realize that unclipping the straps took both of his hands.
Bony fingers dig into my skin, pulling at my arm.
Fear strikes my heart.
I twist away from Steve as he continues kissing me passionately.
“No,” I cry, and Steve looks confused.
I try to pull my arm from the sideboard only to hear Zee growl outside.
My heart races.
The breeze blows the curtains back for a moment, and I see dark eyes staring at me.
Rotten teeth snap at the air.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead.
Steve jumps back. He must see the terror in my eyes.
“Help!” I scream, pushing off the sideboard, but Zee has a firm grip. His head lunges through the open window. His teeth snap at the air as I try desperately to pull my arm from his grasp.
“He’s got me!” I cry, twisting and jerking against the zombie. I use the sideboard for leverage, trying to wrestle my arm free. For his part, Zee is trying to pull me out the window. From outside, the window must be almost at head height, so I have an advantage in that I can use the height against Zee, forcing him off balance.
Steve punches at the zombie, but to no effect.
He grabs a picture frame and brings it down over the head of the zombie. The glass shatters and the frame breaks, but Zee isn’t fazed. I pry at the zombie’s fingers with my free hand, but his nails dig deeper into my skin, drawing blood.
“We need help,” Steve cries, leaving me by the window.
“Wait! No!” I yell, terrified at the thought of being abandoned.
Steve yells for help. He grabs the chain hanging from the dinner bell mounted by the kitchen. With a burst of vigor, he rings the bell, clanging the chain back and forth and raising the alarm.
Neither of us have our guns. With so many people in the home, and being so far from the fence, most survivors don’t bother carrying their handguns indoors. Guns are uncomfortable when sitting down, digging into the small of the back or the side of my hip. Right now, I’m regretting that habit.
“Steve, please!” I yell, pleading with him for help, but he darts into the kitchen. The two-way door swings violently on its hinges behind him.
I can hear glass breaking in the kitchen.
Zombies moan, pounding on the door leading from the kitchen to the yard.
On the far side of the lounge, I see dark shapes in silhouette. Zee ambles past the windows by the barn. We’re surrounded.
“They’re everywhere,” he cries, running back into the lounge with a meat cleaver. I pull the zombie taut, stretching his arm across the sideboard. Zee reaches out with his other hand, trying to get a better hold on me. Steve brings the meat cleaver thundering down on the zombie’s right arm, severing it just above the wrist. I’m pushing so hard against the sideboard I go flying and tumble across the darkened lounge.
Dark blood squirts across the white lace curtains.
Footsteps pound down the stairs. Yelling and screaming fills the air.
More windows break. Glass shatters, scattering across the wooden floor.
Gunshots ring out, but they’re distant. Someone’s firing on Zee from outside the homestead.
The zombie hand is still clinging to my wrist. I frantically try to shake the hand loose.
“Get it off me! GET IT OFF ME!” I scream in a panic, trying to pry the fingers away from my wrist.
Steve grabs the bloody, severed hand and wrenches it free. He tosses it to one side and holds me. I bury my head in his shoulder, sobbing.
“We’ve got to move,” he says, dragging me to my feet. Zombies come crashing through the kitchen into the lounge, knocking into the coffee table and turning over chairs.
I’m blubbering. “What’s happening? Why? Why are they here? What are they doing here? They can’t get into the commune—they can’t!”
“I know. I know,” Steve says, wrapping his arms around me and rushing me into the hallway.
Gunshots echo through the old house, shaking me to my core. I flinch. Each shot seems to pass right through me.
Zombies crash through the front door, breaking the wood and busting the door frame.
“Upstairs,” someone yells, but I have no idea who. Everything is so confusing. People are running everywhere. “Quick, before they cut us off.”
My feet feel like lead weights. Steve drags me down the hallway. I’m still in shock.
Zombies burst in through the laundry door.
Dozens of arms reach through the windows in the library room.
“Go. Go. Go,” Steve yells, pushing me up the stairs ahead of him. He shoves me past zombies already clambering up the steps.
Zee grabs at us. He’s dark, menacing. In my mind, he’s everywhere. Withered hands grab at my shirt, tearing my sleeve.
I run. My feet thump on the old wooden stairs.
David’s on the landing above. He has his gun out, pointing at me. He fires. The shot is deafening, ripping by just inches from my head. I feel the compression wave of the bullet whip by my neck. A zombie falls beside me, his arms grabbing at my back as he collapses onto the stairs. Dying fingers clutch at the air.
