THE VALUE OF JADE (Mace of the Apocalypse #2)

  THE VALUE OF JADE

  By

  Daniel J Williams

  DARK INFECTION PRESS

  Copyright 2012 Daniel J Williams

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover Art by Judy Bullard

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  With a soft breeze whispering through the thin bedroom curtains, Sarah Thompson stirred fitfully in her sleep, her vision growing more frantic with each passing second. “They can’t come back! No! Not like before!” Her voice grew louder causing Bo, her husband, to roll over and murmur something in his sleep. He’d been up late going over some development plans.

  Sarah woke abruptly from her nightmare, bolting upright, disoriented and startled by its urgency. She began shaking Bo. “Bo, something’s going to happen. Wake up! We’ve got to do something!”

  Bo stirred, her words not making sense and his senses not fully awakened. “What? What are you talking about, Sarah?”

  Sarah shook him again and said excitedly, “We’ve got to be prepared! Something's coming!”

  Bo rubbed his eyes with his hands, trying to wake up. He was growing more agitated by the second. He wasn’t awake and he wasn’t able to grasp what she was talking about. “Who’s coming? What the hell are you talking about?"

  Sarah was almost in a panic. “If we don’t do something now, we’re all going to be dead!”

  Bo switched on the lamp next to the bed and studied his wife’s face. “You had a bad dream, Sarah. That’s all.”

  Sarah shook her head and tried to catch her breath. “It was no dream, Bo. It was a warning. I saw our encampment on fire. This very house..." Her voice trailed and her eyes grew wide as she recalled the images that had splashed across her sleeping landscape. In a low monotone voice, she said barely above a whisper, “Something's coming. Something bad. We are going to be attacked." Looking at him with deadly seriousness, she added, "We're going to lose a lot of people. There's more though. I couldn't see it all.” She remained silent for a second, and to his surprise, Bo felt a finger of fear slither down his spine.

  “The future is uncertain,” she said with the same flat, hushed tone. “There will be darkness before the dawn.” She said those words and had no idea where they had come from.

  She stared at Bo, wide-eyed. “I saw an image of you searching for a wrench. You were with Manny. Then I saw Manny dead."

  Small flashbulbs of light sparkled across Bo’s vision as he pictured the search for the wrench yesterday afternoon, blinding him momentarily. His breath caught in his throat. The finger of fear turned into a full-sized chill.

  “What the hell?”

  They both remained quiet, eyes locked, jaws open. Finally, Bo whispered, “I think it’s time to turn this up a notch, especially now.” Sarah was five months pregnant.

  Not more than two hundred yards from the bedroom window the fires blazed hot. Fueled by oil in long metal cattle troughs, they were spaced every hundred feet or so. In the incandescent glow of the controlled burn, the infected could be seen at the outskirts, moving in the shadows, raging at their existence. The flames kept them back, but there was no denying the fury of their longing.

  Travis Rogers lined up his night scope, the fluorescent green of his victim only shadowed by the deep red in its eyes, which appeared black, and the dark blood that dripped from its chin. A bitter smile creased his lips as his trigger finger twitched, and his heart pumped a little harder as the image blurred and dropped, its head obliterated by the hollow point that exploded on impact.

  There was no sound but a small pop, the homemade silencer Travis built keeping the area relatively still and quiet. The distant moans of madness were always there at night, but after a while became so normal that with a little effort they could be drowned out.

  “Say goodnight, Margaret,” Travis whispered as he slowly lowered his weapon.

  Travis had become a rabid survivalist a few years before the attacks, and his large cache of weapons and survivalist skills had proven highly beneficial to the small group of survivors, despite his gruff personality and harsh social skills. Part of his bitterness concerned the soft tactics the small community had employed. His ideas for combat had been widely rejected as being too radical or dangerous. Hell, if it wasn’t for what he’d supplied, they’d all already be dead.

  Surrounded by fire troughs, the community stayed fairly safe, with eight guards rotating to keep watch through the night. There were currently a total of fifty-seven survivors. They’d had a high of eighty-two. Their numbers had fluctuated regularly until Travis’ latest tactics had proven highly successful at drastically cutting down on deaths and infections. They’d gone the last six weeks without any serious incidents.

  Their compound consisted of two complete blocks of spacious residential neighborhood. It was part of an older suburb, with one-story ranch houses making up the majority of buildings. They erected four large iron triangles near the center of each perimeter, fifty yards or so from the fire troughs, as a warning system of impending attack. A dirt field, with knee-high grass and weeds ran over a quarter mile from the rear of the compound.

  The undead would come calling every night, the lure of the fires drawing them, but they would always stay back in the shadows, the brightness of the flames inciting anger and frustration. The guards would watch closely and take out any that wandered too close, leaving the rest to retreat before the dawn. They had gone on a few seek and destroy missions, the only night hunt claiming twelve more victims to their ranks. The other missions were carried out during daylight, but they had yet to discover the infected’s sanctuary. Travis was waiting for this night to end to follow their path of departure.

  It had been six months since the firestorm of terrorist attacks decimated the United States. A powerful toxin had been released by an Islamic fundamentalist group; ripping at the fabric of society and transforming it into a living replica of darkest hell.

  Small pockets of resistance were forming around the Country, but any sense of normalcy was yet far in the future. Bo and Sarah Thompson were among a small group of Survivors who had banded together in the community of Overland Park, KS. Their daily existence was one of basic survival.

  Around the globe, Countries were falling like dominoes as the scourge of the infection spread uncontested. Fear was palpable as several Nations tried to close their borders in a last ditch attempt to hinder its progress. The infection, like death itself, could not be stopped, only momentarily halted, and soon it found a way. Like an out-of-control surgeon drunk on madness and power, the infection sliced its way through the capillaries of society, severing the limbs of order with reckless abandon. In China, the Government exterminated hundreds of thousands of citizens as panic set in, with the majority of the citizens dying completely unto
uched by the strain.

  Sarah stared long and hard at Bo. "This is real," she said softly, a little shocked by her own conviction and realization of what had awakened inside her. "And for some reason I feel like it's tied to Jade." She had seen a flash of a woman and instinctively knew it to be her.

  "You haven't heard from her in months," Bo said, eyebrows raised in surprise by the comment. "I'd actually forgotten all about her."

  Sarah and Jade had made a brief but memorable connection over the Internet five months earlier. They had given each other hope when they both had needed it most.

  "I think about her everyday," Sarah said softly in reply. "I still believe she's just going to show up one day and our lives will be changed forever."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mason, “Mace” Marconi walked stiffly to the center of the street, staring at the open road before him. He closed his eyes and sniffed deeply, the freshness of the morning air touching his senses like a long forgotten dream. He was alive. And he was ready to lead.

  He looked behind him at the waiting caravan and felt a momentary sadness. They’d almost pulled it off. They’d almost made it a safe place to live. In the last six months he’d lost more than he cared to remember: His mentor, Father McCann, murdered by a gang of psychotic teenagers; the child he loved like a son perishing at his own hands after succumbing to infection; numerous friends and innocents claimed by the perils of the night. He himself had suffered several gunshot wounds in the final gun battle with the gang, and was still hampered by stiffness and pain. A long, thin scar ran across his cheek.

  Then there was John and Maria. What had happened to them was incomprehensible. That was his greatest fear: That what happened to them would happen again.

  Locking eyes with Jade, the love of his life, his lips parted in a smile. The destination was of her choosing: Kansas would be where they would start their new family. She was carrying his child. The baby was due in four months. They needed to complete the journey as soon as possible.

  They had the antidote to stop the infection. The intricate web of design, as Father McCann had called it, had allowed it to fall into their laps. It had been, however, sadly incomplete. While it did stop the infection from spreading, there were complications for those who were attacked after receiving it. John and Maria were victims of that complication.

  Traveling with them in the back seat of the car was Lisa, a single mother who had been with them since the beginning and Chelsea, her child, who had recently celebrated her fourth birthday. Chelsea stuck her head out the window once she noticed Mace had turned back towards them.

  “C’mon, Mason Macaraboni, I’ve already got to pee!”

  In the backseat next to Chelsea was Buster, a yellow lab they’d found months earlier, who now began licking at Chelsea’s face.

  “Stop it, Buster!” she squealed with laughter.

  Behind them were six other vehicles, all carrying injured souls joining their quest for more than survival. In one of the vehicles was a thirty-five year old woman, Hannah, who was facing the complication of the incomplete antidote as well. She’d been attacked after receiving it and now suffered from violent thoughts and barely restrained outbursts, coupled with strong sexual urges, especially during times of stress. She was being closely monitored by Jacqueline, a nurse, who kept her slightly medicated on valium to help control her mood swings.

  There were 23 people partaking in the journey; most who had been with them through the worst of the madness. Newcomers to the group were the Turchett family; Paul, Noreen and their daughter Melissa, 11, who had recently stumbled upon their group. None of them had yet received the antidote.

  No one was exactly sure why they were heading for Kansas, except that Jade had been able to briefly connect through the internet with a woman named Sarah Thompson and had promised to bring the antidote to her community.

  In the tragedy of their surroundings, Overland Park had become their nirvana, their place for hope, and as they fired up the vehicles, they left with a flicker of it burning in their hearts.

  Fifteen minutes into their journey, Chelsea’s excitement over their future could not be contained. “When we get there I want to ride the Ferris wheel!”

  Mace had a confused look on his face as he glanced at her in the rear view mirror.

  “What Ferris wheel, Chelse,” he asked?

  “The one in the big park!”

  Lisa immediately understood where Chelsea’s mind had gone. “Oh my God, honey, we’re not going to an amusement park.”

  Chelsea studied her face. “You said we were going to Wonderland Park.”

  “We’re going to Overland Park, sweetie. It’s a city. We’re going there to start a new life.”

  Lisa had thought it best just to explain their departure the day they were leaving to avoid a million questions and anxiety on Chelsea’s part.

  Chelsea’s face scrunched up. “Oh.” After a second she said, “There won’t be any cotton candy?”

  The depth of her daughter’s innocence made Lisa want to either laugh or break down and cry. She knew she’d never be able to shelter her from the reality of their existence and their world. “I’m sorry honey. I don’t think so,” she said apologetically.

  “No kids rides?” Deflated, Chelsea’s eyes began to rim with tears. “I thought we were going to live in a big park.” She grew silent for a second. Quietly, she said, “Will there be other kids to play with?” No longer able to suppress a tear, one escaped down the side of her face. “I don’t want to be the only kid,” she explained as her bottom lip quivered. “I need to play with other kids.”

  Mace and Jade sat in the front, quiet and mournful, as Lisa stroked her hair slowly. They all felt Chelsea’s loss.

  “Why do we have to go away?”

  Jade spoke up from the front, turning around and hoping to change the mood in the car. “I grew up in a place like Overland Park, Chelsea. I grew up on a farm and I want to raise my baby there.” She looked at Chelsea in all seriousness. “I want you to help me raise it. I want you to be its big sister.”

  Chelsea sniffled and considered the proposition. “Is it going to be a boy or a girl? If it’s a boy he’ll probably want me to teach him how to play baseball and I don’t know how to play baseball.”

  They all laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Chelsea. If it’s a boy you can just help me take care of him,” Jade said. “I never had a brother or sister and I don’t want my baby to grow up without one.”

  “I’d like to have a brother or sister,” Chelsea said quietly. She thought of something and said, “Are we going to live on a farm?”

  “That’s the plan,” said Jade. “How does that sound?”

  “It won’t have a Ferris wheel but I guess it could be okay,” said Chelsea.

  Feeling relieved that the mood had turned, Lisa said, “I still can’t picture you growing up on a farm in Kansas, Jade.”

  Jade was of half-Asian, half-Caucasian descent. She had shoulder length black hair, dark brown eyes, and was beautiful in an exotic way.

  “Neither could anybody else. I was different, that’s for sure. It was a small farm and I was adopted, Lisa. My parents were older and never had kids.”

  “What’s adopted mean?” asked Chelsea.

  “It means I didn’t know my real mom.”

  Chelsea’s draw dropped. “You didn’t have a mommy?”

  Mace watched Chelsea’s reaction in the rear-view mirror and couldn’t help but smile.

  “I did, honey. I just didn’t know her. My adopted mom was very good to me.” Jade turned her attention back to Lisa. “It was hard in some ways. I got teased a lot. It made me strong, though. I took up boxing and then mixed martial arts.”

  “I call her my lethal weapon,” Mace joked. “She was actually a golden gloves champ.”

  From the backseat came more amazement from Chelsea. “You have golden gloves? Are they real gold?”

  Everyone chuckled. “No, Chelse. I used to box when I
was younger and I won some awards.”

  “You box?” Chelsea was now floored. She stayed silent for a second and then said, “Could you teach me?”

  “You bet. Once we get to where we’re going I’ll give you some lessons.”

  They all grew silent after that: Chelsea trying to absorb all she’d heard and the rest wondering just what they were in for. They’d made the decision to head for Kansas, but weren’t sure what they would find or if they’d even get there alive.

  Behind Mace, in the 4x4, the conversation revolved around the coming winter.

  “I’m not sure if Kansas is a good choice. I grew up in San Bruno and only head to the snow for skiing. I never considered living in it, especially now.” San Bruno was a suburb just outside of San Francisco.

  Yvette seemed surprised by the revelation. “Jim, you should have thought about that before we left.”

  “I’m only here because of you. Where you go, I go.”

  “And I am so glad you’re here,” she replied, her eyes turning soft as she squeezed his thigh.

  In the driver’s seat, Shawn started to chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just the dating pool isn’t what it used to be.”

  “That is so rude!” declared Yvette, offended.

  Shawn tried to cover his ass. “I just mean that if this was six months ago, Jim here wouldn’t be traveling 1800 miles through God knows what for a girl he’s only known for a couple of months.”

  Yvette turned towards Jim. “Well,” she asked, crossing her arms, her head tilted at an angle, a smile barely contained. “What do you say to that?”

  Jim looked past her, mouthed “asshole” to Shawn, and said, “I’d go anywhere for you, Vette. After what we’ve been through we’re joined at the hip.”

  They were both in their teens and had been crushing on each other from the first time they’d met, even before Jim had helped rescue her. The teenage gang had beat her and set her up as a trap in their final battle. She’d come within seconds of having her head blown off.