Storm Front Read online

  Storm Front

  Collapse: Book Three

  Riley Flynn

  Syndicate Press

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Thank you from the Author

  1

  Alex opened his eyes. His feet dragged along the ground. The strangers’ grip tightened around his arms. Welcome home, he thought, his skull throbbing with the pain, his brain trying to break free through the bone. On the top of his head, he could already feel the swelling, the warm blood trickling down his neck.

  “Keep him quiet.” A gruff voice. Deep. Male. “That one’s free.”

  “But he said to put this one with the others?”

  “Just find a free one. He’s too heavy. He needs some alone time.”

  They hauled him forward.

  Everything came back at once, a fierce flood of memories rushing past Alex’s eyes, vying for attention. Blinking through the fury and the fuzz, he watched the dirt beneath him.

  His dirt. This was his farm. This was his home.

  This was the place he’d spent his entire childhood.

  This was wrong.

  “Who... who are you?”

  Even as he spoke, Alex could feel the words struggling. His tongue hung heavy in his mouth, the entire world toppling and tumbling around. He felt dizzy. He felt sick. No one answered.

  Alex closed his eyes. He tried to remember exactly what had happened.

  It had all seemed so simple. So easy.

  The winding lane up to the farm. His hands on the wheel of the stolen Chevy. Finn, his dog, sat next to him, head leaning out the open window, chewing through the winter wind as it hurried past. He’d steered with his fingertips, watching for the oak tree with the tire swing and the rolling fields of his old family farm.

  Where the hell was Finn now, Alex thought. Panicked, scared, he strained against his captors’ grip.

  He’d screeched to a halt, rehearsing his lines in his head. Saving a joke for the first time he’d seen his friends in days. Make them laugh. Make them smile. Make them cry. He’d survived. They’d survived. Everything, he had told himself, was going to be all right.

  Every single memory was fresh in Alex’s aching mind.

  Every footstep up to the house, every creak of the porch floorboards, and every knock on the door.

  He’d smoothed his hair, cleared his throat.

  A stranger had answered.

  The whole world had turned black.

  Alex wanted to vomit. All that way, all those miles behind him, all that energy spent to see his friends again. They weren’t here. Other people had taken over the farm. Strangers.

  “Please.” Alex swallowed the air, biting back the nausea. “I just want to see my friends.”

  The words came clearer now. The blurriness in his vision began to fade. He could focus on the cold ground as they dragged him along. The fingers pinching into his arms began to feel real. Alex shook his head, trying to shake all the numbness away.

  “Did you hear him?” That man’s voice again.

  “He said something.” A woman this time. Older.

  “Don’t listen to him. Just get him away.”

  Their voices sounded strange. Distant. As everything else began to clear, this muted effect remained.

  “Here, I’ll put this on him.”

  They stopped moving. Alex hung limply between the two people. They were holding him up. No mean feat. So they must be strong enough, he told himself, they can hold me between them. As well as the two of them keeping him locked down, there must have been others. How many, he didn’t know.

  A shuffling of the feet as one of the strangers turned to face Alex. He felt a rough hand forcing something over his head.

  Alex strained with his neck, jerking it left and right. Breath shortening, he could feel his body panicking. The world was dark. Finn was missing. He felt alone and in danger.

  Again, Alex struggled against the captor.

  The hand stopped.

  It slapped Alex.

  His cheeks stung, his jaw slouched. Alex could feel the blood trickling out between his teeth. A slow bleed.

  The stranger took hold of Alex’s head, using one hand to force a strip of cloth around his temples and then down over his eyes. The world went dark again.

  “There. He said something about his friends.”

  It was the man talking. Still, the voice sounded odd. Like a radio playing in another room.

  With the blindfold on, Alex’s hearing seemed more acute.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  The woman’s voice this time. That same kind of distance. Muffled.

  They were wearing masks, Alex realized. Virus protection.

  Alex was immune. Or as close as a person could be to immunity. Allegedly. He’d been chased across the country by a pair of rogue CIA operatives who wanted to sell his blood on the black market.

  These two could have been government. They could have been anyone.

  But they were wearing masks.

  So they didn’t know he was immune. They didn’t seem to know who he was at all. That was a comforting thought. Anonymity, at a time like this, might be better than body armor.

  The rhythm of the walk was fast. The strangers were heaving Alex along, desperate to take him somewhere. As best as Alex could remember, there weren’t any jail cells on the farm. Not when he’d lived here. How much could have changed?

  He’d never know under the blindfold. The rough fabric scratched against his earlobes. The mask slipped ever so slightly. Even seeing the weathered ground as he was dragged along was better than seeing nothing at all. The tips of his sneakers rattled and rumbled along the uneven earth.

  Alex began to rub the side of his head up against the top of his shoulder, rolling the thick strip of cloth up and down. He could feel the soft flesh of his ears burning with pain and he rubbed harder. The cloth was getting damp with fearful sweat from his forehead. He rubbed harder.

  It started to move. Light began to leak into Alex’s world.

  “Hey, stop that.” The man was angry but he kept walking. “Stop that!”

  “Forget it,” the woman told him. “We’re almost there.”

  The blindfold came loose. It fell from Alex’s face, hit the floor, and vanished as he was dragged forward.

  Alex could see the world now. At least, he could see the floor beneath him, a throbbing blur as his eyes adjusted and his head stung with pain.

  But there was the mud. Pale brown and boring. Just as it had always been. That meant that they were off the road, between the buildings. Going somewhere to the rear of the farm.

  As long as it’s all the same, Alex thought to himself. Last time he’d been on this farm – close to a decade ago – he’d been all too happy to leave it behind. White sheets laid over all the furniture, nothing but bad memories and bad luck. He’d driven straight
to Detroit and never looked back. Not till the virus hit.

  Even now, Alex could feel his mind wandering. Daydreaming. The same kind of stupid drifting thoughts which had stopped his casing the farm. Lost on a sea of nostalgia, not thinking straight. Stupid boy, he cursed. But it seemed impossible not to dwell on his memories as he was dragged along.

  Eames. Alex was ashamed of himself for not even thinking about Eames before now. The man he’d left in charge. One of the older farmhands, the only man who knew how everything ran. So close to the family he’d practically been an uncle. Alex had left him in charge and headed north. Apart from their occasional emails, he’d heard nothing important from Eames in ten years.

  And then the virus hit.

  Had Eames altered the farm? Doubtful. The man had been a creature of the most steadfast habits, terrified of change. A pair of big, baleful, tired eyes staring down from his height, turning a worrying glance to any kind of change. Six feet and six inches of suspicion, never happier than when he was repeating himself, thin finger tapping a yellow nail against a tooth. Set in his ways. That’s why he’d been left in charge.

  Where the hell was Eames?

  Alex knew he shouldn’t ask. He might just get an answer.

  Six feet under. Buried and gone. Dead, with the rest of Alex’s friends.

  Whoever these strangers were, they weren’t talkative types. They were strong. They’d followed their instructions. Alex could remember that. One of them must have been the man he’d seen, the one with the machete. He hadn’t seen whoever was handing out orders.

  Every time a new image popped into Alex’s mind, it brought a new wave of pain. A new rush of desperation.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  As he spoke, Alex picked up his feet. He didn’t want to be dragged. Toes scratching at the ground, sneakers scrambling to find purchase, trying to stand up, he strained against their grip.

  In the distance, a dog snarled and barked, furiously. Finn. It had to be. Alex hoped he was giving them hell.

  God, Alex thought, anguish choking his throat, if they hurt Finn, I’ll never forgive myself.

  The hands clenched tighter, holding him steady.

  “Don’t listen to him, Jamie.” The man’s voice. He was on the right. “We shouldn’t listen. Here we are.”

  The hands tightened, halting the blood in Alex’s arms.

  He looked up. An open door ahead, leading into a small, dark room. One of the storerooms. Too close to see which one.

  They threw Alex inside and he skidded across the empty floor. He turned around. Two vague silhouettes shaped against the light. The door slammed shut.

  Pitch black.

  Alex Early was alone.

  “Christ.”

  He held his head in his hands, feeling around to the swelling lump on the back of his skull. Wet. Warm. Bleeding. Everything hurt. Every bone, joint, muscle. It all ached.

  In the distance, the dog had stopped barking. The silence hit like a sledgehammer.

  Standing to his feet, Alex ran across to the door and began raining his fists down on the flat, uncaring surface. Again and again. The wood hardly rattled. A heavy door. Well-made. The hinges still oiled.

  “Hey!” Alex screaming through the peeling paint. “Let me out! Let me out! Where’s Finn?”

  No one answered. He shouted, hammered on the door, again and again, until the skin on his hands was raw and tender and bleeding.

  But, still, no one answered.

  Arms getting heavy, Alex stopped. He lay a hand flat against the surface of the door. He pushed. It didn’t even flex. Slumping down on to his knees, the weight of the world pressed down on his shoulders, his back, his neck, and his head, pushing him down deeper into the dirt.

  There were too many thoughts. Too many regrets. Too many mistakes. Terrible choices and stupid decisions, all of them coming back at once to haunt Alex. They were all crying out in unison, a deafening chorus of shame, drilling him down into the shameful earth, pressing him into the belly of his dark prison.

  My friends, he thought. Timmy, Joan, Cam. Finn, what had happened to Finn? It wasn’t just that he didn’t know where they were. Or whether they were unharmed. But he’d told them to come here. To his farm. If they’d been hurt – if a single hair on their heads had been harmed – that was all his fault.

  Alex’s breath was tight. His lungs felt as though they were rusting, flaked and falling apart, coughed up through his cold, dead throat. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to cry. He wanted his whole mind to just stop. Cut out the thoughts, cut out the reality of the situation. It was overwhelming. It was impossible. His heart was hammering so hard, it was about to burst from his chest.

  All he’d ever wanted was to keep his friends safe. He’d danced with death to make it happen. And now, everything he’d done, he’d dropped them – and himself – right into the danger.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  “Get a hold of yourself,” Alex whispered without an audience.

  The room was dark. But his eyes began to adjust. A sliver of light crept in under the door. Gaps up among the rafters let in flecks of the afternoon sun. Alex could see the dust dancing in the weak beams, bright spots dappled across the inside of the room.

  “Start with the basics. Come on.”

  My name is Alex Early, he told himself. This is my farm. I grew up here. My friends should be here. They’ve taken my dog and locked me in a dark room. I have to get out. I will get out.

  Alex felt for his gun. Nothing there. His knife. The flash drives. His pockets were empty. He had nothing. Furiously, he beat his fist against the ground. A cloud of dust billowed up. He coughed.

  “No.” Alex waved the dust from his face. “No, I’m better than this. I can still help people. First I have to help myself.”

  It felt good to say the words out loud, even if no one was listening.

  This was a familiar place. It had to be. Think. Think hard.

  Alex had been so happy as he’d run up the wooden steps of the porch, as he’d knocked on the front door, he’d barely thought twice about the other buildings.

  But how much could have changed in ten years? Most of the buildings on the farm were old. Older than Alex. He should be able to figure this out.

  There was the barn. But this wasn’t the barn. There had been stables and storehouses. Buildings for machinery and a chicken shed. Storage rooms for seeds and tools. The whole farm was a confusing mess of lean-tos, cobwebbed shacks, and dark corners. Now, he’d been thrown into one of them.

  Break out. That was the only thought in Alex’s mind. It towered over the others, way above the worry about his friends and the fury that strangers were occupying his house. Break out of this room first and figure out the rest later.

  Alex walked around the room. In the near dark, he could just about see the other side. It was empty. A room measuring ten feet long and five feet wide. A door in one of the short sides and a sloping roof above.

  A sloping roof. That meant the building was pressed up against something bigger. The barn. So, it was one of the old store rooms, the kind of place his dad had stashed the tractor parts when they were out of season. The strangers had turned it into a cell.

  His home. Turned into their prison. Alex gritted his teeth, grinding them together with rage.

  But it was old. An ancient door and heavy wooden beams holding up the walls. The entire building had probably weathered more than a few decades’ worth of storms.

  Alex walked to a corner, the one farthest from the door, standing at the point where the roof tilted down and met the walls. Like all the joints, the wall was riddled with holes. Woodworm. Rot. All of it eating away at the material. A weak point.

  Pressing himself up against the wall, Alex scratched at the surface. The wood was soft. Not the hardened oak of the door. Not the strong wooden beams of the wall. This was the point where all the water ran off, where the moisture collected after the rain.

  He pressed his fingers into
the wood, scratching at it with his nails. It came apart. Splintering and crumbling. But it wasn’t enough.

  “I just need a…” Alex thought aloud. He searched the floor, squinting his eyes. A stone. Something sharp.

  Too dark to see.

  Alex dropped down on his hands and knees and began to crawl around, sweeping his hands across the dust and the dirt.

  The strangers had cleared it out pretty well.

  He crawled along the walls, stroking the ground with his hand, stopping any time his hand came up against a hard object.

  A lump of dirt. Useless. It fell apart between his fingers.

  A piece of decaying wood. No good.

  A rusted nail. Maybe. Alex kept looking, just in case.

  Then, there it was. A pointed rock, about the size of a Twinkie. He palmed it, tested the weight. It even had a sharp edge. Sharp-ish, Alex thought. Sharp enough.

  This was his ticket to freedom. Now he could find his friends.

  2

  The sharp edge of the stone scraped at the rotten wood. Alex acted fast, his wrist a blur as it widened the holes in the walls. Little by little, more light seeped in. Soft splinters and shards rained down onto the floor.

  Already raw from hammering on the door, his hands ached. Every muscle stung as he gripped the stone in a crumpled claw. He fought through the pain.

  “Come on, come on.” Alex breathed the words through his teeth. His arm already hurt, his shoulder sagging with all the effort. But he couldn’t stop. He switched hands, using the rusty nail to scratch away at a blackened knot in the wooden slat.

  Soon, one of the holes was big enough that Alex could fit his finger through. With the rock as a hammer, he punctured the wall with the nail. He perforated the ancient wood and then scratched at it with the sharp side of the stone.