Atlas (Apocalyptic Cries Book 1) Read online

  Atlas

  Apocalyptic Cries: Book One

  Adalie Jordin

  Copyright © 2020 Adalie Jordin

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Jordin, Adalie

  Atlas

  Cover design: Covers by Combs

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  About The Author

  Acknowledgements

  To the love of my life, for always encouraging me to follow my dreams.

  CHAPTER 1

  "Hey, Saedie, you doing all right?” One of my father’s new ‘friends’ asks, walking up behind me as I toss my towel over the top of the deceptively clean shower door. I’d managed to snag a stall without a curtain for once, and I can’t bring myself to feel guilty for it. I need it today. Need the security of a closed space where no one can see me for a few minutes.

  I pause briefly before responding, wondering if she truly wants to know the answer, or if it’s an obligatory question, like everyone feels they have to ask when they find out you’ve lost someone.

  I decide on a shrug and non-committal ‘yeah’, before stepping in and closing the door of the cubicle behind me with a resounding click, effectively shutting her out. She takes the hint.

  I flick on the water, not even giving it time to warm up before stepping under the hard spray, fully clothed. The harsh torrent feels good — necessary even. Slowly, ever so methodically, I strip myself bare, leaving the sopping mess of dirty fabric in a pile on the floor. I won’t be picking them back up.

  I’m never touching them again.

  Standing there, hair plastered to my forehead and sticking to my cheeks under the force of the water, I refuse to look down. Refuse to see the dark swirls coating their way across the grimy tiles and into the drain. The last remnants of a man who only ever thought of himself my entire life but, in the end, sacrificed his existence so mine could carry on.

  Up until this morning, in my naivety, I genuinely thought things could eventually go back to the way they were. Life would be altered, yes, but I was hopeful there would at least be some semblance of normalcy. Like things were, prior to this fucking epic disaster we call ‘living’ came about.

  Before the outbreak. Before people became so caught up in saving themselves, they forgot to save humanity. Before my entire world was brought down to a single moment of choice.

  Just… Before.

  But then I made a colossal mistake. I thought I could get in and out before any of the infected realized I was there. Jeremy needed his meds, and no one seemed willing to risk themselves for my little brother. I got fed up and took matters into my own hands.

  Only, I wasn’t prepared. I’d been sheltered without even knowing it was happening. Made weak without realizing. When I stepped through the doors of the hospital pharmacy, on my way back out, I’d even breathed a sigh of relief.

  Stupid.

  I was so convinced I’d succeeded.

  That was the moment that cost me - cost my entire family - or what’s left of it anyway.

  Thinking of it now has my mind racing back, playing everything out like a movie reel behind my closed eyelids.

  ◆◆◆

  Inhaling slowly, I close my eyes and let out the air on a relieved exhale. I did it! It took a bit, but I’d found a stockpile of Jer’s meds tucked away in the back of a cool storage container in the ransacked pharmacy of Laker’s General. One of the only hospitals left in Clarksville that isn’t overrun by the Zerks — seemingly mindless humans that have been infected by who-knows-what in the atmosphere, believed to be caused by global warming.

  It took me almost forty minutes of digging through over-turned cabinets, looking under piles of rubble and other items scattered across the floor. Somebody really did a number on the place before closing shop and leaving it to rot.

  That didn’t matter, though, because I’d found a large case of insulin, somehow unscathed despite all the chaos. My brother will be okay, for another few months at least.

  I just have to make sure it stays cool until I can get back to the safe zone across town, where the rest of the refugees are holed up. Thank fuck for the insulated backpack I’d stolen last night. The only thing I’d ever stolen in my life — but with good reason.

  No one had been willing to venture this far into Clarksville, too afraid the Zerks would surface and the spread of infection would make it back to our semi-protected group. But I couldn’t stand by and watch my little brother wither away.

  Not even my parents were brave enough to do what was needed. But I have. I have it and nothing will stop me from getting the meds back to him.

  Just as the thought crosses my mind, a foul stench crawls up my nose and permeates my airways as it descends into my lungs.

  Decay.

  I barely have a second to register the Zerks have found me before a hand wraps roughly around my wrist — my body lurches forward violently with the force of whoever is pulling me.

  I blink, gaze darting open to see the last person I expect catapulting me along. His eyes, so like my own, are the only familiar things visible under a body covered from head to toe in a miss-match of clothing. He looks around the lobby, trying to determine which direction the infected will come from, before yanking me down the corridor to our left.

  “Dad?” I try to keep up as we skid around a corner, running toward the back of the hospital where the loading bay is located. It’s where I’d come in from, but how would he know that? Why is he even here? How did he know I was here? I hadn’t told anyone my plan for fear they’d put me on lock-down, and Jeremy would run out of time while they twiddled their thumbs and did nothing to save him. Dying from diabetic shock is a horrible way to go.

  “Hush, Saedie, just hurry. I’ve blocked the doors but the barricades won’t hold.” His tone is commanding, the one he only uses when shits about to hit the fan.

  I huff, attempting to catch my breath as we run, feet slapping hard on the tile floor. I hadn’t thought about how far the pharmacy was from the loading bay when I snuck in, but it seems so distant now.

  “Daddy, how did you find me?”

  You’d think I was some inept teenager by the way my speech reverts back to that of a little girl when talking to him, not a woman in her early twenties, but I’m completely thrown. His abrupt appearance, and the knowledge that Zerks are somewhere close by, has my thought processes devolving into that of an adolescent.

  Dodging an empty gurney, he glances over his shoulder
and curses at something behind me. “I followed you, I couldn’t let you go out alone. There’s so much you don’t know! But there’s no time.” Pushing me in front of him, he shoves me around the last barrier in our path before abruptly coming to a stop, blue eyes going wide with fear.

  Something warm sprays across my exposed face and onto my torso, soaking into my white sweater. I glance down, seeing red – so much red – before focusing back on Dad, only he isn’t standing where he’d stopped…. He’s on his knees, arms curled around his abdomen as he attempts to hide the modified arrow sticking out of his chest from my view. Rivulets of blood pour onto the floor as he kneels there, looking up at me with desperation. The fall jostled his mask down to his chin, exposing his face to the world, and his expression is one of exquisite desolation.

  “Go, Saedie! Just GO!” How he’s able to shout, I have no idea.

  I don’t think, and I don’t freeze — I bolt. It’s pure instinct to follow the instructions of his panicked cry.

  Bursting through the bay doors, I chance a look back, hoping to see him getting to his feet and following after me. Instead, the scene forever emblazoned on my brain before the doors fall closed, is Daddy mouthing “I love you” as a mass of Zerks barrel into him from behind, bodily shoving him the rest of the way to the floor. The scent of his blood draws them into a frenzy that can’t be controlled as they tear him apart, piece by piece.

  His screams are the last echo of his voice in my ears before I run as far and fast as I can.

  ◆◆◆

  “Yo!! Your twenty minutes are up!” A voice shouts as a fist pounding on the locker room door has me gasping for breath, clutching my chest as the flashback fades away for the moment. I slam the lever to the water off and quickly pull my towel down, wrapping it around me and tucking in the excess.

  “Ye-yeah… I hear you!” My voice comes out shaky as I listen to footsteps fading away outside, but I don’t care.

  Pushing through the door, my father’s acquaintance nowhere to be seen, I step up to one of the lockers along the wall of the communal bathroom. It’s old, but not yet rusted, and painted a faded blue. If it had a lock, I’d use it. But then again, theft isn’t my biggest worry at the moment.

  Confessing, though…. I have to get this burden out in the open before I crack.

  The woman from before only knew what happened because she’d been at the gates when I slunk back through them, downtrodden and out of breath. She’d overheard my stunted explanation to the guards stationed there, who’d wanted to know why I was doused in blood before they’d grant me access — how I’d left without them knowing in the first place.

  I take my time gathering the second-hand clothes and insulated backpack I stashed before my shower, making sure no one sees me pull out the latter as I quickly find an empty toilet stall to get dressed. Jer’s meds, still safely tucked inside, are miraculously unscathed, despite all the jostling the bag took during my frantic sprint across town.

  In a haze, I wring the ice-cold droplets of water from my waist length curls, twirling and twisting it up into a bun on top of my head. Slipping on dark jeans and an old band tee, I refuse to care that they’re two sizes too big for my slim frame.

  My mind is twirling with so many upended thoughts, I almost fall over twice while attempting to put my legs into the pants.

  Get it together, Saedie!

  Bracing a hand on the half-wall to my right, I take a minute to just breathe. Absorb my surroundings and allow myself a chance to wallow in the silence enveloping me. Somehow, I’m entirely alone in the locker room, though that’s usually not the case.

  This was once the Phys-Ed building of the university, before the world went to shit. Now it’s our saving grace when it comes to sanitation. Generally, there’s at least four or five women around, performing their daily ablutions, at any given time. The men have their own locker room across the gymnasium.

  There aren’t many of us overall, but we try to keep the numbers from dropping any further by staying as clean as possible when there aren’t many luxuries, like daily showers, to be had any longer.

  I don’t know exactly how many unaffected humans are truly left, wandering around in this new desolate existence, but the ones my family and I had come across a little over a month ago run this place. What they call “The Compound” is a former University complex that was abandoned when the outbreak took hold, as many public places had been. Some former military members saw it for the safe haven it could be, and forming a group of like-minded people - Atlas - they’d set up ‘camp’ here.

  It’s a big damn camp. The Compound takes up around fifteen thousand acres of land, overall.

  After a full medical screening, that was mostly a blur, Atlas had taken the four of us in with open arms. They gave us ration cards, and a chore chart of things we could do to contribute to the community. I’d been selected as a medical assistant slash underling nurse, since a lot of my college courses were tailored to the topic of human health, and I’d been interning early for a hospital across town.

  The Compound has a fully flushed garden that grows year-round — don’t ask me how — the sports building that houses the operational locker rooms, as well as a gym, and a large cafeteria that’s open three times a day for meals. They’d put something into the water filtration system to help sanitize the toxins leaching into everything from the ground and sky.

  How they managed to do that, but haven’t found a cure for Outbreak Dead Rain, or ODR for short, I have no freaking clue. It’s just what they tell us, and I haven’t seen anyone come down with symptoms yet, so it must be at least partially true.

  That’s how this all started just under six months ago, though. Rain. Dark clouds haunted every continent and island across the globe, instantaneously it seemed, with no warning at all and no clear source of origin. Scientists speculated it could have stemmed from an abrupt atmospheric shift, caused by global warming, but it’s never been confirmed.

  When thick, black, rainfall began pouring from the sky there was mass panic. News outlets reported that ‘the end of times’ had come and encouraged people to stay indoors.

  Only, it was too late.

  Anyone who had been outside that day the first rains came, anyone that was exposed to the viscous liquid – even in the smallest amount – started exhibiting signs of illness after only a few hours.

  Black lines coursing just under the skin as they spider-webbed throughout veins and blood vessels was the first symptom. The second, an oily obsidian substance leaking from the eyes in lieu of tears, followed closely by mindless hallucinations.

  The last stage of the disease caused everything that made us human to seep from our pores and into the nether of non-existence so rapidly it was astonishing to behold.

  Medical experts at the time were scrambling to discover the cause, and hopefully a way to stop the spread. It started with social distancing, but quickly evolved into a complete quarantine of the global population. Shelter-in-Place orders came down directly from the President herself. In the end, before the networks went dark, and long-distance communication ceased, they realized the truth: there is no cure, and no way to prevent or stop the mass pandemic.

  Those who didn’t die from their initial exposure to ODR, who ‘lived’ despite the illness, were labeled as a new sub-species: Zerks. Coined as such because of their extremely berserk behavior.

  Cannibalism scored at the top of the list, but there is so much more we haven’t even discovered about them. Studies became too dangerous, or there weren’t enough sentient people left to perform them anyway, and they came to a halt not long after the airways shut down.

  Now we simply exist in the aftermath, striving to survive.

  Gathering up my things, I exit the locker room, dodging around other Compound members as they go about their daily business. I keep a tight hold to the straps of the bag slung across my back, slowly making my way to my family’s living quarters.

  We’re in Dorm 4, the farthest out
on the quad, but it’s nicer than Dorms 1 or 3. Dorm 2 is dominated by Atlas members and a few other lucky guests.

  I can’t help but wonder what these strangers’ lives were like before ODR. Did they have active social lives, or were they isolated social media fanatics? How many of them made efforts to visit the people they loved Before? Did they have friends and family they were still hoping to find in this mass of chaos?

  It took all of eight days for ODR to consume everyone I knew outside of Jer, Mom and Dad. Gramma, Gramps and my ninety-two-year-old PaPa were all gone in the span of forty-eight hours. Aunt Gin, Uncle Craig and my cousin Adella succumbed even quicker, though because of their youth and good health, they weren’t lucky enough to escape this realm when the time came. There wasn’t even a moment to mourn before news of more infected came rolling in.

  By the time the last death call rang, I was entirely numb to the sensation of loss.

  Am I even capable of feeling it now after… after losing Daddy? I honestly don’t know.

  Jeremy had been in bed not feeling well on the day the first storms came, so I’d decided to skip my last community college course for the day and go home to help take care of him. Mom was six weeks pregnant and having a hard go of it; and at forty-four, who wouldn’t be? Dad was at his office in D.C. — huge shocker there — acting as Director of the President’s secret service. He rarely spent time at home because his position demanded he travel with our country’s leader, wherever she went.

  When the sky opened up and oily onyx drops splattered the windows of Jer’s room, I initially thought some kind of fire must have occurred at the factory down the road, causing ash to fill the air and mingle with the rainfall. It made me hesitant to step outside for a closer look, unlike several of our curious neighbors. I told Jer to stay in bed, and went to grab my phone to see if anything had popped up on social media about it. To my horror, every one of my newsfeeds were inundated with posts detailing how the entire world was experiencing the same thing.