The Exterminators Trilogy: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Box Set Read online

  She was letting them go. At least for now.

  Chapter Two

  The Challenger’s headlights pierced through the fog of dark morning. Apart from the lights on the car, the only other light available came from a fierce, reddish-orange glow that loomed on the horizon.

  San Antonio was burning.

  Cody shuddered. He could only imagine what was going on in the city.

  He looked on both sides of the highway. There were few other cars on the road. Cody figured that the traffic would be busier – that people wouldn’t just be sitting at home waiting for the shit to hit the fan. Of course there was plenty of shit already dripping off the fan but things were getting worse, not better.

  There was some measure of comfort to be found in driving. Movement. It was better than sitting at home, waiting for the end.

  Of course most people didn’t have anywhere to go. Cody and Rachel at least had the dream of the airport, the plane and God willing they’d find something better. No matter what the radio reports were saying about the Black Storm being everywhere, there had to be somewhere out there still under a blue sky. Even if it was in the remote, inhospitable corners of the country where there were no other people.

  “You alright kid?” Cody said.

  “Yeah,” Rachel said.

  They were driving south on U.S Route 281, almost two thousand miles of continuous road that stretched down from the Canadian Border to the humid confines of Brownsville, Texas. To see the highway so dark and empty – it was unnerving. It was enough for Cody to debate several times in his mind whether he’d made the right decision to leave Spring Branch or not. But when he thought about the Black Widow’s visit with Rachel – that did it. He knew that leaving was the right call.

  Let everyone else sit at home, he thought.

  Cody glanced up towards the sky. A few chinks of sunlight were still visible – they’d fought their way through the stranglehold of the Black Storm and it was a meek reminder that it was still daylight, at least according to the clocks.

  A few specks of rain landed on the windshield. Black rain – thick, oil-like drops falling from the sky. Cody turned on the wipers and cleared the windshield quickly before he lost sight of the road. He hoped that there wouldn’t be a heavy downpour of the stuff that would force them to stop and wait it out on the side of the highway.

  “How long till we get there?” Rachel asked, calling out from the back seat.

  Cody kept his eyes out front. He racked his brain, trying to recall the precise location of the airport. If he remembered correctly, the airport was about nine or ten miles north of the downtown business district. With any luck, he’d avoid the worst of the carnage and most importantly, the airport would still be intact. Nick had texted him from the terminal building only yesterday so it had to be okay. The worst-case scenario didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Shouldn’t take too long,” Cody said. “It’s about a thirty-five minute drive on a good day. Maybe a little longer now. I don’t want to drive too fast when the visibility is this bad.”

  She sighed, like it wasn’t good enough.

  “Hey,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror. He caught a glimpse of Rachel sitting upright with Bootsy on her lap. It looked like she was a ventriloquist and the teddy bear was her dummy. Under normal circumstances, Rachel wouldn’t be seen dead with Bootsy, not at ten years old. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

  “We’re going to make it,” Cody said.

  “I know,” Rachel said.

  “Let’s see if we can get something on the radio,” Cody said. Anything to take their minds off this damn road trip.

  Cody’s fingers turned the dial clockwise. An explosion of static blurted out. He screwed up his face as he tried to find something in the electronic mess – there had to be someone still broadcasting out there, even if it was just a guy sitting alone in his basement.

  As he wrestled with the dial, Cody caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror. Jesus, it looked like he hadn’t slept for days, which wasn’t far from the truth. He was forty-two years old but he looked older – at least today he did. His dirty blond hair, which had once been the same bright shade as Rachel’s, was long and wavy. His skin looked grey and there was a fine layer of brownish-blond stubble on his face.

  “You look like shit,” Cody said. There was nothing of the cute, fresh-faced star who’d lit up movie screens around the world back in the 1980s. That kid was long gone.

  “Who are you talking to?” Rachel said.

  Cody backed away from the mirror. “Talking to myself,” he said. “Just acting crazy, it’s all good honey.”

  At last, a woman’s voice came through the radio.

  “You found something,” Rachel said.

  “Yes I did,” Cody said, with a tired smile. He leaned closer to the radio and turned the volume up.

  It sounded like a news report:

  Who is the Black Widow?

  Sightings of the mysterious Black Widow continue at an alarming rate all over the world. Suicides are through the roof. The murder rate is up. The world is self-harming on a scale never seen before in recorded history. A terrible net of depression and despair has been cast over us.

  The Black Fever, some people have called it.

  It started earlier this year. Multiple sightings of a tall woman dressed in Victorian mourning clothes were reported but these were treated as a hoax. This started in the United State and later spread to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and so on. These Black Widow sightings coincided with reports of severe weather anomalies – unusually dark skies that lingered long into the daylight hours, black clouds, black oily rain, and violent winds.

  This was the coming of the Black Storm. But we took it lightly and did nothing until it was too late. Even then, what could we have done? Time passed and Black Widow sightings escalated dramatically and spread across all continents – even to sparsely populated research stations in Antarctica.

  Our crops began to fail. Had Mother Nature turned against us, like so many were saying? Was the human race being punished for its sins?

  Or was it something else?

  If it’s something else, then what is it? What is the Black Storm? Did it come from another world? Did it originate from deep within the bowels of our own planet? Scientists, the leading experts, and government analysts – you name it, all over the world these people have tried to figure out what’s going on. Maybe some of them are still trying even now. Truthfully however, nobody knows what’s happening. We haven’t got a clue and that’s an agonizing thing for an advanced, intellectual alpha-species like ourselves to admit.

  We are helpless.

  Now all we can do is watch. A permanent darkness has settled over the world – both outside and inside our hearts. Soon nothing will grow. Our water will run out if nothing but black rain continues to fall. There’s been a high level of natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, avalanches and more. Most disturbing of all is that the amount of people committing suicide continues to grow at an alarming rate. There can be no doubt that the Black Storm is directly responsible for the obscene spike in suicides, murders, and acts of mass destruction.

  Lord knows I’m trying to add something optimistic. To do so however, would be patronizing.

  Cody switched off the radio. It was depressing. Amateur or professional, almost everything on the airwaves now was about the Black Storm and the terrible things people were doing. There was no point in switching the radio on anymore and yet Cody always went back to it sooner or later. Maybe he craved the sound of someone else speaking more than he’d like to admit.

  “Dad?” Rachel said.

  “Yeah honey?”

  “Do you miss being famous?”

  “What?” he said, looking at Rachel in the mirror. “Where’d that come from? No, I don’t miss being famous.”

  “I think you do,” Rachel said. She was looking at Bootsy, still sitting on her lap. “I think Mom missed being
famous too.”

  Cody understood now. Rachel was trying start a conversation about her mother. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked Cody a question out of the blue and then flipped the subject – whatever it was – back onto her mother. Did you do this Dad? Did Mom do that? Cody always felt that the end goal of these conversations for Rachel was to find out more about her mother’s death. She knew plenty about Kate’s life but Cody had always spared his daughter the grim details of her mom’s last days when drugs and depression had taken hold. It was an ugly ending to a sad story. Rachel didn’t need to know any more than that and Cody always took care to steer the conversation away from Kate’s death.

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “Mom did miss being famous. And if I’m honest, I miss being famous sometimes too. We were younger than you when we made our first movies, both of us. Your Mom was such a beautiful kid – she was really something. Knocked me off my feet kid.”

  “You were beautiful too Dad.”

  Cody glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks,” he said.

  Rachel was leaning forward. Cody sensed that she wanted to talk.

  “You think Eddie Faldo’s dead?” Rachel said.

  “Eddie Faldo?”

  Cody squeezed down hard on the steering wheel. Eddie Fucking Faldo. Barely a day went past when that name didn’t go through his mind at least once. Usually it was more than once. Having said that, Cody would never bring the name up in conversation with anyone. In fact, if anyone started discussing the latest Eddie Faldo movie in a restaurant or in the grocery store and began gushing about how goddamn wonderful it was, Cody would make a point of getting up and leaving the room.

  “Why are you asking me that?” Cody said. “A lot of people are dead. Why ask me about Eddie?”

  “Because you hate him, don’t you?” Rachel said. “It annoys you anytime anyone talks about him. Wouldn’t you be happy if he was dead?”

  “Whoa now!” he said.

  Cody didn’t like to hear Rachel using the word ‘hate’ out loud. Must be his parents’ hippy influence alive and well in his mind. Love and peace – that was the foundation of his unusually liberal upbringing. That and the constant round of Hollywood auditions he’d endured as a young child. Then the money came along. Turned out that material things like a shitload of cash weren’t off his parents’ radar either. What a journey – from beloved child of nature to family cash cow in less than a year. It still made him dizzy thinking about it.

  “I don’t hate Eddie Faldo,” Cody said. “Maybe I was a little jealous of the guy. You know we starred in that big film together?”

  “The Forever Boys,” Rachel said. “Of course I know that.”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “Well that was our big break into the movies. We were both lined up for big things after it became a huge hit. It didn’t quite work out for me. I met your Mom and we fell in with a bad crowd, as you know. Eddie, God bless him, was straight – black coffee was about as dangerous as it got for him. Smart kid, he played the game and look at what happened to him. They groomed him and he turned into an asshole and now he’s never off the big screen. Eddie any-shitty-movie Faldo. But I don’t hate him.”

  “You hate him,” Rachel said.

  “I don’t like him,” Cody said. “I sure hope he isn’t dead though.”

  Cody was about to say something else when a loud rumble in the distance stopped him in his tracks. At first he thought it was thunder but then he saw a fresh spurt of orange fire appear on the horizon, rising above all the others like it was a cannonball shooting straight for the black sky.

  It was coming from San Antonio.

  “My God,” Cody said. “What’s happening over there?”

  How many people were still alive in the city? Had they all succumbed to the Black Fever? Cody had always envisioned the end of the world as being instantaneous. A nuclear blast – a fireball, hot blinding light and then nothing. With any luck he’d be vaporized and not feel a thing. It was wishful thinking by the looks of it. If this was the end, if the Black Storm was bringing with it the mass extinction of humankind, then it was taking its goddamn time.

  “I don’t want to go there Dad,” Rachel said.

  “I don’t either kid,” Cody said. “But I’m sure the airport is okay.”

  But was it? The Black Widow was everywhere, spreading the Fever, putting it into the hearts of the masses, inciting acts of violence and destruction that would bring down human civilization. But why? Nobody had the faintest idea what the Black Storm was or where it came from. As the radio report said, experts from all walks of life had failed to explain what was happening. The military had failed. Anything that had been sent up to the black sky to investigate had either vanished or crashed back to Earth almost immediately.

  Cody looked towards the flaming ruins of San Antonio.

  That’s where I’m taking Rachel?

  The back seat squeaked as Rachel sat forward.

  “It’s so dark,” she said. “It’s cold too. Can you see the road okay Dad?”

  “I can see honey,” Cody said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get us to the airport if it’s the last thing I do.” Under his breath he muttered: “Which it just might be.”

  “But we can’t outrun her can we?” Rachel said.

  Cody’s ears pricked up. There was something strange about Rachel’s voice. It sounded flat and hopeless, like she’d given up.

  He resisted the urge to look back.

  It was cold in the car though. She was right about that.

  “You don’t think we’re going to make it?” Cody said. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “The Black Storm is everywhere,” Rachel said, her voice sluggish.

  “Hey that’s enough of that,” Cody said. “We’re the MacLeods from the Clan MacLeod, remember? Just like in Highlander baby – we’re immortals and we’re going to live forever. Ain’t nothing going to stop us getting on Nick’s plane. Right? You tell me kid, tell me why we can’t outrun the Black Widow?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Because she’s sitting next to me,” Rachel said.

  Chapter Three

  Cody’s heart was hammering as he pulled the car into the side of the road.

  He slammed his foot on the brake, pushing the pedal onto the floor and keeping it pressed there. The Dodge Challenger skidded to a halt, missing the cable barrier on the central reservation by inches.

  Cody unbuckled his seatbelt and looked in the backseat. Rachel was sitting alone, clutching Bootsy tightly to her chest. She was looking back at Cody, wide-eyed and petrified.

  There was no one else in the car.

  “Where is she?” Cody yelled. He didn’t wait around for an answer. He pushed the driver’s door open, jumped out of the car and then pulled at the back door like he was trying to pull the damn thing off at the hinges.

  Rachel hurried out of the Dodge quickly, taking the teddy bear with her. Cody could hear short gasps coming out of her mouth as she fought for breath.

  “You okay?” he said. “Talk to me.”

  She nodded. “I’m okay.”

  Cody stared into the empty backseat area. There was nobody in there. He kept looking for a minute, fixating on the spot where Rachel had been sitting just seconds earlier. He was waiting for the Black Widow to materialize. He thought about getting his gun from underneath the driver’s seat but he didn’t. No point in frightening Rachel. And would a gun even work against that thing? It seemed unlikely.

  “She’s gone,” Rachel said. “But she was there – I saw her.”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. He took a backwards step away from the car. The adrenaline was still coursing through his body.

  “She’s gone,” he said.

  Cody looked at Rachel and tried to smile. He took several deep breaths while the warm air pinched on his skin.

  “You believe me don’t you?” Rachel said. Her tone was apologetic.

  Cody nodded. “Of course I believe you,” he said. “But what happene
d? She didn’t try and talk to you did she?”

  Rachel was squeezing Bootsy so tight that her fingers were on the brink of stabbing through the bear’s fur. Her knuckles were chalk white.

  “She didn’t say anything,” Rachel said, looking at the ground. “I felt cold. Really cold. Sleepy too. I fell asleep for like a second and when I opened my eyes, she was there sitting beside me. And she was staring at me again – I don’t like the way she stares at me Dad.”

  Cody checked both sides of the highway and was satisfied that no other traffic was coming their way. He should have flipped his hazards on when they stopped but that was the last thing he’d been thinking about. It didn’t matter – they weren’t staying long.

  He kneeled beside Rachel.

  “I don’t like the way she stares at me either,” he said. “But she’s gone now. It’s just you and me little lady. And we’ve got a plane to catch.” He looked up at the black sky and felt darkness wrap itself around them. “It all looks the same now doesn’t it?” he said, pointing a finger at the sky. “You’d never believe it was morning right now, huh?”

  “I miss the sunshine,” Rachel said, not looking up. “The feel of the sun.”

  “That’s your Californian blood talking,” Cody said with a smile. “We’d better go kid. Now if you see anything else in the car or if it starts to get cold like that again, you tell me. Got it?”

  She nodded. In the gloomy haze cast by the Dodge’s taillights, Cody saw Kate in her eyes and felt like he couldn’t love his daughter any more. Of all the people in Cody’s rollercoaster life that had come and gone – and there had been a lot of people – Rachel was the one good thing that had lasted.

  The Black Widow wasn’t going to take her away from him.

  Rachel smiled. “We could pretend all this is just a movie,” she said. “That it’s make-believe.”

  Cody raised an eyebrow. “You think that’d help?”

  “Yeah.”