Fall of Man | Book 3 | Firebase: Read online

  Contents

  The Fall of Man Series

  Also by Sam Sisavath

  About Firebase

  Day 5

  Chapter 1. Cole

  Chapter 2. Emily

  Chapter 3. Cole

  Chapter 4. Emily

  Chapter 5. Cole

  Chapter 6. Emily

  Chapter 7. Cole

  Chapter 8. Emily

  Chapter 9. Cole

  Chapter 10. Emily

  Chapter 11. Cole

  Chapter 12. Emily

  Chapter 13. Cole

  Chapter 14. Emily

  Chapter 15. Cole

  Chapter 16. Emily

  Chapter 17. Cole

  Chapter 18. Emily

  Chapter 19. Cole

  Chapter 20. Emily

  Chapter 21. Cole

  Chapter 22. Emily

  Chapter 23. Cole

  Chapter 24. Emily

  Chapter 25. Cole

  Epiloque

  The Fall of Man Series

  The Break

  Homefront

  Firebase

  Also by Sam Sisavath

  The Purge of Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

  The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

  The Gates of Byzantium

  The Stones of Angkor

  The Walls of Lemuria Collection (Keo Prequel)

  The Fires of Atlantis

  The Ashes of Pompeii

  The Isles of Elysium

  The Spears of Laconia

  The Horns of Avalon

  The Bones of Valhalla

  Mason’s War (A Purge of Babylon Story)

  The Road to Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

  Glory Box

  Bombtrack

  Rooster

  Devil’s Haircut

  Black

  The Distance

  Hollow

  Daybreak

  The Ranch

  100 Deep

  The After The Purge: Vendetta Trilogy

  Requiem

  Tokens

  Remains

  The After The Purge: AKA John Smith Series

  Mist City

  Run or Fight

  Shoot Last

  The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

  Hunter/Prey

  Saint/Sinner

  Finders/Keepers

  Savior/Corruptor

  The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

  Most Wanted

  The Devil You Know

  About Firebase

  THE REAL FIGHT TO STAY ALIVE BEGINS.

  They survived the first five days of what might very well be the beginning of the end of the world as they know it. Man has become its own worst enemy, driven insane by an unknown infection that has claimed much of the globe. The infected will target anyone and anything in their path in order to satiate a never-ending bloodlust.

  For Cole and Emily, reuniting against all odds was a miracle. Now, they’ll have to face the leftovers of a ravaged planet. Fortunately, they’re more than equipped to handle whatever is thrown at them.

  Or so they thought.

  The answers to “what happened” lies somewhere out there, but for Cole and Emily, along with the handful of survivors depending on them, getting through the next day—then the ones after that—is all that matters for now.

  Their goal is to find a safe haven from which to regroup. That’s where LARS comes in…

  Day 5

  Chapter 1. Cole

  “It’s literally in our blood,” Emily said. “That’s the only reason none of us were affected by whatever happened to the others.”

  His wife, the love of his life—who, just three days ago, he didn’t think he’d ever see again even if he wanted badly to believe otherwise—was holding court. The twinkle in her eyes that he hadn’t seen for a while, ever since her Army days, was clear as day. Or it was to him. It probably wasn’t so much to the others.

  “Our blood?” Zoe asked.

  “Do you know your blood type?”

  “O negative.”

  “I’m surprised you know. Most people don’t.”

  “I only know because Ashley was in the hospital a few times when she was younger and I had to get a blood test just in case I needed to donate some to her.”

  “And your daughter’s?”

  “Same. O negative.”

  “So am I. So are Greg and Savannah and Cole.”

  “Damn,” Cole said, because it’d never occurred to him that their blood had anything to do with why they had been spared. But he had to admit that it made perfect sense. Or as much “sense” as anything could these days.

  Blood was the common thread. His. Emily’s. The others. It didn’t take long for Bolton and Dante to confirm their own blood type. Both O negative. The only person who didn’t know hers was Fiona.

  The twenty-something shrugged embarrassingly when everyone turned to look at her. “Does everyone know their blood type?”

  “Not everyone,” Emily said. “I’m pretty sure half—if not more—of Americans don’t know their blood type.”

  “Yeah, I only know mine because I’ve been in and out of the hospital like forever,” Dante said.

  “Same here,” Savannah said.

  “I gave blood not too long ago, or else I wouldn’t know either,” Greg said.

  “I was in the Army, and you kinda had to know in case you got wounded in the field,” Bolton said. “So don’t worry about it, little lady.”

  None of that seemed to make Fiona feel any better. “I guess.”

  “Since the rest of us are O negative and we weren’t affected, I think it’s a safe bet you’re O negative, too,” Emily said. She turned to Cole. “But we can find out for absolutely sure at LARS.”

  Cole nodded.

  “Awesome. Finally, we get to good ol’ Lars,” Dante said. “I’ve been dying to know all about him.”

  “Sounds like a European pop band,” Greg said.

  Savannah smiled over at him. “You listen to Europop, Greg?”

  The contractor blushed in the semi-dark interior of the Bell helicopter where they were gathered, just past midnight. Cole’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness so he could see Greg fine when he answered.

  “Every now and then. Hey, I have eclectic tastes, what can I say?”

  “LARS,” Emily said. “Not a person. A thing. L-A-R-S. All capital letters. It stands for Last Resort Station. Once upon a time, it was the pet project of someone in the Pentagon. There was an administration change, the money dried up, and the people running it went private. They found civilian investors willing to continue the work, and they’ve been at it ever since.”

  “Sounds pretty rad,” Dante said.

  “It’s something, all right,” Cole said.

  “So this LARS is the salvation you were promising us?” Bolton, sitting across the seats from Cole, asked. Cole wasn’t sure if the chopper pilot looked angry or amused. It was hard to read with the man’s thick beard. His grizzled face, the product of decades of hard living, didn’t help.

  “Yes.”

  “I seem to remember you saying it was back at that house of yours.”

  “It is.” He nodded at Emily, sitting next to him.

  “Her?” Zoe asked.

  Emily nodded. “I was attached to the project during its government days. During that time, I became close to some of the people behind it. Specifically, the head researcher.”

  “They used to be lovers,” Cole said.

  “Oh,” Zoe said.

  “Yikes,” Dante said.

  “Awkward,” Savannah said.

  Fiona and Bolton, for some reason, both lifted their eyebrows in amusement at the same time.
Cole couldn’t help but notice the fact they were sitting very close to one another and had been ever since they settled down for the night.

  Emily pursed a smile and gave him a Gee, thanks for that extra information that absolutely none of the others needed to know, sweetheart glance.

  He grinned back at her.

  “Unfortunately,” Emily said, looking back at the others.

  “Not the best of times, I take it?” Greg asked.

  “Not quite,” Emily said, and didn’t say anything further.

  The others, thankfully, respected that.

  “So, back to LARS,” Bolton said after a while.

  “LARS,” Cole said. “If there is one place that can survive this—whatever this turns out to be—it will be LARS. All we have to do is get there, which shouldn’t be hard with your chopper.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we wait this out.”

  “We can do that there?” Zoe asked. She was overtly more hopeful than the others. Cole didn’t blame her; it wasn’t just her life at stake, after all. The girl sitting next to her, who looked like a mini version of Zoe, was the reason for that.

  “That’s the entire reason for its existence. The only reason.”

  “I didn’t even think of LARS until Cole mentioned it, but he’s right,” Emily said. “It is our best option right now.”

  “What if we get there and it’s gone?” Bolton asked.

  “It won’t be.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Convince me.”

  “It’s designed to withstand something like this.”

  “Something like this?” Bolton said. “We don’t even know what something like this is.”

  “No, but that’s the point of LARS. The name says it all. Last Resort Station.”

  “Yeah, the name does kinda speak for itself,” Dante said with a chuckle.

  Greg joined him. “Kinda, yeah.”

  Emily looked from one face to the other. “Unless, of course, someone has a better idea besides just flying around until we run out of gas?”

  No one said a word.

  “So LARS, then,” Greg finally said.

  “Okay, now that we’re all full of hope and shit, let’s eat,” Dante said. “Who wants some Lunchables?”

  “Don’t be a hero.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “You, sweetheart. I’m talking to you.”

  “You sure? Because I thought you said ‘Don’t be a hero.’”

  “I did.”

  “Ah. I thought the reception was cutting out there for a moment.”

  “That’s happening, too. You’re breaking up every third or fourth word.”

  It was the same for him. The two-way all-band portable radio they’d “liberated” from a box store yesterday was built to function under the most rugged environments, but it wasn’t exactly made for this. This being underground, with multiple stories of thick concrete between him and where Emily was at the moment.

  “Soon this might be impossible,” Emily said, though what actually came through the radio in his hand was Soon…be im…ble. But he was able to piece together what she had intended to say anyway.

  She said something else, about him being on his own.

  “Don’t worry, just keep the coffee hot for me when I get back,” Cole said into the radio. “I won’t be long.”

  “What did you say?” Emily asked. “I didn’t catch—” but the rest was cut off.

  Dammit, Cole thought. He didn’t ask her to repeat it, though. She was already worried. Letting her know that he could hardly hear her would just make it worse.

  “Like she doesn’t already know,” the Voice said somewhere in the back of his head. “If you can barely hear her, she can barely hear you too, genius.”

  The Voice had a good point.

  “You sound surprised.”

  Let me focus.

  “What’s stopping you?”

  You.

  “I beg to differ.”

  He said into the radio, “I’m almost there.”

  “…careful,” Emily said. She said a lot more than that, but careful was all he got. Then, “…really…breaking up…”

  “I think she said she’s breaking up with you,” the Voice said.

  Oh, shut up.

  The Voice laughed. “Hey, just trying to keep you on your toes, chum.”

  Cole clipped the bright neon green radio to the belt around his waist and prepared himself mentally and physically for the task at hand.

  The mental part was tricky, even though he’d readied himself for this since he stepped into the elevator. Even before that, actually. He’d spoken to Emily about what to expect. Of course, thinking he knew what was waiting for him down here and actually finding out what was waiting for him could be entirely two different things.

  Fortunately, the physical side of things was simpler. But then it’d always been for Cole. It was usually the rest of the ops—the “thinking” parts—that got him into trouble. When he acted—when he just did what was necessary and let God sort out the results—was when he was most in his element.

  “I seem to recall I have a little something to do with that,” the Voice said.

  Cole didn’t disagree, even if admitting it—even if just to himself—was painful.

  The Voice snorted. “It’s nice to finally be appreciated.”

  Cole took a quick step back as the elevator finally stopped and the doors slid open with a painfully soft swoosh sound, to reveal a long corridor constructed of smooth metal walls and enough reinforced steel to withstand a nuclear blast.

  And then some.

  “That’s why you’re here, right?” the Voice said.

  Yes, it was.

  “So what are you complaining about?”

  He wasn’t, but there was a part of Cole that thought LARS might not be the sanctuary he’d promised the others. But Emily had been convinced he was right, and she knew this place—and the man behind it—way better than he did.

  And from what he could see, still standing inside the open elevator, she was right.

  LARS was everything he had hoped for, and more.

  “Score one for the wifey,” the Voice said. “Whatever would you do without us?”

  Without you? A lot.

  “I’m hurt.”

  Really.

  “Nah, just kidding,” the Voice said, laughing.

  Cole took his first step outside the elevator and into what Emily called the entry hallway. A low, rumbling hum that ran through seemingly every inch of the construction—the ceiling, the floor, and the walls—greeted him. The facility’s power source was still running in the background, which was why the corridor lights were still active. That was a very good thing, because he didn’t have any night-vision equipment on him.

  He’d expected the power to still be on after they found the elevator operational. Of course, it could have just been running on some kind of emergency generator, but five days into what appeared to be a total national power grid meltdown had made everyone very optimistic about what he’d find down here.

  “Optimism killed the cat,” the Voice said.

  That’s not the saying.

  “You sure?”

  Yes.

  “Hmm, I must be misremembering, then.”

  You do that a lot.

  The Voice laughed. “I’m getting old, chum. Both of us are.”

  That was true, but even old him could still do a lot of things with a Remington shotgun at his disposal. The pump-action police weapon was what Emily had been carrying when he found her. He also wore a pouch behind him, with extra shells for the weapon. The Glock holstered on his right hip was a nice little backup. And if all else failed, he had the hunting knife on his left.

  The radio at his waist squawked, and he heard Emily’s voice talking through what seemed like a hurricane of static. “…see?”

  Cole took one hand off the Remington to unclip the r
adio. He felt fine doing it since there was absolutely nothing—and no one—in the thirty yards between where he stood, in front of the elevator, and the three-way intersection on the other side of the entry hallway.

  He pressed the transmit lever on the radio, even though he had very little faith Emily would be able to hear everything. “I’m in the facility now. Power is still running. Lights are on. But there’s no welcome wagon.”

  Heavy static accompanied Emily’s response. “…hear you…lights…people?”

  He sighed. This was going to be tough. They hadn’t had very much faith in the radios. As powerful as they were designed to be, they couldn’t penetrate ten stories of solid concrete. And yet, they’d hoped—hoped—to use the elevator shaft to cheat.

  “Cheater cheater, pants on fire,” the Voice said.

  Cole ignored it and said into the radio, “No one. Nada. It might just be me down here right now.”

  He lowered the radio and waited for a reply. It didn’t come.

  Cole tried again. “Emily. Do you copy?”

  This time he did get something. “…copy…breaking…careful…”

  Shit, Cole thought. He clipped the radio back on his waist, and for about a second or two—or maybe five or ten—considered reversing course and heading right back up to Emily. If he couldn’t keep radio contact with her, then he was on his own. That was okay; he’d done that before. It was the thought of leaving Emily up there, after going through all the trouble to reunite with her again, that left a big hole the size of a fist inside his gut.

  “Do it,” the Voice said.

  What?