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  Redeemables

  The BOHICA Chronicles™ Book Three

  C.J. Fawcett

  Jonathan Brazee

  Michael Anderle

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 C.J. Fawcett, Jonathan Brazee, and Michael Anderle

  Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

  http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, September 2019

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-461-6

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-462-3

  The Zoo Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2018-19 by Michael Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.

  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

  Epilogue

  Author Notes - C. J. Fawcett

  Author Notes - Jonathan Brazee

  Connect with The Authors

  Other Zoo Books

  Redeemables Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  John Ashmore

  Dave Hicks

  Diane L. Smith

  Jeff Eaton

  Peter Manis

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Dorothy Lloyd

  Deb Mader0

  James Caplan

  Micky Cocker

  Jeff Goode

  Paul Westman

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  Skyhunter Editing Team

  Chapter One

  The Zoo

  “Take that, motherfuckers!” Walker “Roo” Demopoulis yelled and hurled a grenade at the approaching monsters.

  Only four remained in the oncoming wave. They clawed their way over the bodies of their three fallen companions, snarling and hissing. They were as big as Clydesdale horses, light green, and scaly. They could spit acid, and the only warning was the expanding blue sacs under their chins and between their shoulder blades.

  The grenade exploded and knocked back the first beast that surged forward. Its right front leg was blown off and the sac on its back ripped open. The acid ate through its tough hide and burned the other lizards as they came forward.

  “Way to show the wanker, mate,” Mick Bennelong said and paused in shooting his F88C to give his fellow Australian a fist-bump.

  “For fuck’s sake, now isn’t the time for a bleddy tea party. Take the rest down.” Eustace Percival Coddington, Booker to the others, all but growled. One of his rounds found its mark in a lizard’s expanding acid sacs. It writhed and fell and he ejected the empty magazine from his M5, shoved in another, and continued to fire.

  The last two lizards leapt over the other corpses and uttered a hiss. They kept themselves within spitting range but moved no closer. The boiling water sound of their sibilant defiance couldn’t distract from the glowing blue acid sacs. Charles Tillman and Serenity “Reen” Nguyen stepped forward to meet them. He chambered a slug in his Remington MCS and she sighted down her M492. With near-perfect synchronicity, they fired. Both former Marines struck their targets.

  The animals screamed and lunged forward. They still attempted to claw the humans while being rapidly dissolved by their own acid.

  The duo high-fived.

  Roo rolled his eyes. “Americans. Always fucking showing off. We get it. You think you’re fucking badasses.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, babe? I don’t think I’m a badass. I am a motherfucking badass,” Reen said and winked at him. He flipped her off.

  “We need to keep moving,” Booker said. “That wave hit faster than the others. What the bleddy hell is going on in here today? This is worse than it normally is.”

  “It’s the Zoo,” Charles said with a shrug. “Does it ever make sense or behave the way we think it will?”

  “All unpredictable alien-ness aside, you have to admit that it’s not its usual MO,” the Brit pointed out.

  “This sucks balls,” Roo said. “Why are we retreating again?”

  “Because I’d rather not die today and getting paid for a few Zoo plants isn’t high on my list of things I’d die for,” Booker said. “Besides, we’re running low on ammo. We need to get out on the double or become Zoo fertilizer.”

  “I thought Marines were all about that ‘Retreat, hell’ bullshit?” Mick asked Reen as he jogged through the jungle beside her.

  “That might be our slogan,” she said, “but we aren’t fucking morons. We know which hills to die on and which hills to leave the fuck alone.”

  “Fudge, I’m going to be sore tomorrow,” Charles said and easily overtook his two teammates with his longer stride.

  He fell into step beside Booker at the front of the small procession.

  “You getting soft, cowboy? Maybe you should focus on leg day,” the Aussie snarked. “I know you’re trying to beef up to match my fucking awesome physique, but we can’t all be gods.”

  His teammate made an obscene gesture over his shoulder.

  “How far are we from the wall?” Reen asked.

  “Three klicks,” the Brit answered.

  Booker let Charles set the pace. He lengthened his stride and kept them running at a speed that was fast for the terrain but still easy to maintain for a longer distance.

  Roars sounded from the jungle nearby.

  “Fuck,” Roo said, “not again! Can’t these assholes give us a fucking break?”

  A creature that resembled a porcupine—if porcupines were the size of hippos and had fangs, glowing yellow eyes, and massive claws—sprang out of the jungle ahead of them. It screamed and flexed its back to whip its thick tail up and over its head. Foot-long obsidian quills rocketed through the air.

  Taken by surprise, Charles and Booker barely had time to dive out of the way. Mick shoved Reen aside but the movement slowed his own escape and exposed his right arm. One quill sliced through the fleshy portion of his upper arm. Another pierced his forearm to shatter bone and lodged there. The Aboriginal screamed in pain.

  Roo swung his AK-47 forward from it
s place at his side, held the trigger, and let the rounds rip the new animal to shreds.

  “Mick! Mick, are you all right?” Reen asked. She leaned over him and inspected his right arm.

  “What the fuck kind of question is that?” He gritted his teeth against the pain. “Fuck me dead. You try to do one fucking good thing and this is what happens. That stupid bitch karma can get stuffed.”

  Reen used her Bowie knife to cut strips of cloth from the extra shirt she had in her pack.

  “What are you doing?” Mick asked. He gritted his teeth again but still managed to glare at her. He was pale and sweating from more than the humidity and physical exertion.

  “I’m going to bind these wounds. Hopefully, there wasn’t any poison.”

  “Hopefully? Fuck.”

  She cut his sleeve away and winced when she saw the tattered flesh of his upper arm. Blood flowed freely down the elbow where it dripped to the dirt.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  Roo came over, saw the arm, and grimaced.

  “Jesus, it’s that bad, huh?”

  “We have to pull this quill from your arm,” Reen said.

  Mick’s eyes grew wide and he tried to push away from her. “No fucking way. Nope. GFY. Don’t you fucking touch me!”

  She glanced at the Aussie, who nodded.

  He pinned his teammate to the ground.

  “Hey!”

  Charles and Booker moved to stand over the three and keep watch while they tended to the injured man.

  With Roo holding Mick secure, Reen took a firm hold of the back of the quill and with a quick shove, pushed it forward until the tip appeared on the other side of his arm. Too quick for him to react, she shifted her grip to the tip and yanked the quill through and out.

  The Aboriginal screamed. “Motherfucking cock-sucking son of a slag! You bitch. Jesus Christ, was that necessary?”

  “Oh, come on, Mick. If you can still talk, it’s not as bad as you think it is.” She retrieved a bandage roll from her medkit and bound the cloth tightly around the wound. “You’re lucky you’re injured. Any other time and I’d punch you so hard your grandma’d see stars.”

  “Yeah, I’m real fucking lucky.”

  “Should we splint it?” Roo asked.

  Reen looked at the foliage around them. The Zoo plants crept forward and vines already pulled at their clothing.

  “I don’t know if I trust any of this stuff to use as a splint,” she said. “Who knows what it might do to him?”

  “Here, use this,” Booker said. He passed her a push dagger in a sheath.

  She raised her eyebrow.

  “It’ll keep his arm from moving,” the Brit said. “Worst case scenario, he can use it. But hurry it up. We can’t stay here much longer.”

  Seeing the sense of it, she ripped the bandage in two, positioned the knife as a splint, and used the remainder of the bandage to keep it in place. The strapping stayed white for a few moments before blood began to seep through.

  A few howls sounded in the near distance.

  “Okay, people. Time to wrap it up!” Charles said and glared into the jungle.

  Reen sat back on her heels and inspected her handiwork. “It’ll have to do.”

  “Can you walk?” Roo asked. He helped his teammate to his feet.

  “My bloody arm was caught, you bogan, not my fucking leg. Of course I can still fucking walk. Jesus.”

  “Just checking,” he said. “You were acting like such a wombat I needed to make sure.”

  His friend found a good use for the middle finger of his good hand.

  They started at a run again and held formation in a tightly-knit group with Mick in the center.

  “I’m not bloody useless,” he said but didn’t try to force his way to the perimeter.

  Vines dropped from the canopy and tried to snatch the running humans into the trees. Some had round mouths with three rows of teeth and tried to take chunks out of them. Charles fired buckshot to scatter them and leave them in tatters.

  “I won’t be able to keep them off for much longer,” he said.

  “We’re just over a klick out,” Booker said. “There shouldn’t be vines when we get closer.”

  Five massive demiwolves burst through the trees, snarling and howling. They kept pace next to the humans easily and their eyes glowed red against their matted black fur. Their long dark horns spiraled down their backs to end in wicked, sharp-looking tips.

  “Fuck these mangy mutts,” Reen grumbled and fired at the mutants.

  Charles leveled his shotgun but hesitated, trying to see if Thor was among the animals that bounded alongside them. He didn’t think his erstwhile pet would attack them and he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he did. To his relief, he didn’t see him. It was weapons-free, then, as far as he was concerned.

  They howled and snapped, lunged at the humans, and looked for an opportunity to bite.

  One of Reen’s rounds caught a creature in the temple and its skull imploded. Its body rolled away to trip another of its pack mates.

  Booker fired his M5 and stitched the side of another demiwolf with progressive strikes and it fell back. The remaining three howled in anger and pounced recklessly at the humans.

  A demiwolf tried to leap across their path. Charles rammed the butt of his Remington into the animal’s side. He followed the movement through and pounded his shoulder into it too. The monster was thrown off course and landed on its back with a yelp.

  Mick tried firing at the attackers but his aim was off as his injuries forced him to use his non-dominant hand. He let the rifle hang at his side and snagged a grenade with his good hand. He forced the fingers of his right hand around it and pulled the pin with his left. His movements were awkward but he didn’t let his injuries stop him from helping. He lobbed the grenade at two of the oncoming mutants. It exploded and they were showered with blue—almost black—blood, fur, and chunks of body parts. The last creature ran into the jungle, howling.

  “Shit, I think some of that got into my mouth,” Roo said and spat with disgust.

  The Aboriginal stumbled and Booker caught him by his good arm. The wounded man was pale and sweated heavily. Blood flowed down his arm, having soaked completely through the bandages.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” the Brit said. “We need to get him help.”

  As if to prove his point, the man stumbled again.

  “Charles, you might have to carry him.”

  The American nodded and moved toward them, then stooped to pick the other man up.

  Mick sidestepped away from him. “Fuck that,” he slurred. “I’m not being carried like some goddamn baby.”

  “Come on, Mick. Letting Charles carry you the rest of the way out isn’t going to knock you down any in our eyes,” Booker said.

  “It’s unmanly,” he protested.

  “I thought you were above all that macho bullshit,” Reen said.

  “Turns out, I’m not.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Roo said.

  “Course you’d say that! You’re not the one who has to be carried! Besides, it’s just my arm.”

  He took a few steps forward to demonstrate that he was fine. His knees buckled and Reen grabbed the back of his shirt to haul him up before he face-planted in the dirt. They all exchanged concerned looks.

  “He looks paler than he should for just blood loss,” Charles said, his brow furrowed.

  “Poison?” Roo asked.

  “It’s probable,” she said.

  “What?” Mick asked and glared at his teammates.

  Roars sounded closer to their location.

  “Enough waffling,” the Brit said. “We need to move. Sorry, Mick, but Charles is going to carry you.”

  Charles picked him up in a fireman’s carry. He grunted and widened his stance to accommodate the other man’s weight.

  His unwilling passenger groaned. “This is fucking embarrassing, mate. Not to mention, you’re bony as shit. What the hell’s up with that?
You have so much muscle I shouldn’t be able to feel all your bones digging in.”

  “It doesn’t help that you’re pretty heavy, man,” Charles said.

  “Rude. You fat-shaming me?”

  “We’ve got to make tracks. I think he’s going into shock,” Booker said. He looked at Mick on Charles’ broad shoulders and frowned. “You’ve already lost too much blood. That quill probably nicked an artery or something. It’s a bleddy miracle you haven’t bled out already. Just hang on. We’re nearly there.”

  They started off again at a jog. The rest of Charles and Mick’s extra ammo was given to Booker, Reen, and Roo since neither man could properly fire a weapon.

  The foliage around them began to thin. The spaces between the trees grew larger. They caught glimpses of the ten-meter-high concrete wall that separated the jungle of the Zoo from the human base on the opposite side.

  “Almost there!” Charles said.

  Mick made a noise between a gasp and a groan and went limp.

  “Shit,” the American said, “I think he passed out.”

  Reen smacked the injured man on the back of the head and he opened his eyes.

  “Whassat for?” he mumbled.

  “Stay awake,” she commanded.

  He made a half-hearted effort to flip her off.

  “Come on, mate. We’re right here. Just hold on five more minutes,” Roo said. He frowned at Mick and his brow furrowed with worry for his friend.