Spore Series | Book 3 | Fight Read online

  FIGHT

  SPORE Series

  Book 3

  By

  Kenny Soward

  Mike Kraus

  © 2020 Muonic Press Inc

  www.muonic.com

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  www.kennysoward.com

  [email protected]

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  www.MikeKrausBooks.com

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  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

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

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  Special Thanks

  Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great.

  Thank you!

  SPORE Book 4

  Available Here

  Preface

  Last time in SPORE...

  At a local Denny’s in Chinle, Arizona, truck driver Moe Tsosie watched a news report that showed spore clouds descending on Ft. Collins, Denver, and Albuquerque. He and the rest of the Denny’s customers assumed their own doom would follow, and they prepared to gather at the local high school gym to lock themselves in. As Moe pulled into the parking lot near the school, he noticed high school athletic director, Rex Yazzie, speaking to a group of people from the back of his truck.

  Among those was Sheriff Ahiga and town elder, Cynthia Tso. They’d learned the United States military had sent soldiers and vehicles to Window Rock, the seat of the Navajo tribes. As Moe and his friends processed the information, dozens of semi-trailer trucks and military jeeps descended upon Chinle and began setting up a FEMA camp on the southeast side of town.

  The Chinle elders went in search of Colonel Humphreys, the leader of the military force. The discussions grew heated, and Moe stepped in to smooth the situation over. From that moment forward, he served as a liaison between the Chinle elders and Colonel Humphreys.

  As refugees poured into camp, Moe organized a small group of Navajo doctors and nurses to stem the tide despite Colonel Humphreys’s orders to stay away.

  After absorbing the first wave of refugees, the Chinle elders assembled to discuss the military presence and what it meant to the town. An outsider from Many Farms, John Wolf, convinced the elders the military could easily overrun them. In agreement, elder Cynthia Tso ordered Chinle residents to store resources in nearby caves while Moe led a scouting party to Window Rock to find out what happened to their people.

  Back in Washington, DC, field agent Kim Shields drove away from the destruction of their CDC facility in a high-tech mobile lab called Mobile Unit XI. Along with the bus’s artificial management interface (AMI) and injured Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bryant, Kim made her way to the DC local airport where she had a brief discussion with General Miller. The general disagreed with her mission to travel to Yellow Springs in search of famed mycologist, Paul Henderson, claiming he didn’t have much faith in scientists anymore.

  Refusing to be taken in, Kim dropped off the wounded Lieutenant Colonel Bryant and made her way to Yellow Springs alone. On the way, she ran into a pair of mysterious intruders who seemed curious about the bus. Kim frightened them off and continued on to Yellow Springs where she pulled Mobile Unit XI down a narrow driveway into Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve. She parked the bus, donned her protective gear, and explored the area trails, finding herself in a moss-covered glade with several HVAC units sticking out of the ground. Standing nearby was a hobbit-like structure covered in moss with an opaque glass front.

  Kim knocked on the glass door and waved at the security cameras, only to be surprised by someone approaching her from behind. She spun to find a short man with a portly belly and hair to his shoulders. The man wore no air filtration gear and claimed to be the famed mycologist, Paul Henderson. Kim explained that Dr. Flannery had sent her, quickly gaining Paul’s trust.

  Paul led her into the hobbit-like structure, and Kim told him the news of the destruction of the DC lab, the sick and AWOL Atlanta branch, and Dr. Flannery’s death. Paul took the news hard, since many of those at the Atlanta branch had been his colleagues. The mycologist did not hide his disdain for Burke Birkenhoff, a man he had worked with at Durant-Monroe many years prior.

  Paul revealed how he’d developed an antifungal serum to inhibit Asphyxia’s ability to reproduce. However, the serum only slowed the infection but was not a permanent cure, so Kim got his commitment to help her defeat Asphyxia once and for all.

  While working on the cure, she received a satellite call from Lieutenant Colonel Bryant. He indicated that he himself, Jessie Talby, and Fiona were trapped by raiders in a barn in Zanesville, Ohio, after attempting to follow her to Yellow Springs.

  With Jessie’s infection getting worse and Bryant’s debilitating wound, Kim decided to drive to Zanesville and pick them up in Mobile Unit XI. As she prepared to leave, Paul told her about some people he’d spied lurking around his facility. She reviewed the video footage and identified the interlopers as Burke and Richtman.

  Despite the threat of enemies lurking nearby, Kim suited up and drove to Zanesville. Once there, she pulled her bus around to block the front of the barn and rescued Bryant and the girls after a brief firefight. In a rush to escape, Kim opened the internal doors and infected the entire bus with the fungus.

  Once back at Paul’s, Kim made introductions, and Paul injected Kim, Bryant, and Jessie with his experimental serum to stem the Asphyxia infection. Kim and Paul then developed an Asphyxia booster based on Fiona’s blood, and they tried it on Jessie.

  While waiting for the results, Kim decided to go to Ft. Collins to pick up her husband and kids. Lieutenant Colonel Bryant reluctantly agreed, stating he would hold down the lab and ask General Miller to send some infected soldiers to run trials on the cure.

  In Kentland, Indiana, Randy and Jenny Tucker led an expedition to Indianapolis to the airport’s FEMA camp. Near the airport, soldiers in protective respiratory gear stopped them and forced them into a troop transport. The soldiers delivered them to
the airport tarmac where the camp’s leader, Colonel Jergensen, interrogated them.

  Randy spotted black specks on the colonel’s lips and nose, and when he turned to his sister to whisper the fact, Jergensen caught him and demanded an explanation. When Randy mentioned she might be sick, the colonel turned and proved her fitness by shooting a prisoner at long distance.

  Shaken, but with no other choice, the twins acclimated themselves to the Colony. They became friends with an officer who’d brought them in, Corporal Tricia Ames, and experienced their first scavenging trip to a local suburb. Their job was comprised of entering homes, gathering supplies, and bringing them out to the street where they stacked them on skids.

  It didn’t take Randy long to discover they were competing against other scavengers for rations and special privileges back in camp, and the twins soon established themselves as the best scavengers by beating out long-time leaders, Kirk and Stephanie.

  Back at the Colony, the twins tossed around the idea of escaping from the camp and setting off on their own, but Randy hesitated to leave Tricia Ames behind, since he’d developed feelings for her. On their second scavenging trip, rebels attacked, scattering many of the scavenging teams. By accident, the twins met a pair of rebels who provided them a hand sign to use if they ever left the Colony.

  Later in the day, Jergensen assassinated two scavengers who’d attempted to escape during the earlier confusion. A soldier named Odom made everyone in the terminal watch while chanting the mantra, “We are one, you and I. To leave the Colony, you must die.”

  After witnessing the execution, the twins wanted to escape more than ever. They got their wish. Three days later, while preparing for a scavenging run, Corporal Ames went to check on some gunshots they heard in the terminal, only to return with the news that Colonel Jergensen died of her infection and two factions of soldiers, Odom’s and Taggert’s, fought for power over the Colony. The corporal handed Randy a rifle, and the group ran out on the tarmac and jumped into a troop transport. Randy got behind the wheel while several scavengers climbed into the back.

  After a firefight with some Colony soldiers, Randy drove to a nearby suburb, hoping to lose the soldiers in the neighborhood. The refugees ditched the transport and split off in different directions. Tricia and the twins ran to the end of a cul-de-sac and entered a stretch of woods behind a house, followed by three Colony soldiers.

  A firefight ensued, and Tricia fell with a bullet wound to the back of her leg. Hunkered down behind a pair of trees, the soldiers slowly surrounded the twins until Randy charged up the middle to surprise the soldiers and turn the fight around. He shot one soldier to death as gunfire erupted from all sides, clearly not just from Jenny and Tricia.

  When the gunfire stopped, a rebel stepped out of the woods and gave Randy the hand signal. Randy returned it, grateful for the help defeating the Colony soldiers but leaving him to wonder if they’d just leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  Back in Ft. Collins, Colorado, Bishop Shields reeled after experiencing the deadly chaos at Colorado State University. He got himself and the kids cleaned up, then settled in to wait out the spore storm. The next day, he received a visit from a troublesome neighbor, Francis.

  In an exchange through the window, Francis demanded that Bishop allow himself and his family into the Shields’s home to get cleaned up and settle in with them. Afraid to put his family at risk, Bishop refused, pointing out all the homes in the neighborhood Francis’s family might secure. Frustrated and agitated, Francis reluctantly gave up and left the Shields alone, though the exchange left Bishop feeling unsettled.

  After a few days, an app on Bishop’s phone alerted him that their generator was nearly out of fuel and needed to be refilled. Donning his protective gear, he left the home and filled up the generator’s tank. While he was out, he radioed to his kids that he wanted to explore the near-vicinity. What he found was a corpse-ridden neighborhood, all of the families dead from the fungus but one. The family in Francis’ home had been murdered, victims of gunshot wounds to their temples. More distraught than ever, Bishop returned home and worked on building up their home defenses.

  A day later, someone banged repeatedly on the outside of the house. With his daughter’s aluminum softball bat in hand, he exited the basement door and pinpointed the intruder but was not able to capture him. In the following days, the intruder emptied their gas cans and banged on the side of the house at all hours, terrorizing the Shields family.

  In a last-ditch effort, Bishop formed a plan to lure the intruder in while he snuck up on him from behind. The plan worked, and Bishop caught the man and struck him down with the aluminum bat. As he had suspected, it was Francis.

  In the midst of the fight, someone fired at Bishop, barely missing him. He spun to see an unfamiliar woman holding a gun on him, so he lifted Francis and used him as a shield. The woman fired, killing Francis by accident. Bishop’s son, Trevor, rounded the corner of the house, picked up the discarded aluminum bat, and struck the woman in the head.

  Bishop questioned the woman to learn she was Francis’s sister, Berthy. Francis had convinced Berthy that Bishop was responsible for the death of his family, but Bishop told Berthy the truth, that her brother had shot his family and lied to her about it. Berthy acknowledged her brother’s ill-temper and agreed to leave town if Bishop released her. Trusting the woman, he let her go, satisfied he wouldn’t have to kill her to ensure the safety of his family.

  Let’s rejoin Bishop as he explores the devastation of Ft. Collins and searches for a satellite radio to call Kim.

  And now, SPORE Book 3.

  Chapter 1

  Bishop, Ft. Collins, Colorado

  Bishop parked his Lincoln SUV in the same Starbucks near the neighborhood of Old Prospect. He opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle. With his head swiveling in careful surveillance, he scanned the fungus-covered street, shaking his head at the crashed cars and dead bodies strewn everywhere.

  With a silent curse, he lifted his eyes and peered through his respirator mask to the homes and apartments across the street. He searched for any signs of movement or danger. While he didn’t expect to find anyone alive, his recent troubles with Francis and Berthy told him he should be vigilant.

  Satisfied no one watched him, Bishop shut his door and stepped to the back of his SUV. He opened the hatchback, removed his backpack, and shrugged it onto his shoulders. Slamming the hatchback down, he took another look around as he removed Berthy’s pistol from his pocket.

  He’d never been a gun person, though he admitted the weight of the weapon reassured him. His eyes drifted back and forth across the street as he walked north along State Route 287. The sun hung drab behind a dark cloud bank, leaving a stormy and surreal impression. The wind whistled through the devastation like a post-apocalyptic wood instrument, and he jerked his attention to every little sound.

  Bishop recalled many people had fled inside buildings when the chaos broke out, and he kept an eye on storefronts and doors to keep from being surprised. On the other side of the glass, Bishop noted the bodies covered in the fast-spreading fungus like a thick coat of light crimson carpet.

  He turned away and continued walking until he reached the corner of South College and West Prospect Roads. Taking a left on West Prospect, Bishop walked two more blocks and arrived at South Whitcomb Street, where the FEMA person and her soldier guards had shouted instructions from the corner.

  At first, he couldn’t find the trio until he spotted a half dozen bodies tangled near the curb. Bishop walked over and checked out the bodies, finding the FEMA worker sprawled in the street near the bodyguards. It appeared the soldiers had fought a group of citizens, and bullets riddled one man’s chest where strange fungus stalks sprouted.

  Someone had stripped the soldiers of their weapons, even their sidearms, and that meant he must be especially careful. With a wary glance around, Bishop resumed his walk to the stadium, moving north on Whitcomb a full block before he stood at the s
outheast corner of the Colorado State University football stadium.

  Bishop leaned back and stared up at the backside of the scoreboard and the upper seats. Lights stretched from the upper deck out over the field, suspended on massive steel frames. A gust of wind blew over the bodies of forgotten people, their hair ruffling where it wasn’t tangled in fungal growth. Bishop stared at them, eyes fixed in a morbid gaze before he shook his head and snapped out of it.

  He continued north on Meridian Avenue, moving around the outside of the stadium to the front gate. The doors lay flung open, and a sign stretched above them that read Canvas Stadium. Bishop stepped over a body and entered, staring up at the empty seats in the upper deck. The open gate led to a courtyard with stairs descending to the lower levels and field. He stepped to the edge of the platform and peered down.

  Five mobile military buildings lay in the center, with military jeeps and other transports sitting off in a makeshift path through a sea of FEMA tents. The tents appeared large, and Bishop estimated they would hold twenty cots each.

  If the scene in the streets was bad, the football field was even worse. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, twisted in a nightmarish battle scene out of hell. Many had died locked together, fighting or screaming as their brains went wild with panic. Some had ripped down parts of tents in their mindless embrace of madness, while others died in a pile at the various gates as they tried to escape. The wind picked up and blew spore clouds off the bodies in gentle waves of black dust.

  Bishop leaned against the rail and bowed his head. His tears had long ago dried up, though the weight of the dead hung heavy in his mind. Part of him wanted to turn around and walk away, but the logical side of him focused on the military buildings in the center of the field. The central building hosted a satellite dish on the end of a tall pole. If any satellite phones existed, they’d be in one of those buildings.

  Descending the stairs, Bishop’s eyes roamed the field, though he didn’t expect any threats from below. He doubted most humans could stand in the place more than a few minutes, and if he wasn’t so dead set on reaching the command center, he’d already be gone.