Spore Series | Book 5 | Torch Read online

  TORCH

  SPORE Series

  Book 5

  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

  [email protected]

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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

  Last Time in Spore

  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

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

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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 6

  Available Here

  Last Time in Spore

  In Chinle, Arizona, Moe met with Carver and his Venom and Light Commune at the foot of a canyon. He listened as the cult leader painted a dismal picture for the Navajo if they remained hidden in their canyon caves. He promised starvation and disease would decimate them if they didn’t accept his help.

  He offered to shelter the women and children, but Moe could never trust a man who’d manipulated and murdered his way to the top of the crowded camp. After a harsh exchange, Moe and his entourage left the meeting disturbed at the evil taking root in Chinle but unable to stop it.

  Their only consolation was the military installation at Window Rock. The potential threat assured him Carver wouldn’t attack the people in the canyons. Put in charge of the Navajo defenses, he focused on setting up scout teams and defending the canyon entrances.

  After Rex and Casey’s failed supply run, Moe volunteered his rig to pick up provisions in Las Vegas. He led a small team to sneak into Carver’s camp and steal his rig back. They drove across a muddy creek under harrowing rifle fire and escaped to the north.

  From there, they trucked to Las Vegas, picked up an empty trailer near Arrolime, and stripped supplies from a mini mart. In the process, they found a lonely and wayward survivor named Zoe, who agreed to go with them instead of facing starvation.

  In Las Vegas, they met Colonel Lopez-Reyes who couldn’t offer direct assistance from her facility but pointed Moe to another warehouse deep inside the city. The raiding team got back on the road and headed downtown. Chaos ruled the streets. Gunshots, rogue gangs, and violence had taken over. Hooligans harassed them, but Moe and his team drove through, brandishing their firearms and warding off trouble.

  They reached the downtown warehouse and backed up to the docks. Moe guided the team inside where they grabbed skids and loaded them onto the trailer. As they pulled away, rival gangs descended on them and opened fire. Moe’s people threw smoke grenades to mask their escape and eventually fought clear. But not without a price. Three of his raiders were shot and killed, notably Aponi, one of his best and most trustworthy fighters.

  The party returned to Chinle to great cheering and excitement. While resting on a bench, Ahiga and Sage came to congratulate Moe’s success. Moe saw spores floating inside the sheriff’s water bottle. A further investigation revealed the sheriff himself was infected. But how far had the spores spread?

  Outside Salina, Kansas, Kim recovered from her fight with Richtman. Bishop and the kids continued to scour the bus’s interior to remove all traces of spores so they could take off their masks safely. In the meantime, Bishop and Trevor took the Stryker into town to search for new tires. While changing them, they noticed a boy watching from his bicycle. Bishop attempted to talk to the boy, but he pedaled away just out of his reach.

  With repairs on the bus completed, they prepared to return to Yellow Springs. Kim suggested they search for the boy in town to see if he needed help. Bishop agreed but warned there could be dangerous people waiting for them. Kim reasoned that they had an armored vehicle, and it would be next to impossible to do them harm.

  Bishop drove the Stryker into town with Trevor as his navigator. They passed wrecks, streets marked with Asphyxia, and a smoldering bonfire stacked with corpses. They continued on until they reached a barrier of vehicles strewn across the road. Bishop got out to investigate only to meet a group of children on bike’s who warned him that their bus was about to be attacked.

  Back at the bus, Kim stood outside to enjoy the scent of an approaching storm. When she heard Bishop’s warning, she ran to the bus but was confronted by a group of infected adults who weren’t wearing air filtration masks. They had advanced cases of Asphyxia and barred Kim from entering the bus. While threatening, they didn’t immediately attack. She offered to help treat them, but a rainy downpour activated the surrounding fungus. Tendrils drifted into the air, driving off the intruders.

  Bishop returned to the bus, and they brought two of the wayward children on board. They told a harrowing tale of how they and twenty-six other kids had survived the spores for weeks. They explained that the infected adults Kim met were called the Ugly Eight, and the kids avoided them at all costs.

  With no choice but to check on the remaining kids, Bishop and Trevor once again set out in the Stryker to the schoolhouse where the youths lived. They entered the school and crept through abandoned halls streaked with fungus to the boiler room. Nerves on edge, Bishop moved forward as the children snuck up behind him. Spooked, he spun, prepared to fire but relaxed his trigger finger when he realized he faced a group of harmless, spooky kids who’d become all too accustomed to life at the end of the world.

  Bishop convinced them to come with him, promising to find them a permanent home. He and Kim split them between the bus and the Stryker, cleaning them up, washing their clothes, and settling them for the long ride back to Yellow Springs. Kim had yet to reestablish contact with Jessie Talby, and she ordered AMI to put out a repeating message over the military wire looking for anyone who knew what had happened to her friends. It w
as a big surprise when Moe Tsosie and Melissa Bryant responded. They exchanged stories briefly, though Kim didn’t have any good news. She told Melissa the Yellow Springs facility, where her husband was holed up, hadn’t been reachable for days.

  Still, they prepared the children for a long journey.

  In Indianapolis, Randy Tucker settled in as a forklift driver for John’s camp of survivors. Already in the doghouse, he focused on his work and built his relationship with Tricia Ames. His paranoia about newcomer Kirk was well known in camp, and people made fun of him for it. Randy’s doubt grew after being attacked by a black-clad assailant in a storage room.

  Determined that his attacker was Kirk, he picked a fight with him only to have it stopped before blood was drawn. While sympathetic to his injuries, camp leader John emphasized to Randy that he was walking on thin ice. Even Tricia suggested his attacker might have been someone playing a prank on him, though his bruises said differently.

  One night at dinner, Jenny’s new friend, David, invited Randy to join him on foot patrol around camp. The next evening, David showed him all the checkpoints on the route until they reached a resting spot on a patio by an outdoor mall. While they took a break, Randy missed several clues about his partner’s intentions. By the time he realized it, it was too late. David held his rifle on Randy as Colony armored vehicles approached. The traitor signaled the Colony troops to attack and notified the camp that the check point was clear.

  Randy threw his mask at David to distract him. After a brutal struggle, he shot David and warned their people that the Colony forces were coming. He grabbed the rifle and radio and sprinted to camp with a mysterious pain in his ribs. On his way, he met the camp leader, John, and his assault team. Together, they held off the enemy soldiers long enough to escape. But John had plans beyond that.

  Randy jogged north with the fighters to a secret location where they loaded into vans and drove to the Colony home base. On the way, a medic checked his chest and determined a bullet had gotten lodged beneath his ribs. John ordered her to take it out when they reached their destination. What followed was an education in pain as the woman used curved forceps and very little anesthetic to remove the slug.

  All patched up, Randy shadowed the team as they jogged across the parking lot to the Colony motor pool where they stripped valuable parts from the armored vehicles. After crippling the fleet, they fled to a new camp in Ft. Wayne, where Randy reunited with Jenny and Tricia. Infected, Randy was forced to quarantine in a hospital where he told his sister the hard truth about David. Heartbroken, Jenny ran out of the room, leaving him alone with Tricia to contemplate his fate as a sick, hopeless survivor.

  In Yellow Springs, Jessie Talby hunkered down in Paul’s home laboratory with a ragtag band of troops, Bryant, and little Fiona. She helped the ailing soldiers guard the property from the mercenary, Lexi, while encouraging Paul to finish more Asphyxia serum. She spoke to Burke, who hinted at an Arkansas lab where they might mass produce their formula and finish developing the cure. Jessie agreed to ease his restraints if he provided them information on the lab’s location.

  Paul’s patched up lab didn’t have the power required to make enough serum to keep them alive. As the soldiers got sicker, it became clear they wouldn’t be able to protect the facility from Lexi for long. And travelling to Arkansas would be impossible.

  While Paul worked on a new batch of serum, Jessie and Bryant bolted for much-needed supplies before the men grew too sick to stand.

  She and Bryant took Paul’s custom van with a wolf mural emblazoned on the side and journeyed into downtown Yellow Springs. After passing through the strange, haunted town, they found a pharmacy where they stocked up on medical supplies. While Jessie cleared the shelves of valuable medicines, Lexi stepped from the shadows and knocked her out briefly. The mercenary went after Bryant in another epic fight that ended in a draw.

  Upon returning to the house, Jessie urged Paul to hurry with the serum. The soldiers became bed ridden, and one passed away. A charismatic corporal named Dex begged her to end his life with an overdose of pain medications. In his weakened state, he said her face was the last thing he wanted to see before he died. While his words touched her heart, she knew the infection had made him confused. Paul came through with more serum in the nick of time and injected the remaining soldiers with enough medicine to keep them alive.

  Relieved yet angry at Burke for all the misery he’d caused, Jessie broke off a broom handle and took out her frustrations on him. While she didn’t seriously injure the man, she drew blood, and Paul had to stop her from doing more harm. He explained they still needed Burke if they wanted access to the Arkansas facility.

  The next day, she woke up in a theater chair to see Fiona had gotten up. She sat up and saw the little girl sitting with the soldiers watching Scooby Doo reruns on Paul’s DVD player. The men looked much better, already coughing up the terrible fungus being shed by their bodies.

  She asked if they’d seen the mycologist, and one soldier said he’d gone in to feed Burke, but he didn’t remember him coming out. Spooked, Jessie checked on Paul only to find him lying face first in a pool of blood. Burke rose from his cowardly position and spread his hands apart to show that he’d broken his leather cuffs. He attacked her viciously, knocking her unconscious. She woke moments later to find the man gone. Torn between helping Paul and chasing after Burke, she chose the latter, convinced he’d harm Fiona.

  She found the soldiers standing outside Paul’s lab door with smashing sounds coming from the other side. Throwing caution to the wind, they broke down the door to reveal Burke destroying their valuable equipment. He hugged Fiona to him, using her as a shield.

  With the lab in shambles, Burke announced he would exit the facility while holding a sliver of glass against the little girl’s neck. He called for Jessie to drop her weapon and kick it to him. She did as he asked, though the gun hit a piece of debris and bounced off to the side. When Burke reached out for it, a soldier threaded a bullet through the tight space and blew off two of his fingers.

  Fiona escaped. Jessie began beating Burke, intending to finish what she’d started. She would have killed the man if one of the soldiers hadn’t stopped her. Devastated but alive, she and Bryant bound Burke again and tried to dig up more information about Arkansas. When he refused to cooperate, they used activated Asphyxia to infect him. At that point, his life depended on them finding a cure. Beaten and sick, he agreed to help.

  After a solemn funeral for Paul, Jessie had Burke order his people out of his black RV and turn it over to them for their journey south. Curious how Lexi knew so much about their movements, she had a soldier remove a transmitter tooth Burke had implanted in his mouth, finally cutting him off from his people on the outside.

  Lexi watched them go, seething with resentment. She needed Burke alive if she wanted her son back. Convinced Pauline and the RV driver, Charlie, would be nothing but a burden, she shot both dead and looked for the keys to Paul’s custom van.

  In a somber moment, Jessie called Kim with the bad news that Burke had destroyed the Yellow Springs lab, Paul was dead, and they’d made plans to go to Arkansas. Devastated but determined, they rededicated themselves to the cause and changed course for Little Rock.

  And now, Spore 5...

  Chapter 1

  Moe, Chinle, Arizona

  Mercy Rock was what they called it. A cluster of caves and caverns deep inside Canyon del Muerto.

  It served the Navajo people as their new hospital and place of healing. Sage and Brandi had combined ten large caves and five smaller ones, interconnected by rough-hewn passages. Ancient native healers had used the chambers to perform healing rituals.

  They’d filled the quarantine section with almost fifty infected citizens, and the numbers only grew as they screened more people.

  Moe stood on the canyon floor at the head of a long line. A ten-by-ten canopy protected him from the sun’s rays, and his assistant sat at a table beneath him. She took notes on every
inspection and ensured he had a supply of latex gloves and masks on hand.

  Moe gestured for an old woman to come forward. She shuffled toward him, neck covered in a light and colorful scarf. Her gray hair fell in twin braids over her shoulders and nearly touched her belt.

  “Hello, mother,” Moe said. “How are you today?”

  “I’ve been cursed.” Her voice resonated age, wisdom, and a hint of sorrow. “The gods have never looked favorably on me. Now they pass their judgment and truth.”

  “What truth is that?”

  “That I’m going to die.” The woman lifted her face to show the obvious signs of Asphyxia infection. Black spots glistened around her nose and upper lip, like someone had wiped wet soot there.

  Moe held up his gloved hands and cradled her jaw, turning her head left and right. “I won’t lie to you, mother. You are sick and have to go to the healing caves.”

  She nodded sadly. “Then my fate is sealed.”

  “That’s not true.” He grasped her hands and held them gently but firmly. He stared deep into her eyes, searching for a connection, wanting to say something positive. But it would be an empty gesture because he didn’t have a real answer. He couldn’t guarantee anything.

  Over her shoulder, a line of a hundred people waited for him. He let go of the woman’s hands and motioned for her to go with one of the nurses. She shuffled off with her eyes dragging the dirt, and he called the next person forward.

  They’d discovered three of their four water tanks infected with Asphyxia, and the camp leaders had launched into damage control mode. The doctors had set up screening stations and set new rules for protection and interaction.

  There was to be no physical contact between citizens. Hugs, kisses, or cuddling for warmth were not allowed. Scarves or masks were required at all times. They mandated anyone with signs of sickness to notify camp doctors right away.