Convulsive Box Set Read online

  Convulsive

  The Complete Series

  MARCUS MARTIN

  Copyright © 2019 Marcus Martin

  All rights reserved.

  www.marcusmartinauthor.com

  Contents

  CRISIS

  ONE Blackout

  TWO Fault Lines

  THREE Cassie

  FOUR Consignment

  FIVE Medic

  SIX Containment

  SEVEN Canaries

  EIGHT The List

  NINE End of the Line

  GRIT

  ONE No

  TWO The Boy

  THREE Into the Crypt

  FOUR Pilgrim

  FIVE Flesh and Bone

  SIX The Hunter

  SEVEN Scorched Earth

  EIGHT Captain

  TRIBES

  ONE Freefall

  TWO The Canadian

  THREE Citizens

  FOUR South

  FIVE Doctor

  SIX Blood

  SEVEN Mother

  ASH

  ONE Embers

  TWO Rise and Fall

  THREE Lifeline

  FOUR He

  FIVE Forensic

  SIX Hostiles

  SEVEN Cure

  EIGHT Find them

  NINE Avalanche

  TEN Betrayed

  PROXY

  ONE Tall Fields

  TWO Another way

  THREE Powder

  FOUR Prove it

  FIVE The Hunt

  SIX An eye for an eye

  SEVEN The Farm

  EIGHT Prepare

  NINE Jailbreak

  TEN Father

  ELEVEN Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CRISIS

  Convulsive Part I

  ONE

  Blackout

  _________________________________________

  It was almost two a.m., according to Lucy’s phone. Still no signal. The sound of a key scratching its way into the lock pricked her ears.

  “Luce?” came Dan’s voice as the front door clicked open.

  She shoved the envelope back into the drawer.

  “Dan!” she cried, dashing out from the candlelit kitchen to her partner, who stood in the front doorway wearing a head lamp. “I saw your note,” she quavered. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain as we go. Take these,” he said, panting, as he passed her two gallon-sized bottles of water. “Just leave them in the hallway. We need to be quick.”

  He swiveled the vast hiking backpack off his shoulders and swung it onto the floor. It was fit to burst.

  “Dan, you’re freaking me out. What is all this?” choked Lucy.

  “Put your shoes on, there’s more in the car,” he panted, mopping the band of sweat from his brow and disappearing out of the door again. “Come on!”

  Lucy hastily pulled on a pair of sneakers and set off after him, down the blacked-out stairwell.

  “Dan, tell me what’s going on! You leave me a note saying everything’s about to change – what does that even mean?”

  “Whisper,” he hissed, casting his light around the deserted level. “Did you see the news? Before the networks went down?”

  “I caught a bit at work – is this to do with the whole space station thing?” replied Lucy, hastening to keep up as Dan raced on.

  “Yes,” he said, as they rounded the corner of the sixth floor. “Dad called me right before the news broke. The White House thinks what happened to the ISS is linked to what’s happening to the satellites.”

  “What is happening to them?” probed Lucy.

  “I don’t know, OK? All I know is what Dad told me. It’s what’s next that matters. Stop!”

  He halted and covered his head lamp. Lucy froze mid-step and listened, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

  “Out, go on,” crowed a smoker’s voice from around the corner. “There you go. Mommy’ll let you back in when it’s morning.”

  A sliver of flickering candlelight spilled out into the stairwell, accompanied by a soft “meow”, before the unseen apartment door clicked shut again and darkness returned.

  Dan waited a few seconds more then uncovered his head lamp, re-illuminating the stairs downward.

  “Everything we use,” he whispered urgently, as they continued their hurry down the levels, “phones, the internet, the national grid, banks, farming, everything – it’s all dependent on GPS; on satellites. Without GPS there’s no universal time anymore. So every nation has to revert to their own alternatives, which will be fractionally different to one another. That tiny split-second difference is enough to trigger server errors across the world. Which means goodbye stock markets, goodbye currency. It also means we have to switch all our power sources back to manual, which is crazy intensive.”

  Dan clicked his light off again as they reached the first floor. As they approached the lobby doors he slowed to a halt. Cautiously, they stepped out onto the steep, pitch-black street. It was deserted. Vivid moonlight reflected off parked cars and curtained windows.

  Dan led the way to their car and popped the trunk. It was brimming with supplies – bags of food, equipment, and water.

  “Here,” he said, passing her a head lamp of her own. “Don’t turn it on until we’re back inside.”

  Lucy fumbled the lamp into place.

  “Did you let anyone into the apartment while I was gone?” asked Dan, heaving out six bags and handing them to Lucy.

  “What? Why does that matter?” she huffed, staggering under the new weight.

  “Holy shit, you did!” breathed Dan. “Was it Cassie?”

  “No, she took a cab after we left the bar.”

  “Then who?”

  “Dan, what the hell? You’re acting insane. It was the lady from downstairs – from 701. She wanted a glass of water, so I gave it to her. It’s not a big deal. Can we do this later? These bags are killing me.”

  “Jesus, Luce, I told you!” hissed Dan.

  “Told me what, Dan?” she countered, placing the bags on the ground.

  “In the note! I said be careful!”

  “Oh, and from that I was supposed to get ‘don’t give any old ladies water because something’s up with the satellites’? Yeah, my bad,” she snapped, in a harsh whisper.

  Dan bit his lip. “She’ll be back tomorrow, Luce, you know that, right? For more water.”

  “And?”

  “We don’t have enough to share!” retorted Dan. “I could barely get enough for the two of us as it was. We don’t know how long it’s gonna be before the water comes back on, and we need enough to drink and flush out the toile–”

  Dan’s head snapped around. Footsteps echoed down the sidewalk. He grabbed the lip of the trunk and knelt down behind the car, pulling the trunk down silently. Lucy squinted at the dark silhouette heading in their direction. Dan tugged the hem of her jacket and she quickly crouched down beside him.

  The stranger’s footsteps got louder. Lucy looked at Dan; his head was bowed and turned away from the sidewalk, his eyes fixed on the ground. She copied, tilting her head downward, also covering her head with her jacket.

  The figure passed by without stopping. Lucy tentatively uncovered her pale face and peered out at Dan, who was looking at her intently, a finger held up to his lips. She nodded.

  The footsteps ceased a little way down the street, and they heard a door open and close. Dan indicated for Lucy to keep still while he shuffled closer to the sidewalk and leaned forwards, checking both directions, before rising to his feet and scanning the entire street.

  “Clear,” he whispered, opening the trunk once again.

  Lucy climbed to her feet, her head rushing slightly
as circulation returned to her legs. “Dan, you’re scaring me now.”

  He hastily retrieved more bags then sealed the trunk with a quiet click. He faced her directly, five or six brimming bags in each hand. “If you’re scared, it’s because you’re beginning to understand the situation. We need to get these inside.”

  They re-entered the building and switched their head lamps on, beginning the long stairwell climb. For a while they ascended in silence, the darkness punctuated only by their shallow breaths and scuffling of shoes.

  “I withdrew all the money I could get from our accounts,” said Dan, breaking the silence as they rounded the fifth floor. “Until the ATMs stopped working on the last one.”

  “You did what? You took my credit cards?” seethed Lucy. “A minute ago you were laying into me for giving an old lady some water!”

  “Whisper!” insisted Dan. “Listen to me, Luce,” he panted. “In six years, have I ever given you reason to doubt me?”

  “No,” she conceded, as they staggered upwards.

  “Have I ever abused your trust, or put you in harm’s way?”

  “OK, Dan, I get it. But you have to tell me why you’re doing all this.”

  Dan said nothing for a few steps, recovering his breath.

  “Without electronic trading,” he replied, finally, “our currency’s going to crash. So are all the currencies, everywhere. Money means nothing now. It was the right thing to do, you have to trust me.”

  Lucy swallowed hard. The beam from her head lamp wobbled up a step with each foot she put forwards.

  “In the morning,” he puffed, “people will start to realize they have no way of accessing their banks. No way of paying for stuff. First they’ll protest. Then when they realize nothing can be done, they’ll panic. At the same time, some folk will have figured out that CCTV’s stopped working, and alarm systems are offline.”

  “So … like New Orleans after Katrina.”

  “Exactly. Mass looting.”

  “And with the phones down, no one can call the cops,” gasped Lucy, as they rounded another level.

  “Right. Which means the looting will become more violent.”

  “But … in San Francisco?”

  “Trust me. Take away people’s power, their food and water, and there’s no such thing as civilized society. Just one big tinderbox. I’ve seen it happen.”

  Lucy stopped in her tracks. “Are we gonna be safe here, Dan?”

  “Keep moving,” he replied, glancing back at her.

  “We should get to DC. Your dad – we’d be safe with him, right?” she pressed, catching up as they reached the eighth floor.

  “It’s too late for that. It’s a four-day drive and we’d have no way to refuel. If the government’s smart, they’ll declare martial law first thing tomorrow. They’ll deploy the National Guard. That’ll restore order.”

  “Are you gonna get called up?” said Lucy, aghast, as they reached their apartment.

  “No, luckily my rank was too junior for that,” replied Dan, lowering half of his bags and taking out the key.

  Lucy’s arms burned as he opened their front door. Dan grabbed the lowered bags and staggered inside to the end of their hallway, where he abandoned both handfuls and sat down on the ground. Lucy kicked the door closed with her foot and ditched her bags immediately, sliding down onto the floor adjacent to Dan.

  “We’re safe here,” he panted. “So long as no one knows we’ve got a stockpile. Do you understand? That’s why water lady can’t come here again.”

  “Her name’s Manuela,” said Lucy, mopping her brow. The beam from her head lamp crossed Dan’s midway along the corridor floor. She clicked off the flashlight.

  “In the next seven days, Luce, things are going to change beyond recognition. In this city it’s you and me now, no one else. It has to be.”

  She nodded but said nothing. Her mind slid from their Spanish neighbor in 701, whom she would no longer assist, to her best friend, whom she’d spent the evening with only a few hours prior. The latter was harder to abandon. She couldn’t just cut the rope.

  “Come on,” said Dan, standing up and holding out a hand for Lucy. “We need to get the rest from the car. Two more trips.”

  Lucy took his hand and clicked her light back on. She knew she could trust Dan with her life. And she knew he was right. But she had to warn Cassie.

  TWO

  Fault Lines

  ___________________________________________________

  The mid-morning sun shone like it was any other day. But at street level, a different story was unfolding. Lucy kept her foot hovering over the brake pedal and edged forwards using the clutch. Horns blared all around as drivers tried to negotiate intersections without working signals.

  As they left the freeway, it became apparent that San Jose was behaving much the same as San Francisco had been. The streets were teeming with people walking around holding their phones up, trying to find a signal. A café was giving away its melting stocks of ice cream and other dairy products. Handwritten CASH ONLY signs were taped to the windows of the handful of open stores they’d passed so far.

  “Here!” said Dan, pointing to a turning to the strip mall. “It’s second from the end.”

  The stores were all unusually dark, and the parking lots were empty by Saturday’s standards. Lucy parked up outside the modest-sized gun store.

  “You sure he’ll remember you?” she asked, climbing out of the driver’s seat and stretching in the adjacent empty parking space, taking in the store’s sloping red tiles and salmon-colored art-deco crown.

  “Are you for real? We toured together,” replied Dan, with a slight puff of his chest.

  “Yeah, but you haven’t seen him in, what, three years?” said Lucy, locking their ageing Ford Focus and following after him.

  “He’ll remember me,” said Dan, approaching the store entrance. “He owes me a favor.”

  Red Wood Tactical read the swirling crimson signage on the white store banner. The lights were off but the steel shutters were raised, revealing the window displays of encased rifles and accessories. The glass front door was propped open by a trashcan.

  “Hello?” Dan called out, stepping inside with Lucy in tow.

  “Can I help you?” came a hostile voice from the gloomy counter.

  “Morning, sir,” replied Dan, warmly. “I’m looking for AJ, is he around?”

  “Do I look like AJ?” retorted the middle-aged proprietor. “No. I do not. Therefore y’all may reasonably deduce that ‘AJ’ ain’t around.”

  “And I could reasonably deduce that you’re a grade ‘A’ asshole,” chipped in Lucy. “Come on, Dan, this is clearly the wrong place. Screw this guy.”

  “I’m merely stating the facts, miss,” replied the man, his tinted brown glasses standing out against his wrinkled white skin.

  “I think I know exactly what you’re stating,” railed Lucy.

  “Luce, it’s fine,” soothed Dan, who addressed the proprietor once again. “Do you know where AJ’s store is, sir?”

  “AJ don’t have a store anymore. Y’all can’t’ve been that close if y’all didn’t hear. Your boy went cuckoo. State withdrew his license to sell firearms. As they tend to do with crazy people. So he sold up.”

  “To you?” said Dan.

  “Smart fella, ain’t ya,” replied the man, setting his elbows on the counter and leaning on them with a grin.

  “We need to buy two handguns,” said Lucy, cutting across Dan’s faltering smile.

  “Pick any one you like,” replied the owner, gesturing generously.

  “We also need to take them home today,” she added.

  “Now that,” replied the man, straightening up again, “is called i-l-l-e-g-a-l. Y’all are clearly feds. I don’t see a warrant, so how’s about y’all just piss off my property right now.”

  “We’re not feds,” Dan assured him. “I used to serve with AJ, which is why we came here. We need to buy a couple of guns, but we were kinda
hoping we could … speed along the whole ten-day background check thing. We can pay you well for it.”

  “Uh-huh,” replied the man. “If you wanna speed things up, why don’t you take those nigger legs of yours and run along then?”

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. “You – you deplorable –”

  Dan took her by the arm and steered her out of the store before she could fully articulate the extent of her rage.

  “What a … a …” Lucy stuttered.

  “He was a real charmer,” sighed Dan, stepping around to the passenger side of the car.

  “But, you shouldn’t have to –”

  “Luce, it’s fine,” he smiled, kindly. “Old white guy running a gun shop? The odds were always stacked against him.”

  She fished the keys from her bag. “Are you OK?”

  “I’m concerned. If Colonel Sanders in there is anything to go by, it looks like no one’s gonna skip the background checks for the sake of a couple of strangers. He wasn’t interested in being bribed, which kinda limits our options.”

  “And AJ was your only contact?”

  “There’s one other place we could try,” said Dan, scratching his chin. “But it’s more of a long shot. I’d be playing the veteran card. It’s an army surplus store back in the city. They might help us out.”

  “We’re gonna have to hurry,” said Lucy. “You saw the people outside the banks earlier. They’re starting to figure out what’s going on.”

  ***

  The freeway spat them back out in San Francisco a good hour later, where they began to crawl once more through the gridlocked inner-city traffic. It had worsened in the few hours they’d been gone.

  “Try changing to long wave,” said Lucy from the driving seat, as Dan scrolled through the FM radio stations to no avail. He duly switched and a station crackled into life: KGO 810 was still on air, despite the power cut.

  “… are asking, ‘Is this a government takeover, and should we be resisting it?’” said the presenter, as Dan tuned in.

  “That sounds positive,” quipped Lucy.