The Remaining - Softcover

Molles, D. J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316404152 ISBN 13: 9780316404150

Publisher: Orbit, 2014

Synopsis

<b>The first volume in D.J. Molles&#39;s bestselling series, now in a special edition with the bonus novella <i>The Remaining: Faith</i></b><br><br>In a steel-and-lead encased bunker a Special Forces soldier waits on his final orders.<br><br>On the surface a bacterium has turned 90% of the population into hyper-aggressive predators.<br><br>Now Captain Lee Harden must leave the bunker and venture into the wasteland to rekindle a shattered America.

About this title

About the Author

<b>D.J. Molles</b> has two published short stories, "Darkness" and "Survive," which won a short fiction contest through <i>Writer's Digest</i>. The Remaining series (<i>The Remaining, The Remaining: Aftermath, The Remaining: Refugees</i> and <i>The Remaining: Fractured</i>) are his first novels and have been met with overwhelming success. He lives in the southeast with his wife and two children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Remaining

By D.J. Molles

Orbit

Copyright © 2014 D.J. Molles
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-316-40415-0

CHAPTER 1

The Hole

Lee Harden stood in the center of a knockoff Persian rug. The soft polyesterfibers felt like sandpaper on his bare feet. The seventy-two-degree temperatureof the room felt hot one moment and too cold the next. His cotton T-shirt clungto his chest. The walls of the room were cloying and stale. Everything wasfrustrating. Monotonous. The sameness of his prison buzzed in his ears and drovehim mad. His body begged him to break free.

His clammy left hand planted in the pocket of his jeans while his right bounceda tennis ball in front of him. To the side, his German shepherd, Tango, sat andregarded the bouncing ball with quiet intensity, his eyes following up and downwith the even rhythm of a pendulum counting the endless seconds.

He closed his eyes and tasted brine in the back of his throat. Sand crunchedbetween his teeth and lactic acid coursed through his legs and arms. His lungsclawed for air like someone buried alive. Words punched through the riptide ofblood rushing past his ears: The only easy day was yesterday!

He opened his eyes and the salty sea and gritting sand fled from his mouth, butthe words still hung before him, tangible now. Carved into wood. The "plaque"was big, about three feet long, and the words were hacked out, like a convicthad gone to work with a penknife. Crude and simple. Like the sentiment it bore.Below the chunk of wood was a large steel door that looked like the entrance toa vault.

But it was Lee who was inside the vault.

The only easy day was yesterday.

He wondered how true those words were going to be.

Lee had spent the better part of the day in front of his computer, reading thesame news bulletins that had been displayed for the past week. No one hadupdated the stories. Images of burning cities, overcrowded refugee camps, andviolence on the scale of genocide remained untouched. No turnaround. No goodnews.

No cure.

He had spent most of the past hour lost in thought, gazing at a picture of avery young Honduran child standing in the middle of the street, wearing noshoes, dirty blue shorts, and a yellow shirt stained with blood. He held a half-empty water bottle, likely given to him by one of the humanitarian aid stations.The look on his face was that of someone recovering from a knockout punch: eyesopen but not seeing.

Behind the boy and out of focus was a leg. No body to accompany it. It had beensheared off just above the knee and now lay in some dirty Honduran street. Thecaption under the picture read, Honduran boy outside Red Cross shelter.The picture was dated June 28.

It was now July 3.

Most articles on the news websites were dated June 28. One or two were datedJune 29. The ones from the twenty-ninth were just blurbs. US military recallingall overseas troops back to the homeland. Martial law was in effect.

Frank had confirmed all of this yesterday, but despite the look on his face, hehad reassured Lee that it would all be over soon. He even apologized for keepingLee in The Hole for this long. Maybe another week at most. I'll send you agift card to Ruth's Chris, he had said. Just hang in there.

Lee realized that he had inadvertently been tempting Tango with the bouncingball and tossed it in the air. Tango let it bounce once, then snagged it inmidair. He smiled and wagged his tail, looking deeply satisfied. Completelyignorant. But that was the beauty of a dog.

Pets were strongly advised as companions while in The Hole, a place where Leehad spent many days. Usually two or three weeks at a time. There had beenoccasions when national disaster was foretold but averted. Such as whenFukushima melted down after the earthquakes off the coast of Japan. TheWashington Worrywarts said fallout could reach mainland USA and causeagricultural collapse, which would in turn collapse the stock market, theeconomy, and the government.

They kept him in The Hole for eighteen days.

A month after that, Korea created a little nuclear scare that rippled throughthe various offices in Washington but never reached the press, which alwayssurprised Lee, since the people controlling him made it out to be the next CubanMissile Crisis.

On that occasion, they kept him in The Hole for a week.

Not that The Hole was a bad place. It contained almost every creature comfortone could think of. It was a little over a thousand square feet, with a greatkitchen, fully stocked bar, den with a big TV, a bedroom with a king-size bed,and a bathroom with a large Jacuzzi tub and a sauna next to the shower. It wasstocked with a week of fresh food, three months of freeze-dried meals, and threemonths' worth of water. A battery bank, trickle charged from solar panels on thesurface, could run every electronic in the place for nearly a year, and Lee keptit full of entertainment, from books and magazines to video games and movies.

Yes, Lee's bunker had everything. Except human interaction. And the freedom toleave. So far, the Washington Worrywarts had always been wrong. A few weeksafter he locked himself in, Frank's face would appear on Lee Harden's computerscreen, smiling and telling him to "come back to the land of the living." Thatwas his signature it's-all-over phrase.

But Frank would also be on Lee's computer every day at 1200 hours to give Lee anupdate. Not once in all the days Lee had been restricted to his bunker had Frankbeen even a minute late to update Lee.

Frank had not appeared today.

Lee checked the digital clock on the wall above his computer.

18:34.

His stomach flip-flopped as he considered the possibilities. His mind took himto a place without controls or any central government. A place where a disease,or a virus, or some kind of plague had brought humanity back to the Stone Age.Complete collapse of civilization. People going crazy, murdering other people,looting and pillaging, warlords seizing control in power vacuums created byfractured governments.

This could be his reality in thirty days. Picturing it all, he felt sick. Butanxious. He looked down at Tango, who sat clenching the tennis ball in his mouthand waiting for Lee to do something. The thought of the end of the world waslike trying to swallow a mouthful of vinegar. His mind completely rejected it.

"Fuck it," he told Tango. "He'll call."

Before all the hell weeks—the pounding, cold surf; and the hot, muggyswamps; and the arid, craggy mountains—there was Primary Selection. Leewas approached, along with 237 other candidates, the proposition coming in theform of a letter, pre-typed and unsigned. It came on the heels of his parents'funerals, and he would later discover that he and many of the others had beenchosen due to several factors, not the least of which was the fact that they hadno family.

The letter gave no details, but instead spoke of an opportunity to be involvedin a top-tier government initiative and some such nonsense about being elite. Itprovided a number and extension to call, and that was essentially it. When Leeasked his superiors about the weird letter he had received, they just staredblankly and shrugged, apparently not in the loop.

Of the 237 to receive letters, Lee was one of the 191 who called the number. Apolite female voice on the other end scheduled a session for what she referredto as the Primary Selection process. Still, she gave no details of what theprocess would be about or what the government initiative was.

Of the 191 who showed up to their appointments, only 169 signed the waiver thatexplicitly stated that Primary Selection was a mental test only and would beconducted under the influence of some legally prescribed narcotics, closelysupervised by a medical professional.

Lee could never remember the test. He remembered lying down, and the IV in hisarm, and something odd flooding his system. Then there was a block of time,filled with snippets and pieces of something terrifying that never made sense tohim, and which his conscious mind was unable to make sense of. Then heremembered waking up, heart still pounding.

Of the 169 who took the test, 60 had a conversation with the doctor afterward.

Lee was one of them.

The doctor was a skinny black man. Rather than a white lab coat, he wore cleanlypressed ACUs with no division markings and just a nametag that read COOK andsingle black bars on his collar. Dr. (or Lt.) Cook was of average height withclose-cropped hair and a mouthful of large, incredibly straight teeth. He had arelaxed manner, and he seemed perpetually curious.

"Do you have any questions?" Dr. Cook had asked.

Lee remembered testing his own thundering pulse—touching his fingers tohis carotid artery. His skin was clammy and sweaty, his collar wet. "When do youguys tell me what this is about?"

"Well, today you sat in a chair and received visual stimuli for a period ofninety minutes. Kind of like a virtual reality game. The drugs were to help yourmind interpret the visual stimuli as reality."

Lee stared blankly, not quite sure what to ask from there. He had plenty ofquestions but really couldn't categorize them or prioritize them.

Dr. Cook smiled and leaned forward, clasping his hands. "We're testing somethingI like to call mental flex." Dr. Cook looked thoughtful, as thoughtrying to come up with an apt description, though Lee got the impression that hehad already given this speech dozens of times. "Imagine a dream where you arefaced with a life-or-death struggle—a literal fight for your life. Nowimagine that this dream fight is against something terrifying, something thatyou know cannot be real. Even as your logical forebrain is thinking, Thiscan't possibly be real, is your dream self still fighting? Or do you stopand wait for the dream to be over?"

Dr. Cook leaned an elbow on his chair's armrest. "We've found that in certainscenarios or situations, a sense of denial is unavoidable. You actually can'treally train it out of someone. It doesn't matter how elite of a soldier, howmuch of a badass he is; certain things the brain simply refuses to believe. Sowhen that happens, we've found that most people fall into one of twocategories—the flexible or the inflexible. If a person is inflexible, hewill mentally stop, almost like he is refusing to entertain the thought becauseit is so unbelievable." Dr. Cook laughed a weird little chuckle. "I'm talkingabout top-tier operators here. I've seen it happen. Now, granted, the bettertrained they are, the harder it is to get them to that denial. But you keeppressing the boundaries of someone's reality, and eventually he will reach it.And then most people pop. Like an overloaded circuit."

Here he stopped and held up a finger. "But a few—probably about athird—will keep fighting, even when their brain is in that state ofdenial. And if you're still fighting then you are flexible. You havemental flex."

Lee swallowed, felt cold. "So do I have it?"

Another big, toothy grin. "Oh, you've got it."

Lee lay in his bed, still awake at 0200 hours on the morning of July 4.

He had not eaten for the remainder of the evening, not having the appetite. Hismind kept replaying his concerns in a dizzying cycle, like a short, annoyingsong set on repeat. What if this is it? I can't believe it's the end. Itcan't possibly be the end. That's bullshit.

You're overreacting. Frank will call. He's never missed a call before. But whatif this is really it?

What if? What if?

Lee tried to turn off his mind but couldn't, and he failed to think of a reasonthat he needed to sleep. It wasn't like he had big plans, despite it beingIndependence Day.

That's a first. Locked in The Hole on Independence Day. That's fucking un-American, he thought. I swear to God, I am going to chew Frank the fuck out ...I hope he's okay. He's gotta be okay. I am a contingency plan. Contingency plansare for contingencies. Contingencies don't happen, at least not on this scale.Not on the scale that requires me to get involved.

He recalled his commission for this job. He remembered thinking, at first, thatit was total horseshit. But in the end you couldn't beat the pay, and youcouldn't beat the benefits. The government built his entire house on three acresin the central North Carolina countryside. From the outside, the house didn'tlook overtly rich, but the inside was large and comfortable. The bunker he nowfound himself restricted to was a part of this house, buried almost twenty feetbeneath the basement. They also paid him an amazing salary to go down into hisbunker when they told him.

Seal the doors, they said. You'll receive more information fromFrank during your restricted periods. If you stop receiving communications fromcommand, you will wait in your secure bunker for thirty days from the date ofcommand's last communication before exiting to begin your mission.

The mission.

The thought of that massive undertaking made sweat break out across Lee'sforehead. The parameters of his mission, the whole reason he was sequesteredaway from what was going on outside, bordered on the impossible.

He shook his head. Frank would call. And so the thoughts cycled and cycled untilthey had blended into a slur of white noise in his mind, and somewhere around0330 he fell asleep.

When he woke up at about 0930 he felt great.

For a moment he was truly convinced that the previous day had not happened andthat it was the morning of the third, only a few hours from Frank's scheduledcall, which he would undoubtedly receive. He eventually realized this wasn't thecase. But the greasy knot in his stomach didn't return. He felt more agitated,slightly angry. He took a hot shower and thought of all the choice words hewould say to Frank when he finally called, which he was sure he would. Lee hopedFrank had a most excellent and entertaining story to explain why he was twenty-four hours overdue for his call.

He hoped Frank was safe.

He air-dried after his shower. There was really no point in rushing to clotheyourself when you were alone, twenty feet underground in a cement-and-lead box.

He made himself a protein shake while Tango dutifully sat next to him in thekitchen. After the shake, Lee put on a pair of athletic shorts, because therewas something privately disturbing about doing calisthenics in the nude. Heknocked out his sit-ups, push-ups, felt lazy as he looked at his chin-up bar.Then felt guilty and did the pull-ups. He turned on the sunlamp while he didthese. It wasn't the same as the sun itself, but it was better than nothing.Being in a sunless environment could mess with your head and your health.

After that he made some egg whites and toast with peanut butter. Then fed Tango.He made some coffee and took it to the computer. He didn't sit down. Justtouched the mouse. The screen saver vanished. The homepage of CNN.comwas still displayed. It had not changed.

Just to make sure, Lee refreshed the browser window. This time it gave him anerror message about the site being down. He checked the status of his Internetconnection and found it displaying a good connection. He tried Yahoo! andmanaged to get the home page, but it was still the same old news.

Nothing posted since June 28. He drank his coffee in silence. It was 1030. Hesat down in his computer chair, lifting his feet onto the desk. He rested thewarm coffee mug on his bare chest and regarded a flat, rectangular metal box tothe right of his computer screen. It contained his mission brief. This was thepredetermined contingency plan given to him directly from the Office of theSecretary of Homeland Security. It outlined in detail what they projected thesituation would be like on the thirtieth day. Due to the sensitivity of theinformation contained, Lee was not authorized to open the box until forty-eighthours after his last communication with command.

Frank was Colonel Frank Reid of the United States Army, assigned as liaisonbetween the Secretary of Homeland Security and the forty-eight "Coordinators"stationed in bunkers in each of the states across the Continental US. Lee wasstationed in North Carolina.

Colonel Frank Reid was command.

At 1200 hours today, he would have to open that box and read its contents. Thatwould be it. Project Hometown would do what it was meant to do. He could onlyassume that the other forty-seven Coordinators had not received communicationsfrom Frank either and would also be opening their boxes at their respectiveforty-eight-hour marks.

The thought of it scared him shitless.

He drank the dregs of his coffee, grabbed a water bottle, and sat down on thecouch, facing the gigantic TV. He turned it on and scanned through the cablechannels. TV had gone much sooner than the Internet news. Most channels had beendisplaying an emergency broadcast screen with a ticker at the bottom looping thesame information: the major metropolitan areas that were under evacuation orderand which FEMA shelter to report to for each area.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Remaining by D.J. Molles. Copyright © 2014 D.J. Molles. Excerpted by permission of Orbit.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Orbit
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316404152
• ISBN 13: 9780316404150
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 339