The Hunted
Black Carbon #1
A.J. Scudiere
The Hunted - Black Carbon #1
Copyright © 2019 by AJ Scudiere
Griffyn Ink. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
* * *
FIRST EDITION
Contents
Books by A.J.
Introduction
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
Chapter 45
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
About the Author
Want a free story?
Go to www.ReadAJS.com/free-book to get free short stories.
* * *
Look for other novels by A.J. Scudiere.
Available in bookstores, online, and at ReadAJS.com.
* * *
The NightShade Forensic Files
Book 1 - Under Dark Skies
Book 2 - Fracture Five
Book 3 - The Atlas Defect
Book 4 - Echo and Ember
Book 5 - Salvage (A Shadow Files Novel)
Book 6 - Garden of Bone
Book 7 - The Camelot Gambit
Book 8 - Dead Tide (available 9/5/19)
Book 9 - Sabotage (A Shadow Files Novel) (available 2/4/20)
* * *
Black Carbon
Book 1 - The Hunted
Book 2 - The Surface (available 11/21/19)
Book 3 - The Tempest (available 4/21/20)
Book 4 - The Swarm (available 11/10/20)
* * *
Legends
The Landa Landa & The Aellai (available 1/22/19)
* * *
FORTUNE (red)
FORTUNE (gray)
FORTUNE (Red & Gray)
* * *
The Vendetta Trifecta
Vengeance
Retribution
Justice
The Complete Vendetta Trifecta
* * *
Stand Alone Stories - Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
* * *
Resonance
* * *
Dissonance - a companion novella to Resonance
* * *
God's Eye
* * *
Phoenix
* * *
The Shadow Constant
* * *
Stand Alone Novels by A.J. Scudiere: Resonance, God’s Eye, Phoenix, The Shadow Constant
* * *
A Collection of Blogs
Smart Chickens - Deliver Us From Email
Smart Chickens - We’re Not Like Other Families
Smart Chickens - Tele Me More
Smart Chickens - Omega Dog
Join A.J.’s Renegades here: www.ReadAJS.com
Praise for A.J. Scudiere
"There are really just 2 types of readers—those who are fans of AJ Scudiere, and those who will be."
-Bill Salina, Reviewer, Amazon
* * *
For The Shadow Constant:
* * *
"The Shadow Constant by A.J. Scudiere was one of those novels I got wrapped up in quickly and had a hard time putting down."
-Thomas Duff, Reviewer, Amazon
* * *
For Phoenix:
* * *
"It's not a book you read and forget; this is a book you read and think about, again and again . . . everything that has happened in this book could be true. That's why it sticks in your mind and keeps coming back for rethought."
-Jo Ann Hakola, The Book Faerie
Joule could hear the dogs in the distance, and she broke into a run. Just barely in earshot, they rustled the underbrush in the woods behind the houses.
The approaching clouds had brought them out early tonight, and she hadn’t calculated correctly. Breath huffing, arms pumping, she ran down the street and hung a sharp righthand turn. Her feet pounded the pavement as she heard the first deep bark—faint, but within range.
She had another turn to make, then the tenth of a mile up her dead-end street before she could close the door behind her. They lived in the last house, and right now she wished they didn’t. Her breath was coming hard, but she didn’t slow down. The sky was darkening rapidly, and that would only make things worse.
Her house was less than two-tenths of a mile from the place she’d been raiding, but she couldn’t cut through the woods—not with the cloud cover rapidly coming in. So she was taking the long way because, although it was not safe at all, it was safer than the alternative.
She could almost hear her mother, worrying at the window. But her parents were smart enough to close the curtains anyway… even though she wasn’t home. At least, she hoped they were. If they didn’t do it, the dogs would get them, too.
Joule listened to the slap of her sneakers on the pavement, thinking it would keep her focused. It didn’t stop her from seeing the blur of movement behind the Dunford house. The Dunfords were dead, the house empty. Still running, she counted. Just the one dog. So far.
She might be able to take on one of them, but they never traveled alone. She could only see one, but she was certain there were at least three others—if not ten—right behind him.
She could see the roof of her house over the slight hill and found some stamina to pick up her pace again. Halfway down the street, she passed a mental checkpoint. She could see her whole house from there.
But she could also see the lone dog that had braved his wa
y out into the street.
He stood between her and her home, pacing on soft paws. His eyes seemed to glow, reflecting light almost like a cat’s. Though he changed direction, he never stopped staring at her.
It was over.
She wasn’t going to make it.
The dog had seen her.
She had seen victims of the dog packs before. She’d seen a few of her neighbors—or the pieces left of them—after they had stayed out too late. Their sense of smell sucked, but once the dogs saw you, they were relentless. Smart. Operating almost from a hive-mind. No one had ever survived an encounter to tell whether that was really the case.
Though she didn’t let the dog see her eyes flick, she gauged the distance to a tall tree she had picked out. There was no telling if it would work. She had no idea if they could climb up behind her. No evidence that they were or weren’t strong enough to topple a tree. But she was relatively tall for her age, and if she gave a determined jump, she could grab the lowest branch and scramble up. She only had to make it until morning.
The Cranston house had bank notices pasted all over it. It was definitely abandoned, so she’d picked up two small computer units when she was there. Now they felt heavy in her hand, like a decision that would change everything.
She hefted the bigger one at the dog. Though she missed his head—where she’d been aiming—Joule managed a glancing blow off its side. Still, it was a mistake.
The whining yelp the helldog let out summoned its friends. Though Joule was bolting for the tree, it was still too far away.
Two dogs appeared in the road before her, cutting her off before she was even halfway there. Running home had been her only real plan. Now, she turned on a dime, heading the other way, and spotting three more dogs emerging from behind the house.
For a moment, she stopped moving. They had her on three sides. She’d seen what they did to the people they caught, and she could only pray death would be quick, though she knew it would not be painless.
But they move in packs, she reminded herself. Thus, they’d likely been together before spotting her. The chances they had managed to surround her—when they’d only just now been willing to step out into the darkening twilight—was low.
She had to bank on it. It was her only chance.
With a lightning-fast dash, Joule bolted through the empty space. One house stood there, and she prayed it wasn’t locked. The inhabitants were gone. The wife was dead by the dogs, the husband and daughter disappeared. But whether they’d moved away or if the dogs had gotten them, too, Joule didn’t know.
The knob turned under her hand, the only good luck of the darker-than-usual afternoon, and she stumbled harshly through. Turning, she slammed the heavy door shut, feeling the weight of a dog pounding against it as she slid the bolt shut.
She might be inside, but she likely had less than a minute.
The dogs knew she was in here. She was their prey, and once spotted, they would not give up. She’d seen more than ample evidence of the dogs having broken into houses—ramming down doors, hurling themselves against windows, however many tries were necessary to get through—just because they’d spotted someone inside.
Hearing the first dog make an attempt at the window on the porch, Joule dashed upstairs. She was looking for something specific.
In the hallway, she passed a shotgun carelessly left leaning against the wall. These people had tried. They hadn’t known the dogs were hard to kill with bullets and axes and baseball bats. As she passed, she caught a whiff of food rotting from the kitchen. No, they had not left willingly.
The window behind her shattered, and she heard the scrape of nails on hardwood floor. One dog, two, three… too many to count. They were inside the house and behind her, racing up the stairs.
Joule looked up and spotted what she’d been looking for.
2
“Close the curtains!” Kaya commanded harshly, grinding the words out to her husband, who stared out the window, waiting for their daughter to come home.
Her heart would be breaking, if it hadn't frozen solid. A little while ago, as the cloud cover had come over the neighborhood, she’d become worried. Now she would be in full panic, but she’d shut that part of herself down.
Joule had gone over several streets to check out one of the growing number of empty houses. She would see if anything of value had been left behind. She’d gone out later in the day, but until just moments ago, the day had been sunny and the light kept the dogs at bay. They usually just came out at night. In fact, the dogs operated with such regularity that most of the residents of Rowena Heights went on about their days as though they were normal.
People merely closed up shop early. Pulling all the curtains, shutting the windows, and dramatically lowering the noise levels within the house right before dark seemed to do the trick well enough. The Mazurs did the same, and their usual pattern had worked very well… until now.
Most days now, dinner was early. Evenings were for reading. Voices were kept low and all was fine. The family had taken to using clothes pins to keep the gap in their curtains tightly shut. Kaya smacked them into Nate's hand now, whispering, “Close the curtains.”
Her husband just stood there, staring at her, and she could almost hear him saying he would go out and find Joule. But she couldn’t lose him, too. Still, he stood before her, jaw clenched, open hand still cupping the clothespins, but doing nothing.
She listened to the sound of the curtain rings, dragging across the pole at the top, as Cage stepped in and did what the rest of them couldn’t do: Close the curtains and shut his sister out.
If he didn't do it, the dogs would see them.
If the dogs saw them, they would beat the doors until the wood broke, or come through the windows and get all three of the remaining members of the Mazur family.
So it was the hardest thing she'd ever done, but Kaya went through the house and bolted each of the three doors.
Just as she did every night.
But tonight, her daughter—her oldest by only two minutes—was still outside.
She could only hope that Joule had stayed in the house she was checking out. Joule would know that her family realized the danger of the darkening sky and locked all the doors and closed the windows. Kaya crossed her fingers that her daughter had taken the necessary precautions and was safe. But neither Kaya nor Nate, nor her brother Cage, had received any message to that end.
That made Kaya think her daughter had headed home. If Joule was safe, she would have turned the phone off. None of them had considered pinging her or calling or anything that would make the phone beep. Even just the light could attract the dogs’ attention. If Joule was hiding, then messaging might kill her.
Kaya looked to the two men—her husband, who was almost the same age as her, and her son Cage, literally the same age as Joule.
“Each of us takes a door,” she said, her voice soft in the tone that she generally used in the evenings. Anything more would indicate something was wrong. It was terribly wrong, of course. One of her children was outside and there was nothing she could do about it except kill herself, too. So she pretended that she knew Joule was safe, and she used her evening voice.
Once the curtains had been closed, if someone stubbed a toe and yelled, the dogs would know they were inside. Turn the TV up too high? The dogs would know. The family had learned to sleep a quiet sleep—but not tonight.
Both Nate and Cage nodded at her and headed off for the other doors. Turning her back, Kaya slid down the wall until she was sitting at the base of it. Not the warmest place in the house, but she didn't care.
The slightest noise and she would gladly throw the door open wide. If the dogs wanted to get in, all they needed to do was learn how to knock like a human.
She stayed there for an hour, numb in her position and her thoughts. When she looked at her watch, the face glowing dull in the dim light—all the beeps and whistles disabled—Kaya realized it was over. Either Joule had found a safe p
lace or she was dead.
There were no other options that Kaya knew of. No one had ever survived the dogs.
It had started with the neighborhood cats disappearing. First the feral ones, then the house pets. There had been an increase in the number of “missing pet” signs. Then the small dogs had gone missing. Pet owners had started using leashes and not letting their dogs out at night.