Never Fear

  Never Fear

  The Apocalypse

  William F. Nolan Matthew Costello

  F. Paul Wilson Heather Graham

  Tim Waggoner Thomas F. Monteleone

  Brendan Deneen Jason V Brock Patrick Freivald

  Lisa Mannetti Lee Lawless Tori Eldridge

  Mathew Kaufman Jeff DePew Lance Taubold

  Ed DeAngelis Crystal Perkins Ron Goulart

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities between real life events and people, and the events within this product are purely coincidental.

  13Thirty Books

  Print and Digital Editions

  Copyright 2017

  Discover new and exciting works by 13Thirty Books at www.13thirtybooks.com

  Print and Digital Edition, License Notes

  This print/ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This print/ebook may not be re-sold, bartered, borrowed or loaned to others. Thank you for respecting the work of this and all 13Thirty Books’ authors.

  Copyright © 2017 13Thirty Books, LLP Authors’ Cooperative

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0-9977912-3-3

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9977912-3-5

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the thousands of people that keep the horror genre alive. Read/Scream/Repeat. It’s a way of life.

  CONTENTS

  Vacation

  MATTHEW COSTELLO

  APOCALYPSE THEN

  LISA MANNETTI

  TIL DEATH

  TIM WAGGONER

  BELLUM SACRUM

  MATHEW KAUFMAN

  GOOD FRIDAY

  f. pAUL WILSON

  SHUT DOWN

  JEFF dEPEW

  LOGAN’S MISSION

  WILLIAM F. NOLAN

  OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD

  THOMAS F. MONTELEONE

  HOW CAN I HELP HURT YOU?

  Crystal Perkins

  oRIGINAL sYNTH

  BRENDAN DENEEN

  INTO THE STYGIAN DARKNESS

  HEATHER GRAHAM

  THE SHADOW OF HEAVEN

  JASON V BROCK

  RESISTANT

  TORI ELDRIdGE

  WHAT LIES WITHIN

  ED DEANGELIS

  SHORTED

  PATRICK FREIVALD

  THERE IS NO… GOD

  LANCE TAUBOLD

  THE WRONG KIND OF RENAISSANCE

  LEE LAWLESS

  NOBODY STARVES

  RON GOULART

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to William F. Nolan. Your writing has shaped generations.

  VACATION

  Matthew Costello

  Jack went out to check the car—yet again. He tried to believe that he was overly preoccupied with the dangers, that he was letting himself get way too jittery.

  He shut the door behind him, the back door to their house. He shut it tight and then looked at it.

  I don’t want anyone coming out while I’m looking around. No, he thought, I don’t need them nervous… Christie, and the kids. For months, he had balked at the idea, the very concept of taking a vacation. Under the circumstances, it was crazy.

  But Christie came to him. She put her arms around him, pulled him close, and said:

  “Jack—do you know how long it’s been… how long it’s been since we’ve gone anywhere? They say it’s safe, that the area is secure. It’s a safe family place. The kids haven’t seen a lake, any water to swim in… for so long.”

  Jack nodded. He didn’t tell her many of the stories from work. There was no point in telling Christie just how badly things seemed to be going. The city was gone. Completely gone… New York—the Big Apple—was history. There was no question about it.

  Oh, there were some spots, some key sectors that were under control. All of lower Manhattan was fine, supplied by ships on a daily basis, girded by a ring of soldiers and artillery.

  And there was a broad strip running up the West Side, nearly to the George Washington Bridge. That was okay. There were still some restaurants, still places where you could go out to eat.

  Instead of being eaten.

  But the rest of the city was controlled by the others, the Can Heads. They were there and they were spreading…

  Jack’s own sector ran from North Yonkers, just up to the suburbs of Westchester. Westchester itself was a maze of twelve-foot mesh fences and checkpoints. The Can Heads were being contained, that was the official line. In fact, the President announced that in each of the big cities the Can Heads were confined. Yes, and soon they’d be rounded up and placed in camps. Any aggressive action by them would be put down by violent means.

  Contained… rounded-up…

  No fucking way.

  The orders were simple. Kill them. In fact, if you even suspected someone of being one of them, you were to blow their fucking head off. And like sharks, they’d waste some time feeding on their own. Food is fucking food. And Jack knew that—despite orders quite to the contrary—he and the other cops were taking the dead bodies and poisoning them… leaving them for the others.

  Anything. Jack thought, anything to cut down their numbers. Anything to reduce the sick feeling that there were more of them than us. More of them—and growing, all the fucking time, more and more of them.

  Jack turned away from the back door. No one was coming.

  He looked at his car. It had been an ordinary station wagon. But then Jack had fitted it with all the necessary items. There was metal shielding to protect the tires from a sniper. The windshield and side windows were all reinforced safety glass, strong enough to stop a bullet. The underbody was protected by a steel shell.

  And Jack had helped himself to a nice array of weapons and ammunition from the station, all now secreted below the spare tire, a small armory.

  He crouched down. He checked his last modification to the car, the one that made his mouth go dry and cottony. He felt the wires running from the gas tank, to the front, and up—into the dashboard. He fingered the plastic strip covering the wires, holding them flush to the underside of the car.

  There was no way it wouldn’t work—if he ever needed it. No way…

  Jack heard the back door open. He quickly got up and he heard Simon bickering with his sister, fighting over who got to ride in the back seat, the one that faced the rear. They both hated it but Jack didn’t want them sitting together, squabbling all the way Upstate… The luggage sat on the roof rack. Jack stood up… straightened his pants.

  It was time to leave on their vacation.

  ***

  “I’ve packed some sandwiches, and juice—”

  Christie was sitting beside him. She patted his arm, and Jack smiled, looking out the windshield. It was a beautiful day, with a bright sun sitting in a deep blue sky. It looked like there’d be cool mornings and evenings, while the days would get just hot enough…

  “What kind of sandwiches?” Simon bellowed from the back of the wagon.

  Jack could guess this. “Peanut butter and—”

  “Oh, yuck—I’m sick of peanut butter. God, I hate—”

  Jack looked up to the rearview mirror, to the back of Simon’s head. “Simon—ease up, will you? It’s just for the trip up. We’ll have some good meals at the camp.”

  “I doubt that—” Simon muttered. Jack chewed at his lip.

  Laurie, his little girl, was playing with her doll’s hair, grabbing a great hank of hair and pulling it through a tiny hair band. She didn’t get involved in the discussion.

  Of course, Jack thought, Laurie has always lived this way, she was used to the way food was these days. Real meat was a rarity, a special item. Mostly there was beans and pasta, and even peanut butter was getting expensive.

  The Great Drought kil
led the Farm Belt. Not just wounded it, there wasn’t just a bad harvest. It killed it dead. Year after year of drought transformed the nation’s breadbasket, turning it dry, letting the prehistoric desert in the West slither east, claiming the farmland.

  Things were bad here. But in California—a confidential police report said—things were way beyond bad. The whole state might be gone. The first state to be controlled by the Can Heads…

  Not much news got out of California these days.

  “Relax,” Christie said. And she gave his thigh a squeeze. Jack looked over. She was wearing a pretty summer dress, great red flowers, with bare arms. Her legs were already tanned from hours spent in the garden in their backyard, coaxing tomatoes and raspberries out of the rocky soil.

  He smiled. “Okay,” he said. “I just got to turn the switch. Turn the switch, and start the vacation. Try to have some fun.”

  Every few blocks, leading to the highway, he saw a sector patrolman. It was reassuring, but it was also disturbing. It said that even here, even two dozen miles from New York, from the big city, there was danger.

  Even here…

  There was a certain route that had to be followed to the highway. Most of the entrance and exit ramps had been sealed. Now there were only a few ways on and off the Thomas E. Dewey Thruway. You could only enter—or exit—with a pass. And the Emergency Highway Police, a new division of the State Police, would shoot to kill.

  “You have the papers?” he asked.

  Christie popped open the glove compartment. “All set.”

  Jack slowed. There was a car in front of him. The highway itself, its six lanes visible just ahead, was deserted.

  Not much traffic these days.

  Jack inched forward. He looked at the highway. On either side there was a tall mesh fence, topped with spirals of barbed wire. How much fucking protection in that? Jack thought. What the hell good could that do?

  Someone could just as easily lob something at us, some explosive, something to stop the car and—

  Jack looked down, at the dash, at the switch just near the steering column.

  “Jack—they’ve moved up. Go on… the booth is empty.”

  He nodded, and eased the station wagon up to the booth. There was no toll. All the considerable fees—from entry point to exit point and back again—had been paid weeks ago.

  The guard, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, stepped down to the window.

  “Hi, folks. How are you doing today?”

  Making small talk. It was a technique. Sometimes they could look normal, almost act normal. But if you talked to them for any length of time, if you chatted to a Can Head, you’d know.

  Shit, you could sense it—or maybe even smell it on them, on their clothes, on their breath. You’d maybe see a red dollop marking their shirt, the sign of Cain. And still smiling, you’d try to back away, lowering your gun, hoping you could blow the fucker away before he—

  “Going on a vacation, eh?”

  “Yes,” Christie said, smiling, “Our first with the kids. We’re going to the Paterville Family Camp.”

  The guard nodded, looking at Jack. “Yes, I hear it’s nice up there.” Jack had trouble engaging in the chit-chat, the little routine the highway cop had.

  “Have there been any reports?” Jack said, “Any trouble, on the way up?”

  The guard laughed, as if it was a silly question.

  “No. Nothing for weeks. Been real quiet. I think we’ve got them on the run. And you’ve got a good steel mesh fence there. I wouldn’t worry.”

  The guard scanned the back of the wagon, checking out the children.

  “You have a nice vacation,” the guard said, backing away.

  He went back to his booth and opened up the gate. It took forever for the whirring engine to sluggishly get the gate up. Then Jack pulled away onto the highway.

  He drove for miles, silent now, glad that Christie let him be quiet. And the only company on the road was a few lonely-looking cars, then a truck, a giant dairy truck.

  Couldn’t have milk in it, Jack thought. No way there was milk in that truck.

  Christie turned on the radio, but the stations were already mostly static, and the warming sound of voices and old music—the only kind available these days—vanished.

  ***

  Laurie had fallen asleep, and Simon had crawled forward, searching for more chips and juice. He groaned when Christie told him that he was out of luck.

  “But I’m hungry,” he said.

  He was always hungry. No matter how much they stuffed into him, there didn’t ever seem to be enough to stop him from whining about more food.

  “That’s all we had,” Jack said. “And besides—we’re almost there, Simon. Now just sit quietly.”

  Jack looked left. He thought he saw something, by the side of the highway. And he did, a curled shaving of black, a tire. A retread that exploded, probably stranding a car. He passed more of the tire, another black chunk, just to the side of the road. Just a failed retread, he thought. That was all. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe someone had their tires shot out from under them. That would be nice—lose your tires, and then rumble to a jangly stop, pulling off the deserted highway.

  Maybe it happened at night.

  And then you’d have to wait, in the dark—wait to see what climbed over the fence, or cut through it. You’d lock yourself in the car, of course. You’d do that. But that wouldn’t help, that would only make it worse. You’d have to watch them, prying you out, like opening a can.

  Once, on his patrol, Jack found a car like that. There was nothing left inside, it had been picked clean, no seats, no bones, nothing. Like a metal clam scraped clean by a giant set of teeth. There was just the red spatters—on the ceiling, on the floor, on the broken glass.

  Dried spatters where it hadn’t been licked clean… Now—he looked at the fence, gleaming, silvery and secure.

  Christie touched his arm.

  “It’s the next exit, Jack. It’s just ahead.” He looked at her, and she smiled at him.

  “We’re almost there… “

  ***

  Moving onto the country roads, they left the security of the highway, with its twelve-foot-high fence, its curled barbed wire.

  Jack felt exposed.

  “Lock the doors,” he said.

  Christie pushed down her button, then she reached behind and pushed down Laurie’s button.

  “Simon, lock your door.”

  His son shook his head and pushed down the button.

  The blue sky was now dotted with big, grayish clouds that drifted across the sky, blotting out the sun. Jack felt chilled sitting in the car.

  We’re up in the mountains, he thought. Gets cold up here. I wish there was more sunlight.

  They passed a house, a small wooden house all burned out. Ugly black beams jutted into the air to support a roof no longer there. He wondered what had caused the fire, and what had happened to the people inside. Then an old gas station flew by, two ancient pumps sitting outside. There seemed to be a general store inside the station, signs advertising Bud Light, Marlboro…

  Jimmy Dean’s Pork Sausage.

  “How far to Paterville?” he said to Christie. He didn’t do a very good job of keeping the edge out of his voice.

  “Just a few more miles,” she said. “You turn off just ahead, onto Sanfellow’s Road. Then the camp is just up a hill. There’s a map… see.”

  Jack nodded. Good. We’re close. The camp touted its security. Its twenty-four-hour security force. Its electronic surveillance and electrified fence.

  Maybe when I’m in there, when my family is behind all that security, maybe then I’ll be able to relax, Jack thought. But he doubted it.

  ***

  “Good to see you folks.” The fat man looked up to the sky. “It was a beautiful day.” The man smiled. “Some nasty clouds kinda snuck in.” He clapped his hands together. “No matter, let’s get you to your cabin and start your vacation.”
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  Jack watched the man lower a hand to Laurie’s head and rustle her hair. “How’s that sound?” Laurie smiled.

  The man, Camp Director Ed Lowe, was doing his best to put them at ease, Jack knew. Must get a lot of paranoid people coming here. He’s trying his best to radiate as much warmth as possible.

  They walked to the cabin, past the dining hall and a large room that Lowe pointed out was the family rec room.

  “We got ping-pong, pool, even some video games,” he said.

  He came close to Jack. “You seem a bit jittery, friend. Any trouble on the way up here?”

  Jack shook his head. “No.” He forced himself to smile. “Nothing at all. It’s just—”

  Jack looked around at the camp, at the people he could see down at the lake… kids jumping into the now-gray water from a diving platform. Little toddlers dashing around on the thin strip of beach, happily falling down onto the sand. It looked wonderful.

  He took a breath. And he said:

  “I’m a cop… I’m in charge of one of the sectors. Right on the city border.”

  Lowe made a big “O” with his mouth. “Oh—I see. Guess you’ve seen a lot. Some real bad stuff.” Lowe clapped a hand around Jack’s shoulder. “I hope that we can help you forget that stuff here.” Then, tighter, pulling Jack real close. “I hope that you and your family have a real good time here.”

  A line of small brown cabins that stretched from the beach, around the curve of the lake, into the woods, was just ahead.

  Jack looked behind him, and he saw his kids, open-mouthed, grinning, eager to get in the water, to have fun, to play.