Furies Rising (eBook)

Book One: Hollow Valley

Andrew Lyons (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
376 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-4422-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Lukas Lincoln is an average fifteen-year-old enjoying the last days of summer camp in the remote Texas Hill Country. But when a strange virus infects 90% of America, killing many and leaving the others as unthinking, relentless flesh hunters, Lukas and a small group of surviving, uninfected campers must find a way to escape. Their journey will take them on a desperate race across the state in search of potential safety. Along the way, as their personal bonds and will to survive are tested, they will uncover a shocking discovery about the origin of the outbreak.

Andrew Lyons's debut novel DARKNESS IN HIM was released by St. Martin's Press. Called a 'pure, uncut hit of suspense' by Harlan Coben and a 'psychologically chilling picture of a contemporary Raskolnikov' by Library Journal, the book was translated into German and French and was optioned for film. His second novel, 2020, was published by Curtis Brown Unlimited. He lives in Redondo Beach, California with his wife and daughters.

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Lukas Lincoln is an average fifteen-year-old enjoying the last days of summer camp in the remote Texas Hill Country. But when a strange virus infects 90% of America, killing many and leaving the others as unthinking, relentless flesh hunters, Lukas and a small group of surviving, uninfected campers and counselors must find a way to escape. Among them is his older brother Caleb, Caleb's girlfriend, Juliana, whom Lukas yearns for, Lukas's best friend, Javi, and a mysterious female camper named Aubrey. Their journey will take them on a desperate race across the state in search of potential safety. Along the way, as their personal bonds and will to survive are tested, they will uncover a shocking discovery about the origin of the outbreak.

Textauszug

CHAPTER 5

Despite what Lukas had learned at lunch, the world around him seemed oblivious. The rest of the day passed in a leisurely haze. Sundays were always casual, but this last one of the session was even more so.

After siesta concluded, the third activity began. Today it was free choice. Everyone gravitated toward their favorite game, location, or counselor. For some, it was one last chance to play softball on the main valley flat. Others tried to escape the heat with an extended free swim in Wallace Creek. A few chose dance in the pavilion. Lukas went to the radio shack where he could help deejay the songs to be played over the PA system and maybe get some news from an AM radio station.

When he arrived, Richard, a curmudgeonly balding counselor who ran the radio club, was already settling in, preparing to play one of his awful classic rock bands. For a guy in his mid-twenties, he acted like he was two decades older than that. He was the kind of dude who thought playing a Jimi Hendrix album at a party would impress the girls. Before Lukas could object, the tiresome sound of Steve Miller Band’s “Take the Money and Run” began blasting across camp.

There was already a crowd of campers clambering around Richard, writing their song choices on the clipboard beside him in the hope that they would get to introduce them at some point during the hour. Lukas knew better. For every camper preference Richard allowed, he’d play two or three of his own. These kids were in for a lot of the Doors and Led Zeppelin.

Instead of wasting his time trying to get a selection, Lukas moved to the back of the shack, turned on a small forlorn transistor radio, and scanned the dial. It was always hard to get anything FM in Hollow Valley because of the hills surrounding the camp. Even AM stations were a challenge.

As Lukas flipped around, it quickly became clear that the problem today wasn’t interference. It was that no one was broadcasting. Almost every station was playing the same message from the Emergency Alert System. The Tejano station was running it in Spanish. It was frustratingly vague.

“This is a message from the Emergency Alert System. Due to a potential health hazard in the greater Bexar, Comal, and Medina counties area, all citizens are instructed to remain in their homes or places of business. Leaving your current location is inadvisable. Interacting with those outside your current location is highly inadvisable. Please await further instructions.”

That was it—the whole message. About five seconds after ending, it would repeat. The process continued uninterrupted. Lukas kept waiting for someone to break in with some kind of live announcement, but it never happened. He listened to it drone on again and again, almost hypnotized, only shutting it off when a little blue-eyed, tousle-haired blond boy of about eight named Nate wandered over.

“What was that?” the kid asked.

“Nothing,” Lukas said quickly. “Just boring news stuff.”

“It sounded kind of scary,” Nate said, his eyes big.

“News always sounds scary,” Lukas said casually, before trying to change the subject. “What song are you hoping to play?”

“Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh,” Nate answered. “But I don’t think Richard’s going to get to me in time.”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Lukas said approvingly as he led Nate back to the front of the shack. “Richard might be into it because of the kitsch factor. Let’s see what we can do.”

“What’s the kitsch factor?”

“It kind of means it’s silly in a fun way, like you, Nate.”

He mussed up Nate’s already unruly hair. By the time they got back to everyone else, the kid was giggling and had completely forgotten about the scary sounding news. But Lukas hadn’t.

*

He still hadn’t found a chance to talk to Caleb about what he’d heard Steve Sailor discussing with the sheriff’s deputy. But a discovery at dinner assured him that he’d have a good opportunity later.

Because the kitchen staff had the night off, Sunday was always picnic dinner night. The meal was comprised of burgers, hot dogs, bags of chips, and watermelon. It was a good thing too, because it seemed to Lukas that they were running out of food for a conventional meal. At this rate, they’d all be eating dried Froot Loops exclusively by tomorrow.

Lukas and Javi sat quietly at the edge of the picnic area, eating their burgers and taking in the late summer aroma of meat on the grill as it mixed with the nearby chaparral and the occasional whiff of horse manure from a nearby trail. To Lukas, that scent was the essence of camp. Even though the session wasn’t over, he found himself preemptively missing it.

But amid all the screaming kids playing tag and spitting hot dog buns at each other, Lukas noticed something else. The oldest girls’ bunk, the Lumens, was missing.

“Where are they?” he asked Javi as they ate their burgers.

“Their overnight is tonight. It’s at Sasquatch Toe. They left about an hour ago.”

Sasquatch Toe was the local nickname for a section of Wallace Creek that ran through the camp property and had a massive rock indentation that, if looked at just so, resembled the shape of a big toe. Because it was a good twenty-minute walk from the main camp, the Toe gave the illusion of seclusion and was often used for cookouts and overnights.

Every bunk was allowed one night apart from the rest of the camp population. The younger kids had cookouts before returning to camp in time for lights out. The older bunks had overnights that included cooking dinner over a fire pit, singing songs, telling ghost stories by firelight, sleeping under the stars, waking up on dewy ground the next morning, having breakfast, and returning to camp in time for the first activity.

Because of Wilderness Week, the Toros had voted to forgo the overnight this year. But apparently the Lumens had decided they still wanted to do it for nostalgia’s sake. And if the Lumens were having an overnight this evening, then that almost certainly meant the Toros would be raiding their camp later.

It was a tradition even under normal circumstances. But with one of the Toro counselors dating one of the Lumen counselors, it was a guarantee. Darkness, a campfire, and oblivious campers would allow Caleb and Jules to sneak off for some private time without worrying about Steve Sailor calling them out.

For Lukas, this was good and bad news. The good news was that he’d almost certainly have time to talk to Caleb about what was happening in San Antonio on the long walk out to the campsite. The bad news was that, when they got there, Caleb would likely disappear into the woods with the girl Lukas dreamt about most nights.

“You know what that means,” he said to Javi, voicing aloud what he was dreading.

“It means you’re going to have to keep very busy tonight playing campfire games so as not to fly into an unjustified jealous rage?”

“I was just going to say we’d be raiding their overnight,” Lukas lied. “But thanks for painting the evening in the least flattering light.”

“What are friends for?” Javi asked, smiling wide as he shoved another piece of hot dog into his face.

They were finishing up, waiting patiently for the watermelon line to die down (each slice was cut individually on camper demand), when a heavyset kid named Sal from the second-oldest boys’ bunk, the Desperados, cut in front of Nate, the young camper from the radio shack, knocking him to the ground with a rough shove.

“Back of the line, small fry,” Sal jeered at the smaller boy as he snagged a slice of watermelon from the plate of a little girl walking by. His prominent front teeth and small beady eyes gave him a rat-faced look that Lukas thought fit just right.

Nate popped back up immediately. “You took my spot,” he protested, trying to wriggle back into his original position.

Sal shoved him hard in the chest with an open palm, sending Nate to the ground a second time. “Stay down, loser,” Sal ordered, “or next time I won’t be so gentle.”

It took only seconds for Lukas to close the distance from his picnic table to Sal.

“Go for it, Sal,” he said, placing his body in front of Nate. The smaller boy was being helped to his feet by Javi who had arrived a half second later.

Sal looked briefly surprised by the turn of events. But it didn’t take long for his expression to change into a nasty sneer.

“You must be sad,” he said to Lukas out of the blue, his words hard to understand because his mouth was stuffed with watermelon.

“What are you talking about?” Lukas asked, annoyed.

“Because your dream girl isn’t here tonight,” he said in a tauntingly singsong tone. “Her bunk is on an overnight so you’re all alone.”

Lukas took a step closer. He could smell Sal’s rancid breath. The younger Desperado had about thirty pounds on Lukas but was easily four inches shorter than him. Lukas looked down at the kid who was chomping his fruit like it was a cud.

“It’s one...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.10.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-4422-8 / 9798350944228