Final Dawn: Season 3 (The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series) Read online

  Final Dawn

  The Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Series

  Season 3

  By

  Mike Kraus

  © 2013 by Mike Kraus

  [email protected]

  www.facebook.com/MikeKrausBooks

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Dear Reader,

  The last year has been an incredible journey. I’ve gone from being a hopeful writer to a bestselling one, with over 70,000 copies of Final Dawn sold to date.

  This book, Final Dawn: Season 3, marks the end of the Final Dawn saga and the tales of Rachel, Marcus, David and Leonard. Writing the appropriate ending to this story was incredibly difficult, both because I didn’t want to let these characters and this world go and because trying to write a proper end is just plain difficult.

  It’s my hope that you’ve not only enjoyed Final Dawn, but that the conclusion of the story is both enjoyable and satisfying, and that it makes the journey you’ve taken into this world worth the time you spent on it. For your time, I am incredibly humbled and grateful and thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Though this is the end of the Final Dawn story, it is not the end of my writing career. On the contrary, now that Final Dawn has ended, I’m able to expand my horizons and devote myself full-time to a new, major writing project that I’ve been working on slowly for the last six months. Comprised of a series of standalone novels (as much as I enjoyed writing Final Dawn in a serial form, the short book format will be far too constricting for this new project), you’ll be entering an entirely new world, with characters and stories that I’m sure you’ll enjoy and adore just as much—or more—as those found in Final Dawn.

  Thank you for believing in me and taking this journey with me. Though this chapter has come to a close, there are many more to come.

  Sincerely,

  Mike Kraus

  www.facebook.com/MikeKrausBooks

  www.MikeKrausBooks.com

  Have you enjoyed Final Dawn?

  If so, you might enjoy Prip’Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl, available from Amazon.com.

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  9:17 AM, April 21, 2038

  A light wind blew through the air and the smell of honeysuckle was interspersed with that of pine. Both scents were thick in Marcus’s nose as he sagged back against a control panel inside the locomotive, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. Other smells joined that of the plants, coalescing into a dystopian symphony. Blood, sweat, gunpowder and earth were close at hand, flooding his nostrils. Marcus wasn’t sure if it was the aroma that made him dizzy or the matter-of-fact way in which Rachel had answered his question.

  Marcus had never met the infamous “Mr. Doe,” but his invisible hand combined with Rachel’s ominous descriptions left little to the imagination. Cold, calculating and merciless, Marcus instinctively knew that the man would show no mercy and accept only death. And here he was, finally, showing himself after weeks of struggle had passed, preparing to cut them down like wheat under a scythe. Seated in his helicopter, Doe was nigh-untouchable, and it would only be a matter of time before he found and killed them.

  Another explosion echoed through the train, sending Marcus diving on top of Rachel and Sam to protect them. Rubble showered down over the train, along with bits of steel, iron and wood. Marcus peeked through the front of the train, looking at the crater that sat a hundred feet up where the track used to be. A ten-foot section had been blow out of the track by the powerful missiles of Doe’s black craft which was slowly drifting back down towards the train, no doubt searching for the survivors.

  A pounding from the bottom of the locomotive caused Rachel to jump, pushing away from the center of the floor where the noise emanated. A muffled voice followed the pounding and a square section of slats rattled under the blows. “Open the hatch! Hurry!”

  Glancing up at the sound of the helicopter circling overhead, Marcus crawled to the center of the locomotive and slid a latch to the side. He pulled up on a small handle, revealing a hatch through the floor straight down to the ground. Bloodied and caked with dirt and grease, David smiled weakly as he saw Marcus and Rachel peering down at him. He held his good arm aloft, reaching to Marcus who grabbed him, pulling him through the hatch and propping him up against a console. Another explosion echoed from far behind the train, followed by an intense rocking of the locomotive. Rachel stood weakly to look out the window and spotted a plume of smoke and dust in the distance.

  “He just destroyed the tracks behind us.” Sitting down next to David, she looked at him and Marcus, her face pale from shock and exhaustion. “We’re trapped.”

  Clutching his injured arm, David leaned his head back against the console and closed his eyes. “So much for that plan. It was a good one, though, except for when Doe found us.”

  “How did he find us, anyway?” Marcus kept his voice low. “It’s pretty strange that he just so happened to come across us now, isn’t it?”

  David pushed at the skin around the metal in his arm, wincing in pain as he considered pulling it out. “I don’t know; the only way he could have found us is if he intercepted a signal between us and the satellite. But I have safeguards for that on the computer. Whenever I’m connected, I have a reminder set to warn me to change frequencies, just for this sort of thing. I wouldn’t have thought Doe would be able to break into it, but I guess he did.”

  Marcus was looking at the floor as David spoke, and his eyes widened. Without lifting his head, he swallowed hard and tried to keep his voice calm as he spoke. “Reminders? Like warnings on the computer?”

  David nodded, grimacing as he pulled lightly on the shrapnel embedded in his arm. “Yeah, it’s pretty hard to miss. That’s why I don’t understand how I could have let this happen. Ah, damn! This hurts!”

  Rachel examined David’s wound, though there wasn’t much she could do about it without access to their supplies. Thankfully, they had unloaded most of their gear from the APC and put it in the train, but it was several cars back, with no easy way to reach it without being spotted by the helicopter. As she and David talked about the best way to get the metal out of his arm, Marcus’s face contorted as he remembered when he was on David’s computer in the back of the APC. There were the satellite images, which were easy to download, but then there was that alert or something that appeared…

  Glancing up, Marcus saw that Rachel had taken her rifle off of her back and had laid it on the floor next to her, along with a spare magazine. He locked eyes with Sam for a moment and made a motion for him to stay still. Sam whined but obeyed as Marcus grabbed the rifle, turning to jump out the front of the train. David and Rachel didn’t notice his movement until it was too late and he was sprinting forward from the locomotive. “What the hell; Marcus, what are you doing?” David shouted at him, but Marcus didn’t turn around as he shouted back.

  “Ending this!”

  Once he reached the edge of the destroyed section of tracks, Marcus stopped and turned around. He held the rifle aloft over his head with one hand and the spare magazine with the other. A few seconds passed before the helicopter began moving toward him as Doe finally noticed him. With slow exaggerated movements, Marcus laid the rifle and the spare magazine down on the ground in front of him then raised his empty hands back over his head. Hoping that Doe had a way of hearing him, he took a deep breath and shouted.

  Leonard McComb | Nancy Sims

  9:45 AM, April 21, 2038

  “Let me see if I
understand you correctly.”

  Commander Pavel Krylov leaned back in his chair. A slightly incredulous expression graced his face, though he was fighting hard to try to believe what the woman across from him had just described.

  “Your country developed a nanotech-based weapon that can think for itself. One of its first actions was to virtually destroy the world with nuclear weapons. It then proceeded to turn many of the survivors into some sort of abominations, though there are still some who haven’t been turned or outright killed by nano-robots due to some sort of DNA… what was it?”

  “Whitelisting.”

  “Oh yes, due to some sort of DNA whitelisting. Furthermore, one of the chief scientists who worked on this project is with another group on the other side of your country with some sort of weapon that you hope will destroy these nano-robots. However, in case that weapon fails, you want me to take this ship to the coast and use our nuclear weapons against the nano-robots.

  Would you say that’s a reasonably accurate summary of what you described to me, Nancy?”

  Nancy sat quietly for a moment before nodding slowly. “That’s about the gist of it, yes.”

  Commander Krylov smiled briefly and looked down at his notebook. Halfway through Nancy’s story, he had pulled it out to start jotting down pieces of information she had given to him. Picking up a cup of coffee sitting on a nearby table, he took a long sip, flipping through his notes. Nancy watched on in silence, chewing on her lip as she waited to hear Krylov’s verdict. With a sigh, he closed his notebook and set his coffee down before pushing a button on an intercom built in to the table next to him.

  “Send in the cousins.”

  Looking back at Nancy, Krylov sighed again. “If it were just your word for all of this, I’d have you and your companion thrown off the ship without a second thought.” Krylov paused and nodded slowly, running his tongue over his teeth. “But… well, you can hear for yourself.”

  Commander Krylov and Nancy sat together in silence for a few moments until a sharp knocking came at the steel door.

  “Enter!” Krylov swiveled his head to look at the two men who walked through the doorway. Hats in hand, they gave the commander a nervous salute and took their seats in a pair of chairs that Krylov gestured toward.

  “Nancy, this is Andrey Lipov and Sergei Usov. I want you to describe these ‘swarms’ you spoke of to them. If you would speak slowly, I would appreciate it, since their English proficiency is somewhat limited.”

  Nancy nodded and took a sip of water before starting. “I’m pleased to meet you, Andrey and Sergei. I’m not really sure where to begin, though…” Nancy looked at Krylov for some assistance.

  “Just tell them what the swarms look like, what their behavior was and anything else that comes to mind about them.”

  “Well,” Nancy took a deep breath, “they’re silver in color, normally anyway, though my friends have seen them in blue, as well. They make this sort of buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees, but angrier. I first saw them right after—”

  “Nancy, if you could just stick to the details on these swarms for now and exclude the other details, that would be preferable.”

  Nancy glanced between Commander Krylov, Andrey and Sergei, realizing what the look on Krylov’s face was about. His men don’t know what happened… dear God, they don’t even know their world is gone. With a gulp, Nancy continued. “I first saw them at a farm, when they were just going by, seemingly hovering in the air above the ground as they went. They moved quickly, too, but they weren’t aggressive towards me.

  Later on, though, we started to see and hear about more aggression from the swarms, and we found a lot of human remains from their work, too.”

  Over the course of her brief description of the swarms, Andrey and Sergei’s faces had gone pale. They murmured something under their breath as they crossed themselves, sitting in rapt attention to Nancy. Finally, when she finished, Krylov spoke up.

  “Is what Nancy has just described to you an accurate description of what attacked the landing party?”

  Quick nervous nods were Andrey and Sergei’s only responses to Krylov’s question. Sighing deeply, the commander waved at them, dismissing them from the room. They were both up in a flash, racing for the door and slamming it shut before another word could be spoken.

  “Commander, what happened to those men?”

  Holding his cup of coffee, Krylov tilted his head as he watched Nancy, holding his tongue for a moment before responding. “You know, Ms. Sims, this entire situation is quite extraordinary. And, frankly, I’m still not sure what to make of it. Two Americans on my ship telling me that the world ended and that they need my nuclear weapons to wipe out an infestation caused by a rogue computer.” Krylov sipped the coffee, curling his lip at the lukewarm beverage. He set it to the side and sighed again. “There are protocols for such an encounter as this, you know. Technically, I am supposed to take you back to Moscow for an interrogation before we negotiate your release with Washington.”

  “But, Commander, you—” Nancy started to protest, but Krylov raised his hand to silence her.

  “Calm down, Nancy. As I said before, you and your companion are fortunate that we had such a terrible encounter with these things you described, and that there were two survivors to corroborate your story.”

  “Commander…” Nancy leaned forward, pleading with Krylov. “Please, tell me what happened. What do you know about these things?”

  Krylov shook his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid, and certainly far less than you do. We were on patrol when we detected massive disturbances on the surface. We lost all communications and the late Commander decided to send out two landing parties; one to an outpost in our country and one to a small village along the Strait in yours. Those two men you just saw were the only survivors of the landing party in your country. Our commander was part of it, and from what we heard on the radio and have been able to extract from Andrey and Sergei, everyone else was killed by those swarms, what you say are nano-robots.”

  Krylov turned his notebook over in his palm, musing about the events of the last few weeks. “Then, of course, we detected something on the surface. It had to have been the same things. They didn’t follow us into the water for some reason; I’ve no idea why, though.”

  Several minutes of silence followed after Krylov finished speaking as both Nancy and he thought over the revelations shared by one another.

  “So, Commander, where do we go from here?”

  Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | David Landry

  9:24 AM, April 21, 2038

  “You win, Doe! I surrender!”

  Hovering just a few dozen feet from him, the helicopter’s rotor wash was blindingly powerful. Marcus turned his head slightly and kept his eyes closed as he waited for a response. Several seconds passed, and Marcus had nearly convinced himself that the next noise to come from the chopper would be the sound of a missile. So certain was he of his inevitable death that the crackle of a speaker made his heart skip a beat before it resumed its rapid pounding.

  “Kick it away, then get down on your knees.”

  The voice was precise and calculated, and Marcus knew that the lack of emotion in the voice was not just because it was coming through a speaker. The man behind the voice showed no emotions, and even now he was the epitome of detachment. Marcus did as he was told, kicking the rifle in front of him several feet away. The cockpit of the helicopter was darkened and impossible to see into, but Marcus knew that the man behind it was watching every movement with a hawk’s eye, looking for any signs of treachery.

  “Where are the others?”

  Marcus had counted on this question coming next and already had a response planned. Assuming that Doe already knew exactly how many of them were there and who they were, Marcus spoke carefully, doing his best not to contradict anything that Doe might have seen or heard.

  “Rachel was in the armored car, and David’s… somewhere. I’m not sure where, but his leg’s under the train.�
��

  Another several seconds passed in silence. Marcus fought the urge to look away, keeping his gaze trained on the helicopter. Finally, Doe’s voice came again.

  “Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head. If you move, I will kill you.”

  You’d be better off killing me now, you fool. Marcus lowered his head, interlacing his hands behind it as he dropped to both knees. The whine of the helicopter’s rotors lessened as it descended to the ground, finally touching down. Marcus raised his head slightly and watched as a side door on the helicopter popped open. With the rotors still spinning, a man exited the side door. Keeping his head low, he walked forward toward Marcus, pistol in hand. Dressed in his ever-present suit and tie, Marcus’s first sight of Mr. Doe was somewhat threatening, if not slightly amusing. Though there was no questioning the fact that Doe was not a man to be trifled with, seeing a man wearing a suit during the apocalypse wasn’t something Marcus thought he’d ever see.