All The Broken People (The Dread Series Book 2) Read online

  All the Broken People

  By Jonathan Yanez

  ALL THE BROKEN PEOPLE

  Copyright © 2016 by Jonathan Yanez.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: December 2016

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-926-9

  ISBN-10: 1-68058-926-1

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my Grandma Jesse who has always been generous and kind. I love you.

  Table of Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  *BONUS* INSTANT ACCESS TO A SECRET CHAPTER!

  GET (5) FREE READS EVERY FRIDAY!

  Chapter 1

  “She needs you! Right now, she’s by herself. She’s alone, fighting them all by herself, and she needs your help!”

  Cidney looked at the remaining defenders inside the Lazarus outpost with tears of frustration. She knew they would dismiss anything she had to say due to her age. What did a ten year old know about the world and sacrifice? Cidney knew it better than most. Losing her father to the spreading darkness was a moment in her young life that she would look back on forever.

  “She’ll be fine,” a young woman named Melissa told Cidney from the crowd. “She’s always beaten them back. Hundreds of times now. She’ll do it again.”

  From her vantage point on the top of the wall Cidney could see Taylor battling the mass of infected humans that came to their doorstep every day. Somehow Cidney knew this time was different. Instead of attacking Taylor in one massive onslaught the hordes of infected were rushing her in what appeared to be strategic groups. Never more than a few at a time they assaulted Taylor from all angles, trying to catch her off guard.

  To Taylor’s credit she was holding her own. How long she would be able to defend the Ark’s gates was another question entirely. Already this offensive had been going on hours longer than any before. Cidney knew her friend well enough to tell when Taylor was beginning to tire. Her moves weren’t as sharp, her motions not as quick.

  “Look at her,” Cidney pleaded, “she’s out there alone. We have to stand with her. She’s fighting for us all. We have to help.”

  The same woman who had voiced her opinion before did so again. “How are we going to help her? Captain Martin collected the few remaining bullets we have for an emergency. You want us to use our rifles as clubs?”

  This time Cidney zeroed in on the speaker. Melissa was Wade Treadstone’s personal assistant and she wasn’t a bad person, she was scared. Cidney could see that reflected in the woman’s eyes.

  “We use our rifles like hammers or our fists if we have to,” another voice said.

  Cidney exhaled in relief. She recognized the voice and she knew with it, help would be on its way.

  “Sorry we took so long,” Frank said, running up the stairs to meet the group. Jason was behind him. As two close friends of Taylor’s, Cidney knew at least they would make an effort to help. Whether their effort would be enough to save the tiring Taylor was another question that would have to wait to be answered.

  ***

  The Dread. That’s what it was. Taylor knew this like she knew her own birthday. Somehow it was obvious to her. How her powers linked to their own was a question she had been trying to figure out for over a year now. Still, she was no closer to answers than she had been before.

  They rushed her in small groups she was able to quickly dispatch with the motion of her hand. For Taylor, being infected with the darkness during the escape to the secret outpost, the Ark, was only the beginning. An experimental serum had been used to try and counter act the effect of the darkness spreading through her body. The outcome was one nobody could have expected.

  Taylor Hart was given the power of telekinesis. How or why were questions she could only speculate on. However it seemed right now, in this moment, her powers were a shield to those humans living inside the Alaskan outpost, maybe the last outpost left to humankind.

  Sweat began to bead on her brow, and her breath was coming through her lips labored and sharp. How long had this attack lasted? The answer was lost to her but it had been longer than any other.

  Taylor motioned with her right hand at two men sprinting toward her from the tree line a hundred yards from the Ark’s outer wall. Black liquid was caked on their eyes, noses, mouths, and ears—the physical manifestation of the blackness inside of them searching for an exit route.

  Taylor took this in all in the space of a moment as she hurled them backward with the quick motion of her outstretched hand. The two men were lifted into the air, an invisible force sending them crashing somewhere deep in the forest.

  Relentlessly they came. Not like the many times before, in one mass, rushing straight at Taylor, now in small groups zigzagging toward her with hateful eyes and quivering fingers.

  The repetitive motion of either lifting bodies, crushing them or snapping their necks, was like the constant motion of lifting a light weight. Taylor could perform the act a dozen times without tiring, but even the smallest weight when lifted enough would prove a strain on the strongest arm.

  Taylor set her jaw and placed her back to the outpost entrance. She refused to give in to the weariness that screamed in her muscles. There was no doubt the coordinated attack of the Dread was working. Already Taylor had been forced back as different groups came at her from all angles. Her eyes were constantly searching the battleground for where the next rush would come from.

  Then something caught her eye; a shadow where there should be none. Past the tree line where the sun beat down into the bows of the pine branches. A dark mass stood staring at her, watching her.

  Although Taylor couldn’t make out any distinguishing characteristics from the entity, it reeked of evil. A chill from the very top of her spine raced down to the soles of her boots.

  There was no doubt that someone or something was studying her, measuring her actions. Taylor was so caught up in the appearance of the sinister form she nearly missed the next attack. Multiple groups of twos and threes rushed her from all angles.

  Taylor bobbed and weaved in a dance of death. Although she could manipulate her power over telekinesis without motioning with her hands, the act made sense. Whether it was in her mind or actually did help, the motion from her hands felt natural as she pushed back the oncoming assaults.

  It seemed to be a day of firsts, it was the first time the Dread attacked in sporadic waves, the first time they’d dogged her for this long, and now the first time the use of weapons were employed by the crazed human beings.

  Taken over by their very de
epest recesses of evil, the Dread had up until now relied on their teeth and hands to kill and infect other humans. Taylor had to do a double take when she observed tree limbs and rocks in the hands of her attacker. Her moment of awe cost her as stones were hurled in her direction.

  Taylor moved to hold the rocks in the air and send them back on her enemies, she was too late. The first volley of projectiles struck her in the shoulder, stomach, and left temple. Blood oozed into her vision along with a sharp staccato of pain.

  The raged humans howled with glee and sprinted ever closer to her position. Struggling to clear her mind, Taylor fought back the fingers of unconsciousness.

  This is it, she thought as her enemies gained ground. They were feet from her now. A stupid rock is how I go down.

  The next moment hands were around her shoulders and waist. Taylor waited for the inevitable. She would be torn apart, all that she might have been gone in the space of a breath. Instead of feeling her flesh being ripped from her body, Taylor heard a voice.

  “Thought you could use some help.”

  She blinked past the sweat and blood to find the familiar face of Jason Waters looking down at her. The noise of battle ringing around her, Taylor struggled to her feet and took in the scene.

  The gates to the Ark were open. Men and women streamed out of the compound and formed a line around Taylor at the same time those infected by the Dread reached them. The sickening sound of crunching the bodies made when they struck one another at top speed echoed across the battlefield.

  In every direction warfare took place in its most brutal form. Rifles and pistols were used as blunt objects from the defenders in the Ark, while the Dread used teeth, hands, branches, and rocks.

  Taylor struggled to find her footing on the uneven terrain of the Alaskan wilderness.

  “You’ve done enough,” Jason said, maneuvering her toward the open gates of the facility. “Come inside. We can handle the rest of them.”

  “There’s so little determination in that lie I don’t even think you believe you can hold them off,” Taylor said, running a hand across her eyes that did more to smear blood than clear her line of sight. “Now get off me. I can still fight.”

  “You can barely stand,” Jason said.

  Taylor lifted Jason off his feet and placed him back on the ground a few yards from her. She didn’t wait to hear his objections, she had a job to do.

  Squaring her shoulders, she marched back into the fray. To their credit the defenders were holding their own. Men and women fell but the casualties were nothing like they had been during the initial outbreak of the Dread. When they rampaged across the globe nothing could stop them. Though these memories seemed a lifetime ago, in reality the memories were only eighteen months past.

  Just as Taylor made her way to the front line, the fighting stopped. Without warning, without any kind of visible sign, the attacking Dread broke their assault and made for the woods. Taylor squinted past the sun’s light into the trees to where the shadow had stood before. If it wasn’t her imagination, if it had been there at all, it was gone.

  ***

  “It was different this time,” Taylor said, shaking her head at the memory of the attack, the weapons that had been used, even the menacing silhouette in the woods. “They’re evolving, learning.”

  “Why would we have reason to believe that they can learn at all?” Dr. Spear asked from her seat in the conference room. “We have no evidence as such. If only I were allowed to study one of them, capture one alive. If we could try the serum again, then we could really find out what—”

  “We’ve been over this a hundred times,” Wade Treadstone interrupted from his seat at the head of the table. “I will not allow one of them inside our walls. One misstep and we could all be infected. We owe it to ourselves and the greater whole of humanity, if anyone still exists, to hold caution in the utmost regard.”

  Up until the last few months Taylor had found herself agreeing with Wade’s policy on no infected inside the walls. However as the months passed, as ammo ran dry and food became an issue, Taylor was rethinking her stance on the subject.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there,” Captain Martin, an older broad shouldered man sitting to Taylor’s right, said. “I came as quickly as I could with the rest of our ammo supply when I heard this was something other than the attacks you’ve been pushing back for months, but I was too late.”

  “It’s fine.” Taylor waved away the apology. “What we need now more than anything are answers.”

  “Here we go again,” Dr. Spear said, throwing her hands in the air. “If we’ve had the discussion about not experimenting on the infected a hundred times then we’ve had Taylor’s talk of exploring beyond the walls a hundred and one times.”

  Taylor resisted the urge to snap the doctor’s neck. It would only take the slightest twitch of her hand. Even a thought and the deed would be done. Taylor pushed the idea out of her mind. “What’s our end game here? To die?”

  Her voice was so harsh, all eyes in the room turned to Taylor. She waited for a moment of silence to pass before she continued. “Because that is exactly what’s going to happen to all of us if we sit back and do nothing.”

  “We aren’t doing nothing,” Wade said, rising from his seat. “We’re surviving.”

  “Is surviving enough?” Captain Martin said with a raise of his thick gray eyebrows. His words were far from a shout, still they carried the same kind of weight.

  Wade shot a surprised look at the captain.

  “I know,” Captain Martian, said raising his hands in a sign of peace. “I know you’re the boss. I know you saved us all when Lazarus Pharmaceuticals was being overrun. I know as an employee of Lazarus you feel a burden to protect and save as many people as you can, but the fact remains, Wade, sooner or later we will have to step outside. Sooner or later the lack of food will force us to.”

  Wade’s expression changed from one of reprove to fatigue. He retook his seat and breathed a sigh so heavy Taylor almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  “Frank, how long can we last?” Wade asked.

  Frank Castor was a teenager with an IQ on par with Einstein. Hired by Lazarus Pharmaceuticals as a consultant when their drug, Vanidrum, first starting amplifying the darkness in its consumers, Frank had been caught up in the events.

  “If we continue to ration our supplies, six, maybe eight months. The terrain inside the Ark wasn’t meant for crops. We’re trying everything we can but being met with very little success.” Frank said all this with his eyes glued to the tablet in front of him. Taylor couldn’t remember a time the youth was without some kind of electronic device to run graphs and numbers.

  “This isn’t a decision we can take lightly,” Wade said. “I can’t order a group to travel outside the safety of the Ark. I can’t purposely send men and women to their deaths.”

  “You don’t have to order anyone,” Taylor said. “I volunteer.”

  Taylor met Wade’s eyes. Instinctively she knew what he was thinking. He didn’t trust her. Wade was afraid of things he didn’t understand. Taylor’s power, her connection with the Dread, was something that he could not comprehend. The only reason Taylor wasn’t undergoing extensive lab work and confined to a room was because the people inside the Ark loved her. They rallied around her and looked to her as a source of protection and hope.

  “I’ll consider your offer,” Wade said. “Until then no one is to go outside the Ark wall unless to defend our position. Jason, I’d like you to stay so we can discuss the condition of our solar panels. The rest of you are dismissed.”

  His words were like swallowing back bile. Why wouldn’t he give her a chance? Taylor was halfway to her feet to object when she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “Talk with me first,” Captain Martin whispered, motioning her to the door.

  Chapter 2

  If the meeting had gone on a moment longer Dr. Valery Spear had already come up with a plausible alibi. She was saved from having to
carry out her lie by Wade Treadstone’s narrow view and his own eagerness to close the meeting.

  Valery nodded where she had to and smiled her way out of the conference room. The Alaskan cold took her breath away as she exited the building. She forced herself to travel at a steady walk when every fiber of her being told her to run. Was she too late already? Was her work destined to fail before it had even begun?

  She threw caution to the wind and jogged the remaining few yards to the laboratory building designated for her use by Lazarus Pharmaceuticals. Her breath came out in light puffs of steam. Valery composed herself and entered the structure. Plain tile floors and bright florescent lights ushered her to a receptionist’s table where an alert middle-aged man sat leafing through an old magazine. “Doctor Spear,” he nodded in her direction before going back to the article he must have read a dozen times before.

  Valery moved past him without so much as a nod. Her time was short. Making her way down the long halls and through the maze of the research facility, she ignored eye contact with everyone and walked purposefully.

  She didn’t stop until she reached a key coded door accessing the building’s underground storage room. Her passcode was simple: 2016. The year Vanidrum awoke the darkness living in the hearts of men.

  Motion activated lights lit her descent down the long flight of steel stairs. Once she reached the last step she walked down aisles of equipment and medical supplies to the very back of the storage room. The air inside was musty. If Valery had not been so used to the smell she would have wrinkled her nose at the odor.

  The darkest, deepest end of the underground storage unit was a concrete wall. A section of the wall the light didn’t quite reach was her destination.

  Whoever had constructed the facility years before had added an extra bonus. A room Valery would have missed entirely had she not been the first one into the storage room when Wade and his team made their escape from the Los Angeles facility a year and a half before.