The End Series | Book 1 | The End: Genesis Page 4

  Xander limped through the woods with the glow stick. He tried so hard not to be scared but it wasn’t working. The darkness was too dense for the glow stick to be effective but he managed it any way. He walked for many miles but he couldn’t hear a single human sound. He began to wonder if he had been foolish to come out that far.

  He fell to the ground in tears. He knew he couldn’t turn back even if he wanted to. He was lost. Worse still, he hadn’t found his sister yet. The thought of his sister being dead weighed him down. He wished he could simply die there.

  Then he heard it- something like a growl. His mind suddenly reverted to earlier that day when he had heard a similar growl. He didn’t know where it came from but the strength to get up filled him. He realized that he didn’t really want to die. He flashed his glow stick to the left and right in a bid to see what the roar had come from. He couldn’t see much though. The glow stick had dimmed. He swallowed hard and took some steps in the direction from which the sound came, trying as much as possible to not make any sound with his feet.

  It appeared out of nowhere- a bear standing on its hind feet. Xander’s eyes widened in fear and he dropped the glow stick. He tried to limp away but he was too clumsy. His crutches fell from his hands and his body followed suit. The bear roared at him. It stood on all four of its feet not more than two meters away from Xander. He screamed in tears;

  “Get away from me, you beast. Don’t kill me please.”

  The bear wasn’t pacified by his pleas. It charged towards him.

  It leapt up to take him down.

  There was loud bang in the air and the bear suddenly fell dead to the ground.

  Xander gasped heavily in a mixture of fear and relief.

  "Awwn. Bart the Bear is dead. He used to be my favorite. The EMP must have brought him out of hibernation," a voice said behind Xander before laughing. Xander looked back and saw two men. One was with a rifle.

  “Thank you so much. Thanks for saving my life,” Xander kept repeating.

  The one with the rifle turned to the other who was still laughing.

  “Hey Connor, you think we should snuff him out too? He’s well out of civilized range here. I wonder what brought him out this far.”

  Xander’s eyes widened.

  “Please no. Don’t kill me please.”

  The other one appeared to think it through.

  “Well, we should spare him. He looks quite young. I think he'll sell. Besides, he was limping so he shouldn’t be much trouble. Let’s keep him, Morgan.” Connor said with a southern drawl.

  “I think we goin' regret this,” Morgan said.

  “Just shut up and put him to sleep.”

  Morgan grumbled but he walked towards Xander anyway. The moment he got close enough; he rammed the end of his gun into Xander’s head. It knocked Xander out.

  8:00pm

  Xander woke up and found that he was tied to a tree with a strong rope. His head hurt where he had been hit by the gun. His mouth was gagged with a handkerchief. Morgan and Connor sat close-by, eating roasted meat. Xander tried not to make any sound so as not to draw their attention. He took in his surroundings. They all were under the starry skies and there was a fire burning before Morgan and Connor. They sat with their backs towards him so that he couldn’t see the woods beyond them. He spotted something long and thin in the dust close to a large dead animal. He guessed it was the tail of whatever animal his captors were eating. The burly one was using a white mini tablet. Xander wondered how the device still functioned after the EMP. Morgan and Connor used a knife to cut chunks of the large animal before roasting it over the fire. It took Xander a second to realize that they are eating the bear that was going to eat him. He was about to laugh at the irony but he noticed a pink ribbon in the dust a few feet away. Close to it was a black bag. He squinted to see the objects clearly. He couldn’t help but gasp the moment he realized that the ribbon was the one his sister had worn and the backpack was his. He began to shake himself in a bid to get free. The men noticed and Connor smiled at him.

  "Hey, boy. Yer awake, eh? I'm guessing yer must be hungry. There's enough of the bear to go round. Yer can think of it as revenge on the bear for frighten' yer like that," Connor said as he got up with a chunk of roasted meat. When he got close and offered the meat to Xander, Xander struggled all the more to be free from the rope that held him to the tree.

  "Let me go, freak! Where's Grayson? Where's my sister?" Xander tried to say but the words came out as muffled sounds.

  "See? Told you we should have killed him," Morgan said.

  Connor raised a brow as he stared at Xander's face. Then his eyes lightened as though in surprise.

  "I should have seen it before! He looks like the light-skinned girl, Morgan. He must be her brother."

  Relief and fear rushed through Xander's heart. He had found the girls but he wasn't sure what the men had done with them. Connor brought the handkerchief down and asked,

  “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  "Where are they? Give them to me. I want to take them home." Xander said, still trying to break free from the rope.

  "Uh-uh. No, can't do. They are safely tied up there," Connor said pointing to a tree opposite Xander. Because Morgan and Connor sat in obstruction to his sight, Xander had been unable to see them before. Grayson, Prim and a little boy were sleeping against the tree. They looked so tired. Their mouths were also gagged,

  "And I'm taking y'all to my bosses. They'll know what to do with y'all."

  Xander cursed.

  "We're not going anywhere with you. You'd better let us go or the cops will get you."

  Morgan snorted.

  "Yeah, sure. Call them... If you still have a phone."

  Xander realized it was true. There wasn't much he could do. No one would be able to find them. Another thought jumped through his mind and he suddenly began to shout for help. His voice woke the children up. Grayson looked around for where her brother's voice was coming from. When she saw him surrounded by the big men, she tried to shout his name.

  "Xander! Help us!" was what she wanted to say but it came out unintelligibly.

  Prim joined her to try to get Xander’s attention. Even the little boy who didn't know Xander joined to call for his help.

  The noise got the two men angry. Morgan didn't even ask for permission before he butted Xander head with his gun again, knocking Xander unconscious. Connor turned to the kids and ordered them to shut up. They obeyed instantly.

  "See, I told you that we should kill him. He will cause us a lot of trouble. If we are caught it would be because you allowed him to live," Morgan said.

  Connor thought on it for a second then he nodded his head.

  Morgan smiled and pointed his gun at Xander's body.

  "Oh no, you don't," Joel said before hitting Morgan's head hard with a crutch. Morgan slumped. Connor turned to fight his assailant but Joel had the element of surprise on his side. He dodged Connor's punch.

  "Let the kids go," Joel said. Connor didn't reply. He lunged at Joel instead and both of them fell to the floor in a tussle.

  Harper was at the tree where the children were tied. She loosened the ropes. It took a while but she eventually got it done and the children were set free.

  "Stay here," she said to them before running to where Xander was tied. As she got there, Morgan began to stir.

  "Uh-uh. Not on my watch," she said as she slammed her boot against his head, knocking him out cold. She then set Xander loose and helped him stand. He was hardly conscious and barely managed to walk but she was able to get him to where the children were, away from the fight.

  Joel and Connor rolled on the floor. Joel no longer had the advantage and Connor was on him, punching his face. With one heavy push, Joel managed to turn Connor over and Connor landed on his back close to the bear's carcass. Joel braced himself for another round but Connor suddenly shouted and jerked up. He didn't move to fight Joel. Joel was surprised and looked at the ground where Connor had fallen. The
re was something long and thin like the large animal's tail but it was alive. It curled itself as though afraid. Then Joel remembered that bears didn't have long tails. Connor had fallen on a snake.

  Joel looked at Connor and noticed Connor wilting. In only a matter of seconds, Connor fell to the ground paralyzed. Tears streamed down his eyes. Harper, Xander and the kids gathered close to Joel and watched Connor writhe in the dust.

  "You have no idea what's coming at y'all Americans. It's big. My bosses will destroy this wretched nation. Go on to New York. Your destiny awaits you there... If you even get there," Connor said just before he died.

  17th November, 2001

  7:00am

  North Orchard, Chicago, Illinois.

  USA

  Xander watched and smiled as Prim and Grayson played hopscotch in the snow with Brandon Finney, the little boy that had been kidnapped too. His parents had given up all hope of finding him. When Xander, Harper and Joel had returned him to his parents the night before, they had wept hysterically for joy. It was the morning after the girls had been found. Xander, Nia, Prim and Grayson had followed Joel and Harper to their shelter back at North Orchard. Grayson had been sad about moving to New York without Gertrude and Alicia. Xander had promised her that they would all be reunited in New York. He wasn't sure about that though. Nothing was certain anymore. And Connor's dying words gave him the chills.

  Xander opened his bag and pulled out his laptop. He checked it. It wasn’t starting up. His phone too wouldn’t come on. He then pulled out one of the two white minitabs from his bag. He had collected them from the men who had abducted him the night before. They both were switched off. He tried to turn the one he held on. It didn’t come on. The battery had died. He wondered how the devices were to be charged since there was no electricity. The minitabs didn’t even have charging ports. He held it under the sun.

  The form of a battery appeared on the screen and it came on.

  "Okay y'all, let's go!" Joel called out and Xander put the minitab and his damaged devices back in his bag. It was time to go. Nia called out for Prim to come to her. Along with the over two hundred people who were in that community, Xander got up and, with Joel leading the way, he began the march North East to New York.

  "Hey, Grayson. Stop playing like a two-year old doll. Come on let's go," Xander called out and Grayson came to walk beside her limping guardian.“One-legged goat,” she called him.

  Epilogue

  18th November, 2021

  7:00am

  Outskirts of Vermont, USA.

  Aaliyah zipped her hoodie up and laced her boots. Packing her black hair into a bun, she threw the hood over her head. Slipping her bag over her shoulders, she stood in the ankle deep snow, deep in thought. The movies had always warned them about it. Even her novel had mentioned it in passing. She wondered why the EMP had to happen in her generation. Suddenly, walking to New York wasn’t what bothered her the most. She could keep doing that. Her mind ran over the events of the previous day. She could hardly believe she had almost been abducted. Apparently, there was war looming. They were in a danger zone. Americans had turned on each other and the spirit of America had now become the spirit of survival. She didn’t know if she could handle it.

  Marcia, her grandmother, came to stand beside her. She hugged her grandma- the only other surviving person in her whole family. They had shared her loot from the previous day with the Hankins.

  “We’re going to be safe, Granny,” Aaliyah said. Marcia coughed in response and sadness filled Aaliyah. Time was running out.

  She passed through the small streets cautiously, looking for the green cross that symbolized pharmacies. Her eyes were also peeled for any abductors. She spotted a small building. It had the sign she was looking for. She frowned when she noticed the iron doors that blocked entrance. The windows were barred. She couldn’t go through them either. She walked up to the door and looked at its lock. It was of the more complex sort- the kind that took a while to open. She set to work on opening the lock. In five minutes she was done. A smile lit her face up as the doors swung open to let her in. she walked through and shut them so as not to be noticed. She walked through the aisles, searching for pain killers, diabetic drugs and bandages. She found them one, after the other. Then she got an idea. There was so much need for drugs back at the camp. People had caught the flu and had to resort to natural remedies which they knew little about and weren’t used to. If she got drugs for them, she could make some good exchanges. She ran through the store, picking up whatever she felt would be necessary.

  She was pleased with herself when she saw how full her bag was. She decided to leave. She was about to head out when someone suddenly grabbed her from behind and held a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.

  About The Author

  Zion Cage is the author of more than a dozen science fiction novels and the winner of the prize for the best adaptation of the new generation Apocalypse in 2018 still being at College. he wrote for the newspaper group and delivered podcasts on the apocalypse being at Georgia State University. today he lives with his charming wife in Valdosta in the south of Georgia and is passionate about all the possible directions that the world could take if the apocalypse really happened. His favorite stories to read and write are mostly for characters who become stronger by overcoming the challenges and fears. Zion Cage love Basketball and he often plays in the Gym with his friends on Sundays. He also loves soccer and his favorite team is Atlanta United.

  Zion Cage loves to hear from his readers so you can find his books and connect with him via any of the channels listed below:

  Facebook at Zion Cage

  Email at ZionCage97@gmail.

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  Books In This Series

  The End

  Something Sinister is brewing in the United States…

  The United States is hit by an EMP from an unknown source and its citizens are asked to move to New York. Without basic survival skills and being in the middle of winter, it’s more of a journey to the death for most. And then there is the increasing number of kidnap cases everywhere.

  4 Unlikely Heroes…

  Xander, Aaliyah, Stephen and Suzanne are individuals from worlds apart and with different conflict. However, with suspicions of foul play in the country spreading, fate must bring them together to clear the air and set things right.

  Or at least die trying…

  The End: Genesis

  Alexander Michael’s life is thrown into tumult in the wake of the EMP. He had been warned but he never listened to rumors. He sister, Grayson is now nowhere to be found and he is separated from the rest of his family. He sets out on a quest to find his sister despite the negative odds and, soon, he finds out that something dark is at work in the United States- something bigger than he could imagine.

  The End: Survival

  Aaliyah isn’t ready to face the truth of what has happened to their world because she isn’t ready to let go of the ones that she loves. Now, with her grandmother, Marcia, by her side, she has no choice but to continue further to the unknown, where only a small amount of the population are surviving. As Marcia’s health continues to deteriorate, Aaliyah is forced to make decisions that will impact her life, forever.

  The End: Captives

  It’s the Eve to the massive EMP plan and the Ray of Hope terrorist group has gathered the orders of various black market buyers for the children that will be kidnapped after the EMP attack. The leaders of Ray of hope inform their agents of the progress, warning them to be alert so that every displaced child be carried off at the first opportunity. Connor and Morgan are part of these agents and they are sent off. br />
  The End: Warzone

  As a veteran, Stephen is used to undesirable climates. From his days in the military, he has taught himself not to be so dependent on man-made appliances. He’d always been a bit suspicious of the activities of the government, and when the EMP did occur, he was more prepared than most. With survival skills that surpass basic, he is easily able to adapt to this new world as he begins on his trip to New York, where his only companionship is his German shepherd, Tanner.

  The End: Rogue

  Vivien Dmitri is at the top of the terrorist organization, the Ray of Hope.

  For some reason, though, she decides to bring it down. It’s not an easy task,

  and she’s forced to recruit people to join her on her mission. Still, it’s a race to the death, and she is determined to finish it.

  THE RAY OF HOPE MUST FALL!

 

 

  Cage, Zion, The End Series | Book 1 | The End: Genesis

 

 

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