The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set Read online

  The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set

  Books 1-4

  Jace Mitchell

  Michael Anderle

  The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 Daniel Willcocks, Michael Anderle, CM Raymond, and LE Barbant

  Cover by Mihaela Voicu http://www.mihaelavoicu.com/

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, February 2019

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2019 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.

  The Caitlin Chronicles Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Mary Morris

  Peter Manis

  Larry Omans

  Paul Westman

  Micky Cocker

  Kim Boyer

  Nicole Emens

  Diane L. Smith

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  Contents

  Dawn of Chaos

  Into The Fire

  Hunting The Broken

  The City Revolts

  Dawn of Chaos

  Caitlin Chronicles Book One

  For Bailey. Your daddy did this.

  —Dan

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  —Michael

  Prologue

  It’s incredible, looking back now, how quickly the world fell into madness.

  The Madness…

  That’s what the people called it, and I suppose it’s apt.

  Where the disease came from, I still cannot tell. At first, I thought it would perhaps be one of those epidemics, much like the Black Death that swept England and lasted for three years or so.

  Yeah, right.

  How much more wrong could I have been?

  It’s now been seventy years since I first sighted the Mad in my Canadian homeland, and it doesn’t appear as though their numbers are decreasing. Lord, I wish I could say otherwise. I wish I had better news. Years of experimentation and examination have led to nothing more than a few near-misses with the infected—and a load of extra confusion.

  I simply don’t have the equipment.

  Or the staff.

  My observations tell me that the world is dying. I used to travel. I used to see people and speak to people, but now, that way of life is fading. Men and women have holed themselves up in tight-knit colonies, towns have become so withdrawn that there are some who believe there are no humans left out there in the wider world, and there are some survivors who simply batten down the hatches and try to hide away from it all—but even that isn’t a foolproof method to keep the Madness from finding its way through.

  If I can do one thing before I die—and I know that death isn’t far off for me—it will be to find the cure. Or at least to loosen the lid of the pickle jar that contains it.

  For the sake of humanity, there has to be a cure.

  There must.

  Helena Millican, MD—circa seventy years post spread of Madness

  Chapter One

  Carter Manor, Silver Creek Forest, Ontario, Canada

  It was far too late to save her.

  “Kiera!” Caitlin screamed from the top of the stairs. A cold draft blew in through the open door where the Mad had broken in.

  Kiera stared up at her through the horde of Mad attacking her—scratching, tearing, and biting, their eyes glowing fiercely red. She tried to speak, but no words would come.

  This hadn’t been the plan at all.

  Earlier that day, Caitlin had been delighted when she had been told she was to join Silver Creek’s ranger troop —a hardened band of men who patrolled the perimeter outside their town’s wooden walls. For as long as she could remember, she had wanted to see the outside world beyond the gates. To see the overgrown forests and smell the fresh air.

  There was just one problem with that…

  For the last seven decades, the forest had crawled with Mad-infected zombies— humans who had contracted the Madness and stalked the forests as though they were the walking dead.

  They were very much alive, unfortunately. Death would have been a kinder end.

  Governor Trisk’s law stated that only specified civilians would ever leave the confines of the walls, under the penalty of death. Rangers were among the few who could, which was annoying for Caitlin because her brother was the Captain of the Rangers troop.

  Caitlin had to watch her own flesh and blood leave every night to travel the woods. The rangers eradicated any Mad who might have wandered within Silver Creek’s borders that day. She stayed at home to clean, cook, and scratch at the walls in frustration while Jaxon, her pet German Shepherd, cocked his head and watched her with interest.

  Where was the justice in that?

  Caitlin couldn’t count the nights she’d spent imagining what the overgrown world out there was like.

  Her excitement had exceeded all her imaginings when Dylan came home earlier that day. He’d worn a confused expression on his face and delivered the news that Caitlin, Kiera, and a handful of other women were to join the rangers that evening to patrol for the first time.

  “Why? Why now?” Caitlin had asked.

  Dylan explained that Trisk was looking to increase his security. The plan was to train more rangers to travel further afield and to push the perimeters of their territory outward. They had also come across something in the woods that needed exploration. Though he didn’t say much more, Dylan had gotten the impression that the governor was looking for something beyond their borders.

  Not that Caitlin had minded at all, as she had prepared for this for years. Every available moment had been used to train in secret with her brother’s bo staff while he was away in the hopes that one day, she’d have the chance to join his ranks. It was the only way to leave the musty oppression of day to day life in the Creek.

  Now, though…

  Now, she wished she’d stayed home.

  Caitlin and Kiera had become separated from their group in the forest when the horde had first attacked. It was full dark, with thick clouds covering the moon. The first bunch came out of nowhere—at least fifty of them, with laser-red eyes.

  Caitlin had drawn her bo staff and swung at one of them, connecting with a satisfying thunk. The one she struck fell to the floor.

  “Damn! Did you see that?” she’d shouted. She wanted to impress Kiera with her skills…but Kiera was running in the opposite direction.

  Caitlin spared one glance at Dylan and his men—who were hacking at any Mad within their reach, ganging up on each in turn as their poor excuse for blades struggled to break the skin—before racing after Kiera.

  She leapt over brambles and did her best to avoid tripping over roo
ts as she followed her friend. She could hear Mad following them, although they were nowhere near as coordinated and calculated as humans. They stumbled and fell but never quite lost sight of their targets.

  At the time, it had seemed like a blessing when the manor came into view—a decrepit old building with fallen roof tiles and rotten beams, at least three stories tall. The place the governor had instructed them to find and explore.

  Now, Caitlin clung to the railing and watched in horror while the Mad did what they did best…

  They ripped Kiera apart and ate her.

  Caitlin fell to her knees, unable to turn away from the horror downstairs. Her bo staff had fallen to the floor beside her. Her eyes filled with tears, and an anger she couldn’t quite understand burned deep in her gut.

  Kiera was supposed to have followed her.

  Kiera was supposed to have run up the stairs with her to find a safe place.

  None of this was supposed to have happened.

  As Caitlin wrestled with the injustice of it all, she failed to hear a door creak open behind her and the labored footsteps of a stray zombie approaching.

  It was the smell that brought Mary-Anne to her senses—that metallic, earthy smell of decay and blood.

  Never mind the dust raining from the floorboards above and the thundering footsteps of what had to be Mad.

  They were a noisy bunch. Definitely wouldn’t win a game of hide and seek.

  She blinked and stretched, her eyelids feeling heavier than they had in decades.

  What happened to the days of being awakened by a rooster? , it’s all “bloodlust this” and “bloodlust that.”

  With her vampiric eyesight, Mary-Anne could see almost perfectly in the dark, though her body ached and she wished only that her sleep had not been disturbed yet again. This was the third time in a week she’d been wakened by intruders and had to drive them away. She was annoyed.

  Mary-Anne groaned. She had been comfortable—and tired.

  More tired with every passing day.

  In the days since the Madness had taken over, the world had changed beyond description. Humans had withdrawn into medieval-style colonies, Weres had all been killed or gone into hiding, and there weren’t many vamps around anymore either.

  Mary-Anne had experienced her fair share of encounters with the Mad—hell, there were few who hadn’t—and had learned very quickly from watching her kin die off one by one that the only way to survive was through avoiding human contact at all costs. Drinking from a human who didn’t know they were infected yet…well, that risk was not worth taking.

  Still, there was little to be gained from sucking a rabbit or a deer dry. It was enough to sustain but not to flourish.

  Mary-Anne’s stomach rumbled, and her eyes narrowed as she looked at the floor above her, able to smell the humans but unable to eat.

  She sighed, trying to remember the days before the Madness. It had begun long after the fall. There had been a sweet period after the world had nearly ended and before the Madness began, when giant ships flew, and cities were full and thriving. Before the world turned to feral bloodlust and her brothers and sisters had begun to degenerate and die.

  Someone screamed above.

  Mary-Anne stood up and cracked her neck, then ran at vampire speed through the basement and up two flights of stairs. She navigated through the back corridors as only she would know how to do. Her family manor was a labyrinth, a maze of rooms and hallways and staircases. Portraits thick with spiderwebs rocked gently on their hooks as she sped past. Her eyes glowed as red as those of the Mad.

  When she reached the shadows of the second floor, she crept along in silence toward an opening from a side corridor. It gave her a perfect view of what was happening below.

  A girl, no more than shreds of meat and blood, and a horde of Mad screeching and chittering in delight.

  No fair, she thought. How come they get to eat and I don’t?

  And then she heard the sobs.

  Another girl had collapsed to her knees not twenty feet away from where she stood. She was young, at least by Mary-Anne’s standards—probably in her mid-twenties. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders and face, and her frame was covered by a dark green cloak.

  Mary-Anne cocked her head. This was certainly a strange new development.

  The last few intruders to her home had been men armed with rusted swords and bows. They had done a much better job sneaking up on Mary-Anne, almost managing to cause her harm before Mary-Anne went all vamp and handed them their asses.

  But this girl seemed…different. She certainly wasn’t there for Mary-Anne. Maybe the girls had made their way here by accident? Mary-Anne couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen genuine compassion from a human.

  In the days when the Madness had spread far and wide, Mary-Anne had seen humans switching into survival mode—grouping into their colonies and purging anything or anyone that might have been a threat in some way. Camaraderie, bravery, and honor had crumbled as quickly as civilization did.

  Now, there was a girl frozen to the spot with emotion as her companion was killed—

  Well, that stirred something in Mary-Anne she couldn’t quite explain.

  So when the stray zombie crept out of the room that had once been her sister’s playroom, Mary-Anne took action.

  Awareness of the zombie behind her finally penetrated Caitlin’s consciousness when it was only a foot or so away.

  She could smell it—that putrid stench of rotten eggs pouring from a mouth that might once have had a full set of teeth but which now held only a few.

  “Fuuu—” Her instinctive curse was cut off as a person hurtled from nowhere and smacked into the zombie.

  What the shitbags? Caitlin watched, fascinated, as they wrestled on the floor.

  Well…kind of wrestled. The zombie had no hope. A woman with dark skin, fangs, and glowing red eyes had grabbed a handful of the zombie’s thin, greasy hair and now used her other hand to separate his head from his body. She straddled him and held up the head as if in triumph.

  Caitlin’s stomach curdled as the zombie’s head continued to chomp and gnash its teeth for a few seconds after the separation.

  The vampire climbed off the zombie, panting heavily and looking as though she’d just run a mile.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Caitlin, her eyes now pulsing a dull red.

  Caitlin couldn’t believe it. A vampire was asking if she was okay.

  When Caitlin was a child, her parents had told her about vampires and Weres. She remembered a night around the fire when she had probed and prodded with question after question. Were they really real? If they had been so powerful, where were they now? How would they respond if they contracted the Madness?

  Her mother and father had deflected her questions and rolled their eyes at her childish curiosity. Their response confirmed her belief that they were nothing more than fiction, stories to keep the fenced-in children of Silver Creek amused as time went by.

  And after Father had contracted the Madness and her mother died from food poisoning after eating a tainted fox, there had been no one left whom Caitlin felt she could question without people thinking she was crazy.

  She looked at the woman with fangs and black hair that fell to her shoulders and knew without a doubt that vampires were real.

  Caitlin wiped away a tear, her voice catching as she said, “Thanks?”

  “Don’t mention it.” The vamp stretched her back. She looked tired. “But don’t rely on it, either.”

  She nodded to the floor below. Some of the Mad who had killed Kiera now turned their attention upstairs in the wake of the commotion. A few eager forerunners were already on the bottom steps.

  “Your friend may be dead, but you have a chance to live. Tears can wait until you’re safe. Here, take this. It should help you,” the vamp said, reached inside the folds of her cloak and unfastened something Caitlin couldn’t see.

  She withdrew a sheath and pulled out a sword unli
ke anything Caitlin had ever seen. Its blade gleamed silver and its edge was flawless.

  The blacksmiths of Silver Creek could forge nothing like this. The only blades Caitlin had ever seen leave that place were bent and notched pieces of crap recovered from the old world. The only people to bear the blades were the governor’s guards and rangers.

  Except for Kiera and Caitlin. According to the head of the guards, Hank Newman, they were too new to the squad to warrant proper blades.

  Maybe if they’d had something better than glorified sticks, they wouldn’t be in this mess.

  Mary-Anne handed the sword to her. It was light, and the hilt fit Caitlin’s hand perfectly. In fact, nothing had ever felt more natural in her life.

  “It is silver-tipped,” the vampire said. “A perfect bringer of death to those of the UnknownWorld. Stab this through a Mad’s heart, and it shall be no more.”

  “Oh, great advice. Stab the Mad in the heart and it dies?” Caitlin smiled at the vampire. “Thanks again.”

  Most of the Mad on the stairs had fallen over as they tried to lift their feet to the next step.

  Despite herself, Caitlin laughed at their ridiculousness.

  The vampire joined in the laughter, an oddly humorless sound, then turned back to Caitlin. “Take care of yourself, flesh sack. No one else will. The world has turned Mad, and there are very few people alive who have honor, love, or compassion. Don’t let them take it.”