Hot Zone Read online

  HOT ZONE

  Sandy Holden

  “Darker, harder sci-fi drama, a unique blend.”

  “A cross genre adventure into a screwed up world.”

  “If you loved Lost Princess and The Contract, you’ll love this!”

  eBook Edition

  A Keyhole Romantica Book

  Copyright © 2012 Sandy Holden

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, internet, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the owner.

  License Statement

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Liability

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No responsibility or liability is assumed or accepted by the author for any claimed financial losses and/or damages sustained to persons from the use of the information in this publication, personal or otherwise, either directly or indirectly. While every effort has been made to ensure reliability and accuracy of the information within, all liability, negligence or otherwise, from any use, misuse or abuse of the operation of any methods, strategies, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein, is the sole responsibility of the reader. By reading past this point you are accepting these terms and conditions.

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter 1: Introducing “New Guy”

  Chapter 2: The Bombs Bursting in Air

  Chapter 3: My World is Changing

  Chapter 4: I go shopping and tell a story

  Chapter 5: Quarantine

  Chapter 6: Sarah Richardson does a runner

  Chapter 7: House Party

  Chapter 8: Enter Gabriel, Stage North

  Chapter 9: The Meeting, Continued

  Chapter 10: I Meet the Grand Poo-bah

  Chapter 11: Think Before You Speak

  Chapter 12: Homecoming

  Chapter 13: Freaky Boyfriends

  Chapter 14: Little Jacob

  Chapter 15: A Lab and a Job Offer

  Chapter 16: Answers, a Surprise, and Home

  Chapter 17: I See Stars

  Chapter 18: Busted

  Chapter 19: I Can See You

  Chapter 20: Sun’s Up—Look Who’s Here

  Epilog: One Month Later

  About The Author

  Chapter 1: Introducing “New Guy”

  My name is Madde Morton. Madde is short for Madeline, which is far too elegant for a girl like me. I am of average height, probably have average size and figure. The most outstanding feature is my hair that is mostly deep red but that has streaks of a darker, rather startling brown or black. My roommates assure me I’m good looking—not to me—when I look in the mirror I see a myriad of faults, but I’m trying to be honest here. I’m also trying to do away with false modesty—it has no place in my world anymore. Many things don’t have a place in my world anymore, but I’m getting ahead of myself, and I don’t want to do that. So, reddish-brown hair, oval face that has fairly good skin (one of my better parts. I don’t know how I escaped the freckles but somehow I did). Eyes of dark brown with eyebrows that peak over my eyes. Personally, I’ve always felt these make me look a little like I’m waiting for something, but other people say they’re nice. My lips look rather puffy to me, but again, I’m overly critical. My friend Meri says my lips are completely in. I usually shrug at that and try not to frown. Compliments make me a little nervous, as if they might actually be insults in disguise. Maybe that’s actually a self-image problem.

  I live in Catfish Lake, Minnesota. If you haven’t heard of it, I’m not surprised, even though our tiny consolidated high school went to the State Basketball Finals two years running a few years back. That’s our claim to fame. You might have thought it was the catfish hereabouts, but you’d be wrong. Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes, and no one actually cares that we have another one.

  I have lived here in Catfish ever since I was little. We moved to lovely lakey Minnesota from California when I was just a toddler, not that I remember any of it. No, all I know is Catfish. I went to school here, my parents lived here, and I’ll probably die here. I just hope I can finish this before that happens. But who knows, right? Death is closer that it used to be, that’s for darned sure. Death has moved from something that happened to the very old or someone else to something that has personally touched my life in many ways. In other words, death has gotten up-close and personal.

  So, back to telling you who I am. This shouldn’t take too long—I’m only 24 and have lived a very average life. I went to school and made good grades—B’s and A’s. One D from Mr. “Bombshell” Alexander who taught eighth grade history. He blindsided me with a final exam that blew me away. And to be honest, the whole class was terrible for me. I kept thinking that Mr. Alexander (Bombshell was a less than loving term we gave him for his pointed bald head) looked like some kind of cartoon villain—I could never think exactly which one—and he scared me. I was lucky to even get that D. Perhaps it was a pity-grade from my “cartoon-villain” teacher.

  I headed off to community college in Redwing, but after a year and a half of that I gave it up as a bad idea. I didn’t feel like I was really getting anywhere, and my teachers just seemed to be going through the motions. So I quit and started paying back some of the mountains of debt I had accrued. I attacked this with my best intentions and a job at the local sandwich shop.

  You guessed correctly if you thought I was pretty strapped financially. I had two roommates and an apartment over Henry’s Bar, which was probably the crappiest bar in town and just possibly the known universe. And that brings us to the start of my story—me working at SuperSubs and living with Meri and Phil (short for Phyllis), both of who have been friends of mine since I was in grade school.

  Phil had a date. This was nothing new, but the boy was. Phil had been dating Jeff Walker for the last two years, until he had suddenly dumped her and had started dating Kitten Smith. You might not be surprised to find that Kitten had a rather poor reputation. Kitten had been accused of sleeping with just about every male in town. That’s not fair though, since she usually didn’t sleep with anyone older than 30-years-old.

  Anyway, Meri and I were hanging around to see the new guy. Phil had met him in church, of all places, which tickled us to no end since Phil was not exactly a regular churchgoer. She was more of a pragmatist—if God was there, then hurray, and if He wasn’t, well, then hurray for that too. For some reason (I refuse to consider the divine—doesn’t God have better things to do that act as a matchmaker?) Phil decided out of the blue to try the Open Bible Fellowship Church, and then fate or the happy boyfriend fairy whacked her on the head and there was Chris.

  When Mr. New Guy knocked at the door, Meri elbowed me out of the way to answer it, and I tried to look uninterested, grabbing a book and dropping into a chair sideways, my legs up over the overstuffed arm. He came in and I casually put the book away and stood and stretched as if I had been sitting all day. Meri giggled behind her hand.

  We told the man, a cute blond named Chris Masters that Phil would be ready in a minute. We invited him to sit down and asked him some questions. We wanted to make sure that he was okay to go out with Phil. Not that we worried about her physically. She had a black belt in karate, or some kind of Asian defense—they all blend together for
me. Whatever the defense was called, she could kick ass with it, and we both knew that. But we were worried about her emotionally. It hadn’t been that long since Jeff the Jerk had defected into Kittenland.

  Chris seemed nice enough. He said all the right things and looked kind without being wimpy. We called to Phil to hurry up, and she came out, looking beautiful as she always does. Phil is really a looker, with a large chest, a little waist, and long legs. She isn’t model skinny, but that doesn’t keep the boys from watching her whenever they see her. She’s also tall—5 feet 10 inches. With heels on tonight, she was over 6 feet. Good thing Chris looked pretty tall himself. Guys don’t usually like to be the shorter one.

  So off they went, and Meri and I got ready for our big night out. I say that as a joke. See, neither of us had plans since I had a steady boyfriend—Eddy, and Meri had a steady as well who was in the Army and right now at least a continent away. I thought Eddy might come over, but he and I had a fight yesterday, and he might not be over it. We had been fighting a lot lately, and sometimes I wondered if he was really worth all this trouble. But he was a nice guy, basically, just tense lately for some reason. I figured he’d get whatever was bothering him out of his system, and then we would go back to how things were before.

  Meri jumped on the computer to some game—I bet you know the one—it’s a type of game called an MMORPG. That stands for massive multiplayer online roll playing game. In this game you are the hero, and interact with all these other players. I’d tried it but wasn’t exactly a natural gamer, I guess, since I kept asking why? Why Meri? Why would we “loot” a body after we kill someone? (This sort of grossed me out) Because, she said, that’s how you get money and other items you need. Oh. I would ask her why I couldn’t just hurt someone and then make him give me his stuff and money. Why did I have to kill him? After a few of these questions, Meri just shook her head and pronounced me “not gaming material.” I wasn’t too heartbroken. I can’t imagine spending so much time staring at a little screen anyway.

  Meri has another reason to be on the computer. Her sweetie, Cal, had Internet access sometimes and would instant message her whenever he could. They would chat back and forth through the computer, and she would light up with happiness. Finally he would sign off, and she would go back to her games, or sometimes cry a little. I guess they had the real thing going on between them. They had been going together since middle school, and she nearly broke up with him over his decision to enter the military. He still had another year left, so he wasn’t coming home anytime soon. Meri was rock solid true, however, and I secretly hoped he was as loyal as she was, but never could ask him. It just wasn’t a question I could ask, you know? I had known him for a long time, and hoped the Army hadn’t changed him. Unless it made him a little less bossy, and I truly doubted the Army was going to mellow him out.

  I was watching TV (I know, I look down my nose at Meri because she plays computer games, but I am a TV addict, so have no right to act superior) when Eddy finally showed up at my door. As usual, he rapped once and let himself in. We never locked our door when it was daytime—I wasn’t even sure if my key worked. Eddy shucked his coat and tossed it accurately onto one of the hooks near the door. He came over and kissed the top of my head and flopped onto the sofa next to me. I assumed that our fight was over.

  He called out a hello to Meri, who had a headset on and was talking to other gamers. She waved a hand distractedly at him and continued concentrating on her game. Eddy took my hand. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said softly to me. I was suddenly sure whatever we had between us could work.

  I smiled back at him. “Me too.” My voice was soft, but a little part of me was thinking that the whole fight had really been his fault, so I shouldn’t have to apologize, but it felt like an apologizing moment.

  He squeezed my hand. “What are you watching?” he asked.

  “CSI.” My favorite show, but I didn’t have to tell him that.

  “I should have guessed,” he laughed. “Mind if I check the score on the game?” Before I could say that was fine—and I always said that was fine—he found the remote and changed the channel. I sighed inwardly. The trouble with being accommodating is that people started to take your agreeable nature for granted. Not that I was always agreeable—but I nearly always was with Eddy. I’m not sure when I had fallen into that pattern, but I was stuck in it now. Meri and Phil, along with other friends, laughed to see me with Eddy and secretly made bets on how long before I smacked him one. They’re hilarious, don’t you think? Yes, well, maybe I was channeling my mother because she was definitely on the deferential side with Dad. But Dad never pushed it, and really how well does anyone know his or her parents, anyway? At this point of my story they were still your average parents, and lived in the same house I had grown up in, a barn that had been converted into a house that overlooked the not-so-famous Catfish Lake.

  Eddy was absorbed in the game within minutes, and I wondered whether I should go catch the last part of CSI on the little TV in my bedroom. The apartment had three tiny bedrooms, a large living room, and an eat-in kitchen. The rent was fair, considering that the previous tenants had beaten the hell out of the apartment. We had lived here for a few years now, and before that I had lived at home (doing the school thing). I decided that I shouldn’t put things (i.e. TV shows) over people (Eddy), so I kept my mouth shut and tried to figure out who was playing. It was basketball—not my favorite game, and professional basketball, so I was bored within minutes. I let my mind wander.

  I wondered how Phil’s date was going. I idly thought about trying to get Dad to sell me their large TV now that they had bought a larger flat screen model. My mind drifted to my argument with Eddy the night before. It was really sort of strange. I had been going out with him for six months now, and thought I knew him pretty well. He wasn’t usually argumentative. He was actually a sweetie. Except for his remote control issues, he listened to me, he laughed easily, and wasn’t afraid to be affectionate. He was an electrician, which meant that he was able to support a family, if things ever went that far. He was a good guy. And why was I even thinking about this, anyway? I wondered. I should just be happy I had someone who cared about me and not look for reasons to be unhappy. As I decided this, I gave Eddy a kiss on the cheek and was rewarded by a sweet smile of surprise from him. He had dark hair and chocolate brown eyes, and was really good-looking. I needed to stop creating a problem where one didn’t exist.

  “I’m going to make us a snack,” I announced. “Do you want anything specific?”

  “Awesome,” he said with feeling, and I felt petty for thinking bad thoughts about him. “Anything would be great. I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

  I sashayed into the kitchen, hoping he was watching, and began putting together a snack. I couldn’t say I was a gourmet cook, but I liked trying new recipes, and prided myself on always having something good on hand. I searched through the freezer and took out some little appetizers on cocktail rye that I had made the week before. I preheated the oven and looked through the cupboards as I switched on the mini TV that my parents had given me last Christmas. This was by far my favorite present since it allowed me to cook without missing any good shows (what did I tell you? Addicted.). It was tuned to CNN, and since CSI was over by now, I left it there.

  Nothing too exciting. Brittany Spears had apparently found religion, and was petitioning again to get her kids back. Yeah, whatever girlfriend, I thought to myself. I put the food together and schlepped it back out for Eddy, feeling irritated that he didn’t even look at me as he took it and shoved the food in automatically. What a guy. I sighed and decided maybe I’d feel better if I had a beer.

  Now just so you know, I’m not a big drinker, but I do love a cool brew. My parents educated me on wines, and Dad had some great ones at home downstairs in his “hidden” wine cellar. I’d probably disappointed them when I just liked beer. I’d recently bought a twelve pack, and brought out one for Eddy and Meri. The game ended (whew),
and Phil returned with New Guy. They looked like they’d had a good enough time, and Phil was smiling and relaxed. She said they were going to a movie and had just stopped to say “hi” since they had some time, but we all drank some beers, and Meri got out Mom’s old Trivial Pursuit game (she’d bought the newest cards for it and had gone to my house yesterday to borrow the game from Mom—she was apparently not extravagant enough to buy the actual game board, too). We started playing, and before we knew it, they had missed the start of the movie, which necessitated more beers. Phil dug out a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and we drank that as well (okay, Phil and Eddy and New Guy drank it, cause I still had a beer, you know?).

  It was midnight when we heard planes scream by overhead.

  We probably would have jumped up, startled, if we hadn’t all been drunk to one degree or another. As it was, I looked at the ceiling from my position on the floor. I was lying on the floor with my legs propped up on the wall, so I was pretty much looking at the ceiling in any case. I pointed, thinking how heavy my arm felt, and said, “What was that?”

  Meri was looking through my iPod for something else to listen to; we had abandoned the game hours ago. She looked up, “What?”

  Phil yawned, leaning against New Guy. “Sounded like a plane. Maybe one is crashing.” She slurred this so it sounded like “cashing.”

  New Guy, who was the least buzzed, said, “That sounds military. Do you have a base around here?” Apparently New Guy hadn’t grown up here.

  Meri shook her head, steadying herself against Eddy. “No base. I think there’s one closer to the Cities. We don’t have military planes fly near here.” This was all spoken in a soft slur.

  I said in an ominous voice, “It’s an attack from the Planet Mars.”

  Phil saluted, forgetting about the iPod and whacking herself on the forehead with it. I broke out laughing and kicked the wall.

  Meri intoned, “Our far—fierce fighting men will take ‘em down.” Now Phil was laughing too while rubbing her head.