His hammering heart and hard breathing were making his stomach fall into rioting. He gagged, burped, and tasted Salisbury steak and gravy, churned through with his own stomach acid. It burned in the back of his throat.
What are you gonna do?
I’m going to puke. And I’m going to pass out. And I’m going to hope to God that someone is watching…
Abe sank to the ground. He could see just under the door. A tiny crack and on the other side he could see the bottoms of boots and the shadows cast by a pair of men. Probably Norseman and his smaller partner, if Abe were to take a wild guess. Maybe they were paying attention, or maybe they weren’t. Maybe they had cameras in the room. In any case, there wasn’t a whole lot that Abe had going for him. He was improvising with nothing.
He began to rock back and forth on his knees. Just the thought of it was already making saliva coat the sides of his mouth. He took a few short breaths, eyes locked on the underside of the door. He scooted a little closer. He made a strangled cry, and then said, “Help me… please…”
Then he shoved two fingers down his throat. His throat seized around them. Then he could feel everything opening up as Salisbury steak and gravy came rushing back up. He retched once with nothing, and then it all came out at once, a light brown, chunky mess that spewed out onto the door and the floors. He retched two more times, and then collapsed in a puddle of his own vomit.
His eyes rolled back. His eyelids fluttered while his body shook violently. His face and lips were smeared with his own vomit. The pool of the mess he had just created began to seep under the narrow crack at the bottom of the door.
It took a moment, but then there was a cry of alarm from the other side of the door. Shuffling of feet, rubber boot soles squeaking on linoleum tiles. He heard a few loud curses. Then the door was flung open. The air outside was noticeably cooler, and it chilled Abe’s vomit-covered face. His eyes were still looking up into his own head, and he could not see who it was that was standing in the doorway.
“Holy fuck…”
“Hey! Get the fuck up!”
“Dude, he might be for real.”
“Goddammit… call the doc.”
Abe coughed and spluttered and took shaky breaths. He blinked rapidly. It was Norseman standing over him, straddling the puddle of vomit, leaning down with his hands on his knees and inspecting Abe with a suspicious eye. His leaner partner was just outside the door, nose wrinkled in disgust, but eyes softened with pity.
The leaner one pointed. “Roll him on his side so he don’t choke on his vomit.”
Norseman avoided the puddle and stepped over Abe’s legs, reaching for his right shoulder to pull him onto his side.
Abe did the only thing he could—he kicked with everything he had, and landed a hard blow into Norseman’s groin. The air came out of the man’s lungs in a whoomph, and he made a sound like groaning steel as he toppled forward onto Abe. The man was a righty, and his pistol was on Abe’s left. As Norseman landed on him, Abe’s left hand snagged the pistol from its holster on his belt—a simple quick-draw design with no safety retention in place. And then Abe was almost smothered by the man’s two-hundred-fifty-pound frame.
ALSO BY D. J. MOLLES
The Remaining
The Remaining
The Remaining: Aftermath
The Remaining: Refugees
The Remaining: Fractured
The Remaining: Allegiance
The Remaining: Extinction—Coming 2015
The Remaining Short Fiction
“The Remaining: Trust”
“The Remaining: Faith”
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Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE: LINES
CHAPTER TWO: KILLER
CHAPTER THREE: EDEN
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SHAPE OF THINGS
CHAPTER FIVE: HEAD GAMES
CHAPTER SIX: THE DEACON
CHAPTER SEVEN: P IS FOR PLENTY
CHAPTER EIGHT: FAULT
CHAPTER NINE: SHADOWS
CHAPTER TEN: NOTES
CHAPTER ELEVEN: RISK AND REWARD
CHAPTER TWELVE: PROOF
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BAD DECISIONS
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: OVERRUN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: BROKEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: INSIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TALKS
CHAPTER NINETEEN: TENSIONS
CHAPTER TWENTY: EDGES
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: LATE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: TECHNIQUES
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: NEWCOMERS
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: INTROSPECTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: CAT’S OUT
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: WELCOME
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: HALF-TRUTHS
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: STOPGAP
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: FRICTION
CHAPTER THIRTY: GATHERING
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: WHOLE TRUTHS
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE WATCH
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: WEAK POINTS
EXTRAS
MEET THE AUTHOR
A PREVIEW OF THE REMAINING: EXTINCTION
ALSO BY D. J. MOLLES
ORBIT NEWSLETTER
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by D. J. Molles
Excerpt from The Remaining: Extinction copyright © 2015 by D. J. Molles
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover photos by Arcangel-Images
Cover © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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ISBN 978-0-316-40427-3
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