Stormy World, page 1
SURVIVING THE END
Crumbling World
Fallen World
New World
Burned World
Ruined World
Stormy World
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, DECEMBER 2023
Copyright © 2023 Relay Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Grace Hamilton is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Post-Apocalyptic projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.
www.relaypub.com
BLURB
In a world gone mad, one family will do anything to keep each other safe…
Jodi McDonald and her family have escaped from the Helios cult. But their freedom has come at a heavy price. Now, grief-stricken and fractured, they are once again on the road. As they search for a new sanctuary, Jodi is driven by one need above all others: to protect her family at all costs.
Every person has their breaking point, and Owen McDonald has reached his. To cope with unbearable loss, he fixates on finding a new home—a fresh start. But his obsession with reaching the coast could have deadly consequences. And as his actions become ever more extreme, Jodi’s family must contend with his descent into madness.
The McDonalds have learned to be wary of outsiders. But this time, danger comes from within. And the greatest threat to the family might be Owen himself.
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
End of Stormy World
Thank you
Make an Author’s Day
About Grace Hamilton
Sneak Peek: Rising Anarchy
Also By Grace Hamilton
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1
Owen’s grief had begun to curdle into anger. Jodi felt it all the time around him, like a suffocating heat radiating off his body. At the moment, they were walking northeast on an old state highway, dodging rusted, rotting vehicles and the encroaching Georgia woods on either side.
“Mom, can we play another game?” Kaylee asked.
“Sure,” Jodi replied. “How about another round of the alphabet game? I can start. A is for ash tree. I see an ash tree.” She pointed at a tree whose roots had grown and broken through the asphalt of the southbound lane. She thought it was a white ash tree, but she couldn’t be sure. “Who wants to go next? Owen?”
“N is for not me,” Owen replied. They’d salvaged a red flatbed handcart, which Owen was pushing. The squeak of the tiny wheels grated on Jodi’s nerves, and probably everyone else’s too.
“That’s okay,” Jodi said. “You don’t have to play. I’m not trying to force you to do anything. I just thought it might help to make the time pass.”
Violet was walking with Ruby, as always, and she perked up. She, of course, played the game with modified rules due to her visual impairment. “Okay, B is for bumpers. The cars on the highway have bumpers.”
“Yes, most of them,” Jodi said. “Good job. Who’s next? Kaylee?”
“C is for cars, of course,” Kaylee replied with a laugh. “Ooh, also for cirrus clouds! I see cirrus clouds today! That’s double points, too.”
“Great,” Jodi said. “Next?”
Owen tightened his lips and shook his head. She didn’t know how to get him out of this dark pit he’d fallen into, and she was worried that he might never leave it. They’d all lost someone they loved. They’d all lost their home, their community. But he’d lost his wife, his partner, the mother of his child. Jodi wasn’t surprised it was hitting him harder, but she wasn’t sure what to do. Corbin was walking beside him, and he occasionally looked in Owen’s direction, but he seemed at a loss for words.
“I’ll go next,” Shane said. Jodi’s husband was just behind her. His burned, bandaged arm seemed to be itchy and uncomfortable today. He kept scratching at the edges of the bandage and muttering curses under his breath. “D is for dust. There’s dust everywhere.”
“Okay, I’ll go,” Beth said. Since Jodi’s mother walked slower than everyone else, she was typically at the back of the group. They had to reduce their pace periodically to let her catch up.
Owen, clearly getting fed up with the game, clenched his teeth and leaned into the handle of the handcart. Little Katie was sitting on the cart, surrounded by their meager supplies: a suitcase, Shane’s single-strap backpack, and a few tools they’d found along the way. When her father picked up speed, she squealed excitedly.
“Owen, you’re going to have to slow down a bit,” Jodi said, as he quickly extended the gap between himself and the rest of the family. “We can’t maintain this pace.”
Owen paused, then kept going. “Mom, we have a long, long way to go to reach the Atlantic coast. If we’re just strolling along, playing games, and trying to have a good time, we’re never going to make it. We push ourselves now, and we’ll get where we’re going before we starve to death on the road. How does that sound?”
And with that, he scowled and turned back around. Jodi and Shane traded a worried look. Jodi knew she had to say something to Owen about this. She had to confront it directly, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.
She waited until they took a break early that afternoon. They found what appeared to be an old pavilion in a small public park that was somehow still intact. It gave them a bit of shade and some benches to sit on and rest. While Violet took Ruby to do her business and Corbin scrounged for any stray supplies in the area, the others broke out some bottled water.
Somehow, I have to keep morale up, Jodi thought. Otherwise, this trip is going to be miserable.
It didn’t help that Jodi’s back throbbed constantly, or that half the group was dressed in filthy Helios cult clothing and the other half in smoke-saturated clothing from Hickory Falls, or that they’d been walking nonstop for two days.
Jodi picked up little Katie from the cart and sat with her on one of the benches, helping the toddler to take a few sips of water. Beth and Shane sat across from her, but Owen intentionally slid down to the other end of the bench and sank into the nest of his arms. Jodi motioned for Beth to take Katie, and Beth nodded.
“Sweetheart, do you want to come and sit with Grammy?” Beth said.
“Yes. Grammy and Katie goin’ home,” the toddler said. She hopped down from her seat, climbed under the old concrete picnic table, and pulled herself up beside her great-grandmother.
Jodi slid down to the end of the bench, sitting beside Owen. He glanced up and acknowledged her presence, then put his head down again.
“Son, we all know you’re suffering,” she said, laying her hand gently on his back. “You’re grieving. Of course you are. And we all feel it, too. Not as strongly as you, perhaps, but we all lost someone we really care about.”
“Did I ever suggest otherwise?” Owen grumbled without lifting his head. “I know we’ve lost a bunch of people, and everyone is sad. I know that. What are you trying to say, Mom?”
“Just that you’re not alone,” she replied. “We’re all hurting with you, and it’s okay to grieve. But if we push ourselves too hard, we’re not going to make it to our destination. We can’t maintain a reckless pace.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then finally replied, “I’m setting the pace that I have to set. It’s not reckless. If we don’t move fast, we’re not going to make it. Period. It’s my job to keep my daughter safe. If some need to go slower, that’s fine. They can go slower.” When she started to say more, he quickly cut her off. “Can we stop talking about it? Thanks.”
Jodi sighed, rose, and went to sit with the others. When Shane gave her a questioning look, she shrugged and shook her head.
The break didn’t last long. After about fifteen minutes, Owen rose, retrieved Katie, and went for the cart. He didn’t ask anyone’s permission or discuss it. He just grabbed the cart handle and started pushing it back toward the old highway, and the others were forced to follow. Soon they were back on the road, trying to keep up with him, as Beth fell farther behind. Only Violet and Corbin didn’t seem to struggle with the pace.
Jodi fell back to walk with her mother.
“Don’t worry about me,” Beth said. “I’l
“I just don’t know how to help him,” Jodi said.
“Well, honey, I don’t think you can. He has to grieve in his own way.”
The afternoon wore on, and eventually they reached the on-ramp to Interstate 20. It had been a long, miserable slog to get there, and now that they’d arrived, Jodi realized just how far they still had to go. It was deeply demoralizing. She caught up to Shane, as they headed up the on-ramp. Ahead, an old gas station and convenience store sat on a shallow hilltop south of the interstate. It looked like the abandoned building was intact, which was rare these days.
“We should camp there for the night,” she said. “We might not find a better place farther down the road.”
“We have at least two hours until sunset,” Owen said over his shoulder.
“Yes, but everyone is tired,” Jodi said. “Katie is tired. We’ll have a roof over our heads, walls to block the wind. We have to take what we can find when we find it.”
“It would be nice to sleep indoors,” Violet said.
“There are plenty of old gas stations on the interstate,” Owen said. “I’m sure we’ll find another one. Can’t we keep going just a little longer?”
Jodi glanced at Shane, who nodded and said, “Son, your daughter needs to sleep, but before that, she needs to eat. It’s not sunset yet, but if we camp now, we can get up early tomorrow and be well-rested for a long day of walking.”
Owen bowed his head, leaning over the handle of his cart. Then he groaned and said, “Okay, fine. Let’s do it, then.” He took off at a jog, aiming the cart toward the parking lot entrance. Katie, thinking it was a game, raised both of her hands and laughed.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Violet tugged on Ruby’s harness and moved closer to her parents. “Mom, I heard you, Dad, and Grandma talking about him,” she said. “You know I’ve got good hearing. You’re all worried about Owen and trying to figure out how to help him.”
“Violet, you don’t need to worry about this,” Jodi said.
“I could talk to him,” Violet suggested. “I want to help him, too. He’s my big brother, after all.”
“Honestly, your grandma is right. It’s something he needs to work out on his own,” Shane said. “In a perfect world, he’d have all the time he needed to do that.”
“We’ll handle Owen, sweetie,” Jodi said. “We’re his parents.”
At this, Violet scowled, pursed her lips, and moved away from them.
Owen reached the parking lot first, and he wheeled their supplies over the culvert and toward the row of fuel pumps. As Jodi drew closer, she saw evidence that other people had camped here in the past, many of them. There were some discarded blankets and foam mats, even a few scraps of old, weathered tents. But nobody was there now.
Beyond the gas station, the interstate stretched on into deeply green landscape, disappearing after a few miles between the walls of encroaching trees, which towered over hundreds of scattered, dead vehicles that had been reduced to rusting piles. The thought of just how far they had to go to reach the coast was overwhelming. Jodi just couldn’t think about it right now.
If we ever reach the Atlantic, if we ever see that ocean and stand on the beach, she thought, it’ll be a miracle.
She hadn’t said this to her family. She fully expected to have to stop somewhere along the way and settle down in a less-desirable place, but she didn’t dare say this to any of her loved ones. They needed hope now, not stark reality—they’d had far too much of the latter.
2
Owen was propped between two old gas pumps, gazing out at the dark countryside twenty miles east of Macon, Georgia. The waxing moon cast the hills and trees in a faint, purplish light, leaving numerous deep wells of darkness. It mirrored his own feelings. The dark places in his mind, and in his heart, constantly called to him, and he spent much of his waking hours trying to keep them at bay. That was one reason why he’d volunteered for the late watch. In the middle of the night, he didn’t have to be attentive to anyone else, and he didn’t have to pretend like he was anywhere close to okay.
In the darkness, he could seethe. And he did.
He had an old leather bag in his lap. They’d salvaged it from an abandoned house they’d camped in for a couple of nights while recovering from the insanity of Helios. It contained some canned food and bottled water, but more importantly to Owen, it contained a large knife with a four-inch blade in a black plastic scabbard. As he sat there, listening and staring, he reached into the bag and fished around until he felt the handle of the knife. He didn’t pull it out, just clutched the handle, strangely comforted by it.
Occasionally, he heard noises from inside the old convenience store behind him. His family had set up some pallets in the middle aisle, using foam padding and blankets. His dad was still recovering from the burns on his arms, and whether from that or for some other reason, he slept fitfully. He kept tossing and turning, snorting and grunting. Ruby got up from time to time and padded around. She came outside to pee, checking on Owen in passing and only leaving him when he petted her head. The others were sound asleep, sometimes snoring but not rousing.
As the hours wore on, Owen felt himself sinking into a kind of stupor—not really approaching sleep, but slipping beneath the level of clear and rational thought, as if a fog were filling his mind. It was a dangerous place to be because he couldn’t control what he thought about. And indeed, the memory of Amelia’s death soon resurfaced. He saw her as if she were right in front of him, sprawled on the shoulder of an old road in the shadow of a rock wall.
“I should have been able to save you,” he whispered. “You saved me. I was seconds away from being burned at the stake when you crawled into Helios and started that fire. Then you saved Katie from the locked nursery. You saved both of us. I should have been able to return the favor.”
He didn’t cry much about it anymore. Mostly, he just brooded in that dark and lonely place. He didn’t feel like talking to the others about it, and whenever one of them tried to engage him in a therapeutic mutual pity party, he always firmly refused. If he’d lingered in Helios a minute longer, he would have at least been able to confront her killer and watch him die. As it was, only Corbin had seen the burning cabin collapse on top of him.
Now, in his sleepless delirium, Owen thought he could see the man standing at the edge of the parking lot. Luminance Flare, they’d called him, but that was just a cult title. Who knew what his real name was? In the faint backwash of a single lantern, Flare looked ghoulish. His hair, which had normally been parted and neatly combed, was half burned away, leaving the left side of his scalp exposed. The skin there was knotted and red, burned flesh in the early stages of becoming scar tissue. The left sleeve of his robe was also burned away, revealing an arm speckled with burns from bicep to fingertips.
“Tell me you’re real,” Owen said, “so I can take some comfort in seeing your scars and scabs.”
“I’m afraid not, my friend,” Flare said, and indeed, he never entered fully into the lantern light. He seemed to linger like an old hologram right at the edge, so that his back half was still in the moonlight. “Your mind is playing tricks on you. But you knew that.”
Owen leaned his head against the side of the fuel pump. “How did it feel to be crushed under heavy beams and burned to death? Did you have any regrets as you screamed and the flames filled your lungs?”
