Dark Souls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller: Book 1 (Ravaged World) Read online

  DARK SOULS

  * * *

  RAVAGED WORLD SERIES BOOK 1

  SAM J FIRES

  SAMUEL FIRES PUBLICATIONS

  Copyright © 2021 by Samuel Fires Publications. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment.

  This book or any portion may not be used or reproduced in any manner save without the author’s express written permission except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Mythic Book Covers

  First printed in 2021

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  NEMESIS (PREQUEL TO THE CRIMSON RAGE SERIES)

  Scott’s an ordinary nine-to-five guy with a regular family trying to scrape a living. But his life’s about to get blown apart.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures as Scott is compelled to accept a job which is offering the sort of money he’s never seen in his life. The trouble is, he’s not sure what this job entails. And at what cost? The stakes are high and if you’re not careful, this can see you thrown in jail.

  Scott’s a victim. It’s not his fault of course. He’s brimming with fury and needs to take revenge. He’s going to kill the guy who sent him to his jail sentence.

  Little does Scott know he’s about to meet his Nemesis. And suddenly the world is thrown into a spin as the urban landscape is transformed and millions of people wiped out.

  But Scott’s an opportunist and he sees an opportunity. Will his plans get him killed? Or will he escape with his life?

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  “Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past”

  George Orwell, 1984

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1 - MORGAN

  CHAPTER 2 – THE GIRL

  CHAPTER 3 - LEA

  CHAPTER 4 - TRAVIS

  CHAPTER 5 – THE LONE RIDER

  CHAPTER 6 - BOB

  CHAPTER 7 - TRAVIS

  CHAPTER 8 – THE PROFESSOR

  CHAPTER 9 - SOPHIE

  CHAPTER 10 - VINCENT

  CHAPTER 11 – BLAZER

  CHAPTER 12 - TRAVIS

  CHAPTER 13 - TRAVIS

  CHAPTER 14 – THE SANCTUARY

  CHAPTER 15 – THE SCULPTOR

  CHAPTER 16 - LEA

  CHAPTER 17 – THE SCULPTOR

  CHAPTER 18 - LEA

  CHAPTER 19 – THE LONE RIDER

  CHAPTER 20 – THE SCULPTOR

  ALSO BY SAM FIRES

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CRIMSON RAGE PREVIEW

  PROLOGUE

  It’s a human characteristic that mankind has always tried to anticipate disasters heading their way. People fell into the misguided belief that no matter the horrors that would be thrown at them, life would endure, and the human species would prevail.

  They had no idea how wrong they could be.

  One day, a storm ripped through the planet. A storm like nothing the world had ever seen before. A hail of red-hot sand rained down. Grains of crimson sand, hot and powerful enough to burn through skin and glass, killing anyone unfortunate enough to stay out in the sandy deluge long enough. Although it could be said that they were the lucky ones.

  Those who didn’t meet an immediate death became infected. They were converted. Their minds decayed; any sense of sentience gone forever, leaving behind a hulking mass of sand, driven by the desire to spread their infection to as many people as possible.

  To this day, the sand phenomenon has continued to befuddle the survivors. Most continue to try and hide from it and make some sort of life. Others have found ways to turn it to their advantage, even thrive.

  It’s now the year 2030. Ten years have passed since the first storm ripped through the planet, raining down a hail of blood-red sand that turned entire cities into desert landscapes. Humanity was either driven underground or swept away by the merciless grains.

  85% of the population was wiped out that day. Seven billion lives all coming to an end.

  And the ones who survived? For the first few months, it was survival of the fittest, doing anything to stay alive. Some took survival to the extreme, allowing the crimson apocalypse to warp their morality and kill anyone who didn’t conform to their barbaric standards. This culminated in an attack on the Los Angeles sanctuary which saw many lives lost.

  The only thing that united everyone was their confusion. Nobody had any idea where the storms had come from or what had caused them. Not that it had stopped the theories from circulating. Some believed that it was mother earth acting out in vengeance. Others believed that the storms were a man-made invention that had gotten out of control.

  For those who survived the storms in their early days, they began to catch onto the patterns, such as the frequency of the onslaughts, the impact on the environment, and on exposed skin, the latter of which being a grotesque lesson.

  With time, those that survived learned how to adapt. Although, by this point, it was no longer enough to just stay alive. People now wanted to live.

  That’s when the work began to re-establish Los Angeles. The city was devastated; countless buildings had been destroyed, many razed to the ground. Entire structures of glass had been wasted away by the sandstorms. People had observed that the sand was drawn to glass structures like a magnet. As such, those buildings that had withstood the storms were boarded up.

  Over time, the storms changed their prevalence, with the gusts of sand becoming more manageable, doing little to damage the newly built shelters, the worst storms only occurring twice a month.

  Many things remained buried in the past. There was no social media, no Christmases, no technological innovations. People had learned the hard way that life was fragile, and everything they had come to take for granted over their lifetimes could be ripped away from them in one short moment.

  Under new leadership, there was an attempt at democracy and people tried to treat this as an opportunity to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, to live in a fairer society. Yet the sins of the past were too heavily coded into the population.

  To establish something resembling an economy, the city formerly known as Los Angeles set up a points system, whereby each citizen had to work for points for food supplies, medication, and other necessities. It was a fragile system, although for the most part, it worked, thanks to the tireless efforts of the city’s new namesake.

  No one knew where Travis had come from. Nobody knew what kind of life he had led before the apocalypse. Some believed that the natural air of authority he carried meant he must have been a politician before the apocalypse. Others assumed he’d been a gangster, based on his more brutal practices. Yet the man had been able to take them from scavengers to civilization. All he had asked in return was that they rename the city after him and trust in his leadership.

  As far as everyone was concerned, this was a small price to pay.

  *

  Every bone in her body ached. The pain was so great she wanted to scream out, but she knew that to utter a sound would be suicide. There was a time when
she would have locked herself away forever if it meant she never had to face the outside world, but now, inside… Inside, she felt like a cornered rat.

  She looked around. Was she alone now? Whatever it ...was, it… had moved on.

  Then came the footsteps — light, surprisingly light, but striding forward with a tremendous purpose.

  She closed her eyes, buying into the questionable belief that if she kept her eyes closed, then she would be spared.

  “Open.” The voice said.

  She refused, keeping her mouth shut. This act of resistance was futile as she felt strong fingers pinch her nose.

  Eventually, the need for air overwhelmed her and she opened her mouth…

  …in time to feel a tube of some kind being forced down her throat. She couldn’t even choke on it. The tube finally ended just above her stomach.

  Next, she felt something traveling down the tube. She couldn’t see what it was, but she could feel the heat of it radiating through her body, threatening to scorch the inside of her throat.

  The tube was hastily removed, and she began to choke on the now familiar substance…

  Sand...

  CHAPTER 1 - MORGAN

  Three days earlier.

  Morgan often found himself reminiscing about his farming days before the sandstorms.

  The memories of green fields and brown dirt seemed to be blurring more and more each passing day. He didn’t even have any photos of his old farm to look back on. Everything had been on his computer, which had short-circuited in the first storms.

  Morgan had come from a family of farmers, all passing down their expertise to the next generation. He had only been nineteen when the first storm arrived. Morgan felt like he’d had all the time in the world, and then, seven generations of family farming, just like that, were blown away.

  Morgan had heard that 99.99% of the planet’s farmland was now useless. Not being able to grow anything — greenery, crops — made life so much more difficult. But the tiniest fraction of Morgan’s land had survived. A small patch, admittedly, but enough to grow some fruit and vegetables. Morgan’s father used to have a philosophy: ‘he who owns the land owns the market’ – a lesson that Morgan had taken to heart. When everyone else was scrambling to get to the only known shelter in Los Angeles, Morgan had remained at the farm, cultivating what soil he had. He knew that if he left the area, others would try and seize the land for themselves.

  His waiting had paid off. When the sanctuary had started working to make the city of Los Angeles semi-habitable, the governor had approached him with a grant to continue his work, supplying crops to designated outposts around the metropolis. The work had made him quite rich – at least, as rich as one could currently be in the post-storms’ climate, as nowadays, currency was measured in points. By anybody’s standards, Morgan was a wealthy man and he believed that had his father been alive today, he would have been proud of him. Especially so, since his father hadn’t had to farm in an apocalypse.

  The only thing missing from Morgan’s life was a family…but he figured he had plenty of time for that.

  He bit into a piece of sweetcorn he’d cooked, plucked from the small field earlier that day. When his hard work had started to pay off, he realized he’d forgotten how sweet the taste was from all those fruits. He was grateful to still have that experience from his past life. They were memories to call on at times of reflection.

  Morgan was about to take another bite when he noticed something perplexing outside.

  There was a figure standing by the plastic walls lining his field.

  This was bizarre for several reasons. Firstly, Morgan worked alone. With the money he made, he could afford to hire more hands. Indeed, this would have been easier, but Morgan preferred to do everything himself on account of an excessive paranoia that his crops would be stolen.

  It wasn’t representatives from the council. They weren’t due to pick up their latest batch for at least another four days.

  Also, it was about a forty-five-minute walk from the city, people just didn’t wander this far, it would be too dangerous. Vehicles were a thing of the past. It wasn’t impossible to hire a horse, but this would have taken a lot of organizing and there weren’t many horses that were docile enough to suffer riders and the unpredictable weather.

  So, who was this stranger who was walking out into a storm that was only going to worsen as the minutes dragged on?

  Discarding his dinner, Morgan rose from the dining table and started to put on his hazmat suit.

  He traipsed outside, the suction boots helping to keep him grounded despite the rise in the wind. The suit also came equipped with a visor that allowed him to see as clear as day. He saw the figure was wearing what looked like a series of sheets wrapped around the body, making him look like an Egyptian mummy. It was almost a comical sight. It was certainly strange.

  “Excuse me?” Morgan asked through the intercom in his suit, “Can I help you with anything?”

  The figure didn’t respond. Morgan couldn’t be sure if his voice had been heard and he moved forward, daring himself to nudge the figure on the shoulder.

  What happened next happened so quickly Morgan could barely register the turn of events.

  The figure brought his left arm around with such speed, it almost looked invisible.

  It took Morgan a good few seconds to feel the brush of hot air whipping against his skin.

  Then the pain followed.

  Morgan felt as though his stomach had been ripped open. When he looked down, he could see that, yes, it had.

  Morgan collapsed to the ground, his hands clutching his stomach, frantically trying to keep his insides from spilling outside, but he was losing consciousness, and fast. The last thing Morgan saw before he passed out was that someone was looming over him. For the first and only time, Morgan got a clear look at him.

  There was something clinical about the expression on his face, like a scientist studying a specimen. Just before Morgan passed out, the figure kneeled to inspect the deep wound he’d made in his stomach. Morgan could swear he saw something change in the man’s eyes. A maniacal glint.

  Morgan was then lost to the world.

  *

  Morgan was bewildered when he regained consciousness. It was hard to tell how much time had passed if any at all.

  He lifted his head to look up and instantly wished he had never regained consciousness.

  There was a set of medical appliances that were keeping his stomach pried open and positioned on the floor nearby was some kind of…, open bag that seemed to be suctioning the sand from the air.

  The pain was flashing across his stomach now, every nerve ending on fire, as he felt a thousand tiny pins and needles flying directly into his stomach, finding their home in his innards.

  That was when he saw the figure again. He had his back turned away. Morgan couldn’t quite make out what he was doing, but he appeared to be kneeling, his arms moving as though they were hard at work.

  The figure turned around. He was holding a set of appliances including a couple of lit matches, and a can of spray. He held the matches over Morgan’s body and pressed hard on the canister.

  Flames leaped into Morgan’s stomach and as they did so, Morgan started to pray for a quick death. Yet something was keeping him alive through his torment, as though the figure had wanted him to be alive to witness the grotesque sight protruding from his stomach.

  Glass…

  CHAPTER 2 – THE GIRL

  The four bandits looked upon the city of Los Angeles with malicious glee as the metropolis emerged in the distance, riding on horses they had acquired along the way.

  They’d been on the road for four days now since they had pillaged the last town. There was still some food left over, but supplies were running low.

  The leader, Sheldon, had concluded that either the blade was in your chest, or the handle was in your grip. He and his men certainly preferred the latter.

  The band of four were former pris
oners, criminals who had been behind bars when the storms had broken out ten years ago. Given the nature of his crimes, Sheldon had accepted that he’d never be released. He found it ironic that the place that had been designed to keep him incarcerated, had been turned into a shelter. For the most part, it was well-protected, cut off from the rest of the world with plenty of food in supply. They could have lived out in relative comfort.

  But Sheldon wanted to taste the outside world. The system that had judged him was no longer in place, and the old ways were done. Any moral or legal restraints had been lifted, and Sheldon now had free reign to do whatever he wanted to whomever.

  There were obstacles in the way, and, sometimes, he found himself wondering if leaving the prison was the smartest idea he could have had, but the wanderlust and his natural curiosity to find out what was out there got the better of him. So, Sheldon and his followers closed the doors on the prison and the place that had been their home for several years and left to explore the outside world. While for the most part they looked for supplies, the real fun came when they happened across other survivors, especially women. Years locked up had given Sheldon an insatiable appetite, that he would want to satisfy with his female prey, before leaving them to the mercy of the sandstorms.

  Before turning to a life of crime, Sheldon had favored deer hunting as a pastime. He enjoyed the planning and execution, tracking the animals’ movements, choosing the best moments to strike, and the best methods to trap the beasts. When they died, they never died quickly. Sheldon made sure of that.

  He had hoped to replicate that same kind of thrill when hunting people. But a human could never match the speed of an animal, especially when trying to trudge through layers of sand. Instead, Sheldon decided to instill in his human prey a feeling of false hope by giving them a head start, thereby letting them believe that they might be able to escape before he blocked them off, often by having a different member of his group stationed in the area.