Kingdom of Monsters by John Schneider (latest novels to read .TXT) 📕

recommendation – for the good of the baby's health.

The young girl/woman said little, just stroking her still-flat belly self-consciously.  And she never seemed to meet Sally's eye, her face always turned down and away, like a little girl with a secret.

Dr. Shriver was also attempting to rebuild his lab.  The lower levels had collapsed.

Rhodes currently had a crew attempting to dig it all out.  Important assets had been buried there too – among other things, a sealed cabinet filled with vials of the Food of the Gods – enough to infect the entire continent.

So far, tons of rubble blocked their way.  Unstable rock continued to collapse.

They were also still trying to locate Major Tom, who had not reported in since re-entry.  Kristie, the young woman Hicks brought in from the Maelstrom-site, had been pestering Rhodes anxiously over any news there.

Rhodes, himself, had not said much in conversation, speaking only in monotone orders.

Johnson's chopper had disappeared.  Shanna had disappeared with him.

Their most valuable asset.

The last contact with Johnson's rescue chopper had been right when the seismic seizures hit – reported safe and away... and they had not been heard from since.  Presumed dead.

Sally, for her part, didn't think so.

'Johnson's' last report said to 'Keep a candle burning'.

Sally had recognized the voice.  And it wasn't Johnson.  It was actually someone else Rhodes thought long-dead.

The turn of phrase was the last thing Mark had said to her.

And Sally also knew right where he would be going.

The northwest coast was his home and where he'd been trying to get back to for two years.

If this 'Shanna' was with him, that's where they would find her too.

A woman Sally had never met, who seemed to be of her own mind about being anyone's asset.

Sally could get behind that.  And so she said nothing.

And Mark would never even know.  One more time, he had unknowingly left her behind.

One more time, Sally was forced to stay silent, and simply let him walk away.

Her hands stole to the lump in her own belly, just starting to show.

This was her value as an asset.

The Arc-Project remained.  And would begin again.

If for no other reason than defiance in the face of extinction.

Chapter 66

Jonah woke up in the infirmary.

The first thing he was aware of was bright light.  The second was throbbing pain.

He had fallen out of a tree once as a kid, hitting every branch all the way down, and landed on flat hard earth.  He'd lain for several minutes, battered and stunned, and when he finally climbed to his feet, it was as if every inch of his body had been beaten with a hammer.

This was like that.  It hurt to move the tips of his fingers.

The effort forced a low groan, and he blinked the room into focus.

He saw Naomi leaning over him.  Behind her was a man in a lab coat, who seemed to be preparing a needle made for a horse.

“Hey,” Naomi said softly.  “Welcome back.”

Jonah started to speak, now realizing an even more throbbing pain in his head.

The third man in the room stepped forward, square-shouldered in hard-worn military fatigues and four-stars across the shoulder.

“General Nathan Rhodes,” the man said, extending his hand.

Jonah started to reach out reflexively and grimaced.  Rhodes turned the reached hand into a salute.

“Rest easy, son,” he said.  “That was a hell of a gutsy move you pulled.”  The General nodded to the gaunt-looking man in the lab coat.  “Dr. Shriver says you're going to live.”

Dr. Shriver approached with the giant needle, hovering briefly – and then injected it into the IV tube beside the bed.

“You've taken quite a beating,” Shriver informed Jonah, unnecessarily.  “You have a broken femur and shin.  Assorted cracked ribs, and a humerus.  Most problematically, you took a hard blow to the head, a fairly significant concussion, and some nasty lacerations along the scalp.”

“These days,” Rhodes said, “we call those 'flesh-wounds.”

He turned to Naomi, indicating her wedding ring.

“Mrs. Walker,” he said.  “I knew your husband.  Lieutenant Walker was a hero.”

Naomi nodded.

“I know,” she said.

“Speaking of that,” Rhodes said, turning back to Jonah, “we're damn short of pilots these days.”

Naomi shook her head.

“I keep telling him – they still are.”

Rhodes smiled, nodding down at Jonah.

“Heal up, son.  You've just been drafted.”

Jonah absorbed this silently as the General turned to leave.

Hicks met them at the door, popping his head in after Naomi.

“Ma'am?” Hicks said.  “We've got some temporary quarters set up for you.  Clothes and a shower.”

Naomi's eyes brightened.  She wasn't sold on General Rhodes, yet, but Jonah could tell she liked Hicks – certainly cut in the Lucas Walker mold – highly-trained and disciplined, testosterone-military.

Probably, she was going to be around a lot of them now.

Naomi rose to follow Hicks, but stopped at the door, looking back at Jonah with an odd look on her face, as if there was something she wasn't sure she should say.

“Get some sleep,” she said instead. “I'll come see you later.”

But Jonah had lain awake in the time since.

Whatever Shriver had given him brought his pain down to a duller ache – not quite enough to relax.  And if there was any sedative, it was kept at bay by his red blinking eyes as he contemplated his future.

Drafted, Rhodes had said.

Heal-up quick, so you can make sure and get yourself killed.

He'd used up at least eight of nine lives just this time.

But he'd pulled it off.

Why couldn't that mean he could just rest?

He supposed it simply wasn't that kind of world anymore.

Jonah shut his eyes, feeling the swelling capillaries in his bones pulse like a background organ-beat.

It at least kept him from wondering what Naomi was waiting to tell him.

While on this particular occasion he thought he'd finally won her respect, he had little doubt that the headline was something to the effect of thanks-for-everything, and good-bye.

Somewhere over the next several hours, Jonah finally drifted off to sleep.

He was awakened sometime around midnight by a nurse in whites fidgeting by his bed.

The lights in the infirmary were out.  Groggily, Jonah