Warlord: A Post Apocalyptic Alien Invasion Thriller (The Crumbling Book 1) Read online

  Warlord

  The Crumbling: Book One

  KJ Nelson

  Contents

  Also By KJ Nelson

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Also By KJ Nelson

  The Journeyer Series

  Relive

  Reload

  The Crumbling

  Warlord

  Unleash The Beast

  Activ-8 (TBA)

  FREE copy of the WARLORD PREQUEL when you sign up for my newsletter.

  Prologue

  Cameron glared at the sun as if it was purposefully trying to kill her. She felt that the light, which originated more than 92 million miles away, had been sent there for the sole purpose of ruining her life. She climbed out of the BMW sedan that was her mobile office and decided to keep her sunglasses on.

  Her phone buzzed in her hand. A picture of a smiling woman with mostly gray hair stared up at Cameron. She pressed the power button twice, rejecting the call.

  Cameron smoothed out the black skirt she was wearing. It had twisted a little on the long ride from Charleston. She grabbed the waistband and yanked, forcing the tight cloth that ran down her legs to shift into a more comfortable position.

  She looked down at her white silk blouse and saw the stains from the last time she’d worn the shirt. It had been a long week, and she wasn’t able to do the laundry before she left for her meeting. She tried to blot out the tartar sauce from the fish she’d eaten in a rush between meetings three days ago when she last wore the shirt, but the grease still lingered.

  She also had a sinking feeling that the smell was even worse than the stains.

  It doesn’t even matter, I’m not landing this deal. She thought to herself as she grabbed her bag of samples and her laptop out of the passenger side of her car. Her phone lit up letting her know she’d received a voicemail.

  She shook her head at the small regional healthcare facility. The red brick of the building was covered in green moss from years of neglect. She wasn’t even sure why this hospital was part of her territory.

  She told Miller, her boss what felt like thousands of times, that she only wanted to work with the largest hospitals. She would have happily given the smaller regional facilities to the newer sales reps. She wasn’t number one for the last three years because she spent time chasing nothing-burger deals.

  She wanted to ignore the meeting invite, but she knew Miller would write her up if she passed on such a hot lead. So there she was, hungover and in the middle of upstate South Carolina making a call that would net her less than $500 in commission if the deal closed, which it wouldn’t. Their product was always too expensive for the tiny, under-funded hospitals to afford.

  Cameron woke up that morning at five am when her alarm clock went off. She had completely forgotten the night before about the meeting and stayed up past midnight drinking and popping pills with Andreas.

  She hated herself for her poor decision making. The three hour trip in the car hadn’t done much to help the headache that was pounding in her skull. She reached in her sample kit and pulled out a white pill. It was the same kind she’d been popping the night before, and she hoped it would take some of the edge off.

  Cameron walked in the front door of the hospital, her high heels clicking on the faux marble floor. The strong smell of disinfectant always made her nauseous, even after five years of constant exposure. The bright fluorescent lights assaulted her eyes even more than the sun, and she no longer had the excuse of wearing her sunglasses.

  “Can I speak with Doctor…” Cameron glanced down at her phone and pulled up the calendar app. She hadn’t even taken the time to remember the name of the doctor she was meeting with.

  “Dr. Beaver?” The front desk attendant asked in one of the strongest southern accents Cameron had heard in a long time. She looked down at the meeting invite she’d received right before going home the previous night and confirmed that it was Doctor Beaver she was supposed to be meeting with.

  “Uh, yeah. That’s right.” Cameron said, nodding her head slowly, not wanting to make any sudden movements.

  “If you’ll take a seat right over there, he’ll be with you in just a moment.” The lady said speaking so loudly Cameron almost stuffed her fingers into her ears. Cameron stood there for a second blinking slowly, not able to take in what the woman was saying.

  Her southern accent was so strong it seemed like she was speaking a different language. She said ‘there’ the same way most people said ‘their.’ The desk attendant looked at her with a concerned frown, her eyebrows pulling together.

  “Okay,” Cameron said, finally running through the words enough times to comprehend them. She walked slowly over to a pair of small plastic chairs the lady pointed to, and gladly took a seat.

  As soon as she sat down, she spotted a coffee station and sighed in relief. She didn’t have time to stop by Starbucks on the way out of town that morning, and the caffeine withdrawal was almost as bad as the hangover.

  Sweet deliverance! Cameron thought to herself as she made her way over to the coffee machine. She took two of the largest cups she could find and filled them to the brim with the dark liquid. She half stumbled back over to the seat where her sample bag and notebook sat abandoned.

  The first cup of coffee was gone before two minutes had passed. The coffee tasted like axle grease but she didn’t mind, it fit two important criteria, hot and caffeinated. The second cup she sipped more slowly as she began to feel more like a human.

  Finally, after 15 minutes Dr. Beaver came out and greeted her. She looked at her watch to see he was over ten minutes late. All she wanted was to make her presentation on why Ostropaz was the best thing since Codeine, and get back to her bed in Charleston.

  The man that shook Cameron’s hand looked like he hadn’t eaten in years. He was so thin that she genuinely wondered how he found pants small enough to fit him. She followed him through the hospital to the administrative wing of the building.

  He showed her into a small office with four beige office chairs. She picked a chair on the left side of the table expecting Dr. Beaver to sit across from her. Instead, he sat in the chair directly next to hers.

  Oh, great. Cameron thought to herself
as she took in the man’s closeness. He’s going to be a creep. It wasn’t the first time she’d been in an awkward situation by a doctor that wanted more than just the medicine she sold.

  In fact, she was ninety percent sure, the reason she originally got the highly sought after sales job was because of her looks. It was widely known, though rarely acknowledged, that doctors bought more medicine from salespeople who were attractive.

  Cameron accepted that she was going to be hit on for the next hour and went about her pitch as usual. It really didn’t bother her too much that the man had so little respect for her that he would openly stare at her chest and try to touch her hand when she handed him samples.

  It was just part of her world. Sometimes she loved the attention especially when a big check hit her bank account because the doctor she was meeting with ordered three times the amount of inventory just to impress her.

  She knew Doctor Beaver didn’t have anywhere near the budget to make his annoyance worth the time, so Cameron hurried through the pitch skipping half of what she normally covered, wanting to get back to her car, and on the road as soon as she could.

  “I’m very interested.” Doctor Beaver said as she wrapped up her presentation and gave him a handful of samples.

  “Fantastic,” Cameron replied, feeling no excitement at all from the prospective sale. “Send me an email when you run out of samples and we can get an order submitted for you.”

  “Will you bring it down personally? Maybe I could take you to dinner afterward.” Doctor Beaver said with a grin. It wasn’t an unusual request, but Cameron was in no way interested in driving all the way back up to the hospital for an awkward dinner with the man.

  “We’ll see if that can be arranged,” Cameron said with a grin, even though she had no intentions of following through. Maybe he would surprise her and order enough to actually make the trip worth her while.

  “It’s a date.” The doctor said rubbing his hand on Cameron’s back below her bra strap. His touch there sent a shiver of disgust down her spine. She quickly stood up and started packing up her supplies. In her haste, a handful of blue labeled samples spilled onto the floor.

  Doctor Beaver bent down to pick them up and inspected one of the small plastic squares.

  “Hydrocodone,” he said in a quiet voice looking at Cameron’s face for the first time during their meeting. He took in the bags under her eyes, her dilated pupils, and smiled knowingly. “Very naughty.”

  Cameron took the pills from his hands not meeting his eyes. He could ruin her career with one phone call to her superiors. I guess I will be making this trip again sometime soon. Cameron thought to herself knowing she’d given the man leverage.

  She hated being on the weak side of an engagement. That’s why she got into sales in the first place. She loved the power trip that came along with convincing someone to buy something they normally wouldn’t have. She was addicted to the feeling more than the pills or the alcohol. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Cameron said going in for a hug. Men were so easily distracted by physical touch. She could see the lust in his eyes as she moved away. She knew she had nothing to worry about as long as she kept him interested in more than her samples.

  “Bye Dr. Beaver,” Cameron said with a little wave. “I’ll show myself out.”

  “Please, call me Melvin. I’ll see you very soon.” He smiled a huge grin and she could see his previous acne scars shining in the sun through the window.

  She turned and walked out of the room feeling his gross eyes on her backside as she walked. She was so glad when she got back outside even with the bright sun hurting her eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at her calendar and saw that she was done with meetings for the day.

  She walked back to her car and loaded up her samples and laptop. The black of her car soaked up the sunlight and made the interior nearly unbearable. She backed out of the parking lot with her windows rolled down to let the heat out.

  An hour later, Cameron was driving down Interstate 26 less than two hours from Charleston completely zoned out. Her thoughts were turned toward how many more deals she needed to close to hit her quarterly number. She was going over 80 miles per hour when all of the sudden her car lost all power.

  The steering wheel locked up and everything in the car went completely silent. Her instincts took over and she tried to steer the car while also braking. Nothing worked, she was still going over 70 when the road veered to the left and her passenger side tires went off the road.

  The next few seconds were burned into her vision. She watched as the nose of her car continued to veer further off the road toward the line of trees on the shoulder. She was thankful for the flat ground and hoped the grass would slow her enough to avoid an impact with the wall of brown cypress trees.

  As the other two wheels met the grass the car started to slide to the right kicking up a huge cloud of dust. She pumped her foot on the brake pedal but it wouldn’t move at all. Her mind raced at what to do. She looked down and saw the emergency brake handle beside her shifter.

  She knew it would lock the rear wheels up if she pulled it, so she waited until the car was parallel with the trees. She pulled up slightly and felt as the handle clicked one time. She could feel the car begin to slow so she pulled up a couple more clicks. The tires locked and the car began to spin again picking up speed.

  She could feel the end of the BMW fly into the air before everything went black.

  Cameron woke with blood in her eyes. She looked out of the broken front windshield and saw nothing but trees. Her seatbelt was locked up and it felt like it was cutting her in half. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror and looked away quickly at the mess of blood and hair that was her head.

  All the airbags in the car had blown and were deflated. The white cloth obscured her vision out of all of the side and rear windows. She unbuckled her seatbelt and breathed a sigh of relief as the tight fabric fell away.

  She tried to open her door and found that it wasn’t operable. She hitched up her skirt and climbed over the center console to open the passenger door. It would only open a quarter of the way, so she squeezed through the opening into the forest.

  Everything was so quiet. Even the bugs that usually made a constant buzzing noise during the summer months were completely still. She looked at the grass and mud that covered the entirety of her car. Cameron realized how lucky she was to escape with her life.

  What happened? Cameron wondered, she’d never heard of a vehicle losing all power the way hers had. She was definitely going to sue, she decided as she walked back toward the road.

  She pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and clicked the power button on the side. Nothing. She held the button down, thinking it must have gotten turned off in the accident, but still nothing happened.

  Cameron shook the phone in frustration hating the stupid thing. It always rang when she wanted it to be quiet, now it wouldn't work when she needed it the most.

  As Cameron made her way back out to the road, she saw another set of tracks that looked like another vehicle ran off the road toward the median. She looked into the trees and saw a fire blazing around a truck that looked like it too had rolled over.

  She didn’t see anyone near the truck and was worried that the person might not have made it out. She froze in shock at the situation, waiting for help to arrive. Someone must have seen them both wreck.

  As she stood there looking at the truck burn to the ground, she heard and felt the earth at her feet tremble. Cameron had never been in an earthquake before, so the earth moving was extremely disconcerting to her.

  Seconds after the ground started trembling, she heard the loudest noise of her entire life. It was as if she were standing directly next to one of the large speakers that bands used at outdoor concerts. The bass rumble made her teeth rattle together.

  In the distance, toward where she knew Charleston was located, a huge cloud in the shape of a mu
shroom rose. She let out a scream in disbelief.

  1

  Two Years Later

  Cameron woke groggily not wanting to start another day. She climbed out of the luxurious foam mattress, the silk sheets cool against her skin. She slid easily to the end of the bed and sat there for a few minutes while her eyes decided if they ever wanted to open again.

  When she felt reasonably assured that she could see well enough to get dressed she went over to the mahogany dresser that held her clothes. She grabbed her lighter and lit four small candles on either side of the dresser. She pulled out a pair of black leather pants and a dark purple tank top.

  Cameron stared at the black screen on the cellphone that hadn’t worked in two years. She fought down the urge to hit the power button for the millionth time. It would do nothing.

  She slid into the leather pants knowing how ridiculous they were. She actually liked the purple tank top, the luxurious fabric soft against her skin. It was all part of the act that she had to play to perfection. She grabbed the dual holster and strapped it onto her legs. On the top of the dresser were the two .45 caliber pistols that she carried everywhere she went.