The Search Read online

  FINAL DAWN: Book 7

  THE SEARCH

  By Darrell Maloney

  This is a work of fiction. All persons depicted in this book are fictional characters. Any resemblance to any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright 2015 by Darrell Maloney

  This book is dedicated to:

  Moira Coates

  Harold Hamlin

  Donna Toten

  Nancy Tipton

  Toni Jones Kight

  Qe Terry

  Jeannie Freppon

  Lucinda Rowena O’Dea

  Floyd Ferguson

  Nona Mitchell

  Gayle Jones

  Thank you all for your continued support. You’re why I keep doing this.

  Please take the time to visit darrellmaloney.com for information about this and the author’s other works.

  T he story thus far…

  They’d seemed like a rather odd couple, at least to their friends and at least at first.

  Mark was a cut-up and the life of every party. He’d been the class clown ever since he could remember, and making people laugh was a role he was quite comfortable in.

  Hannah, on the other hand, took life way more seriously. She excelled at everything she ever tried, was class valedictorian in high school, and was pursued by universities all across the nation.

  It was strictly by chance that they both ended up at Baylor University in Texas.

  Mark had a serious side too, but few people saw it. He had a passion for engineering, although he had trouble making up his mind which discipline to major in.

  Hannah wanted to be an astrophysicist since she was a young girl, gazing up at the stars on her grandmother’s ranch.

  “Someday,” she told her grandmother, “I want to go up there. I want to fly to the stars and see them up close. I might even build myself a house on one and live there.”

  She’d given up on her star house long before. But she was still passionate about the heavens, and her dream of becoming an astrophysicist came true.

  She’d never had any doubt that it would.

  Hannah and Mark met by accident in front of Baylor’s administration building.

  Hannah happened to be walking past when Mark exited the building after changing his major for the third time. Electrical Engineering had caught his fancy, and he’d rearranged his course schedule to delve into it.

  It was Hannah’s beauty which turned his head as she walked past.

  Turned his head and prevented him from seeing the three steps until it was too late.

  Mark went tumbling down the steps, his papers and books went flying in all directions, and Hannah couldn’t help but smile.

  It would have ended then and there if Hannah had just kept walking.

  But she was as sweet as she was beautiful, and she just couldn’t leave Mark sprawled all over the sidewalk. So she helped him up and helped him gather his papers.

  “I’ve got to know,” Mark told her then and there. “What’s your name?”

  “Hannah Jelinovic.”

  Mark had never been one to hide his feelings. Even with someone he’d just met.

  “My God, you’re gorgeous. You’re going to marry me someday.”

  She smiled.

  “I am? You sure about that?”

  “As sure as I’m standing here.”

  She winked at him and said, “Maybe you should learn to walk down steps before you try to walk me down the aisle.”

  Mark’s prediction eventually came true.

  But they wouldn’t have a fairy tale ending.

  After graduation, Hannah landed a job with a NASA contractor, scanning the heavens for meteorites and asteroids.

  She discovered that a meteorite, designated Saris 7, was on a collision course with earth some two years into the future, and immediately reported it to her superiors.

  But they already knew, and swore her to secrecy.

  “But why?”

  “Because we have plenty of time to divert it or destroy it. If we tell the public about it, there will be worldwide panic. Mass suicides. Economic collapse. There will be no collision. So there’s no reason for the public to even know about it.”

  It took Hannah and her coworker Sarah several months to see that their superiors were lying to them. NASA had evaluated their capabilities and determined they had no means of destroying or diverting Saris 7. Perhaps if they had a few more years to develop such a capability, they said…

  But they didn’t have the time.

  It so happened that the very day Hannah discovered Saris 7, Mark had purchased a PowerBall ticket.

  And against all odds, he hit the jackpot.

  They were suddenly millionaires, but had only two years to spend their new fortune.

  Before Saris 7 came crashing to the earth and ended life as they knew it.

  Mark said, “We might as well blow it. Quit your job and we’ll sail the world. We’ll live like royalty and then go out in a blaze of glory.”

  “No,” Hannah countered. “We’re going to use this to prepare. To save the ones we love.”

  The couple purchased an abandoned salt mine near the city of Junction, Texas. For two years they secretly renovated it into a comfortable place to live for their family members and closest friends. At the same time, they had a secret compound built just adjacent to the mountain.

  To use when the world thawed out again.

  Then they stocked the mine with everything they’d need to ride out the chaos. Livestock, seeds, food stores, water and fuel.

  For six and a half long years they isolated themselves in the mine, while the world changed around them.

  On the outside, few survived.

  The world became a harsh and evil place. Survivors grew accustomed to taking what they wanted by force.

  When the world warmed enough to allow the group to transition from the mine to the compound, they weren’t aware of the evil outside their gates.

  And although they took many precautions to keep their existence a secret from the outside world, word got out.

  The evil came to them.

  For they had been successful in keeping their animals and their plants alive.

  They had things others didn’t have.

  Things others wanted.

  The group of forty one successfully fended off a brutal attack which thinned their numbers and hardened them. It brought home the point that they’d always have to be on their guard. There would always be men who saw nothing wrong with taking from others at gunpoint.

  They avoided a war with the United States Army by agreeing to donate half their livestock to the ongoing relief effort in nearby San Antonio. And in the process, they made a friend of an Army Colonel named Montgomery.

  In the last installment, Colonel Montgomery took John and Hannah in his helicopter to witness first-hand the good their animals were doing.

  John had flown in helicopters in Vietnam. Hannah had never been in one, and was as excited as a child on her way to a fair.

  John’s daughter Sami had a premonition that something bad was going to happen.

  On the way back from San Antonio, the chopper’s pilot suffered a massive heart attack while at the controls.

  He had a co-pilot. But they were flying at treetop level at sixty nautical miles an hour when the pilot slumped forward against the stick.

  The chopper nose-dived into the forest and there wasn’t time for the co-pilot to stop it.

  John didn’t survive the crash.

  Hannah did, but just barely. She and the only other survivor, a crewmember named Joel, kept each other alive while they waited to be rescued.

  Meanwhile, back at the compound, Sarah went for a walk in the woods to pick some wildflowers.

  She never re
turned.

  The same Army team that went to the compound to help in the search for the missing helicopter also joined in the search for Sarah.

  A bloodhound was brought in and tracked the lost woman through two miles of dense forest, only to lose her scent.

  “This is where she left the ground,” the dog’s handler explained to an anguished Bryan.

  “This is where she either got onto a horse or into a vehicle.

  “From here, she could have gone anywhere.”

  And now, Book 7 of the series…

  THE SEARCH

  Chapter 1

  Almost eleven years before Sarah went missing, Nathan Martel stood before a judge in the 12th District Court in downtown San Angelo.

  Martel didn’t have a decent bone in his body. He was mean as a snake, and had never done a kind thing for anyone.

  He was a mass murderer who’d snuffed the lives of three prostitutes, just so he wouldn’t have to pay them. When he was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences he was told by Judge Daniel Stone, “It’s a damn shame, Mr. Martel, that the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty. You, more than anyone on this earth, deserve to die for what you did. Because you, sir, have no soul.”

  Soul or not, Martel found the judge’s words funny. He laughed out loud. Then he said, “I was born in a tent in a homeless camp. My mom was strung out on drugs and died of an overdose a month later. I never knew who my father was. If I had known, I’d have killed him for bringing me into this world.

  “You say I don’t have a soul. You’re probably right. You have to be human to have a soul, and I’ve been treated like garbage my entire life. Eventually I learned to accept that fact: that I was nothing but a piece of crap.

  “But I’ll tell you this, you high and mighty bastard. You’re no better than I am. You’ve no right to judge me. Only the devil can judge me.

  “That’s right. I said the devil, not your God. I’ve done the devil’s bidding for a very long time. I’ll continue to do it. You putting me away won’t slow me down. All it will do is give me a stable place to live for a change.

  “And know this, you black-robed scum… You may think you’re safe while I’m in prison and you’re out here. But nothing could be farther from the truth. I will get out, you can count on that. I don’t know when and I don’t know how. But I’ll get out. And I’ll come after you.”

  Judge Stone told the bailiff, “Get this man out of my courtroom.”

  The judge wasn’t one who supported the death penalty. But even he would have loved to put Martel to death. He told a reporter later that day, “Some men are beyond rehabilitation. Others, like Nathan Martel, are beyond redemption. Men like him are the reason we need the death penalty.”

  A year later the Supreme Court agreed with him and reversed its original decision. The new ruling left it up to each state to decide.

  Texas very quickly reinstated the death penalty. But it was too late to apply it to Nathan Martel. He would continue to live a life of leisure at the expense of Texas taxpayers for the rest of his natural life.

  Or maybe not.

  For along came Saris 7, and a soft-hearted warden who refused to let his inmates die in their cells.

  After the prison gates were opened, Martel walked the streets of Eden like most of the others.

  But unlike many of the others, he had no intention of staying.

  He had a mission to accomplish.

  The years he spent in prison prior to the meteorite’s collision fomented a seething hatred for the American legal system in general, and for Judge Daniel Stone in particular.

  He stayed in Eden just long enough to ask around, and to find out that Judge Stone had retired from the bench and now lived in Kerrville, some ninety miles away.

  He owed the judge a social call.

  So as the rest of the world was collapsing around him, and a panicked populace had no clue what to do or where to go to survive the coming impact, Martel had a plan.

  And a destination.

  He stole a handgun from a wimp of a man who withered merely by Martel’s gaze.

  Then he handed Martel the keys to his truck.

  After Martel drove off in a cloud of dust, the man looked at his wife and said, “I’m lucky to still be alive.”

  His wife just walked away, got into her own car, and left him standing there.

  Martel drove to Kerrville and found the judge’s stately residence at the end of a long and lonely street.

  He sat in the truck and napped until sundown, waiting for the lights to come on inside the house.

  When Judge Stone was on the bench he was a cautious man. In his profession he made a lot of enemies, and he lived his life away from the courthouse accordingly.

  But in the years following his retirement, he got sloppy.

  He didn’t always remember to close the blinds when he hit the light switches, and he sometimes forgot to lock his back door.

  Martel was able to sneak up to the windows and peer inside without being noticed.

  And once he was sure that only the judge and his wife were inside the house, he was able to open the back door and slip inside.

  He surprised the old couple as they were watching their favorite weekly talent show on television.

  “Hello, you son-of-a-bitch. Do you remember me?”

  The judge was shocked at Martel’s sudden appearance and said nothing. But the look on his face told Martel that he did, indeed, remember him.

  “You said I had no soul. But I didn’t need one. I had something even better. I had vengeance in my heart to keep me warm at night. And I’ve thought about meeting you again since the first time they slammed those cell doors behind me. I told you I’d be back.”

  Judge Stone knew there was no need in arguing or begging for his life. He knew he was going to die. His concern shifted solely to his wife.

  “Please. Kill me if you have to. But spare my wife. She’s done nothing to you.”

  “I have no plans to harm your wife.”

  Then he smirked.

  Judge Stone was wondering what the smirk meant, and whether or not he could believe that Martel would keep his word.

  It was the judge’s last conscious thought before a bullet tore through his forehead and shattered the back of his skull.

  Martel could have stopped there. The judge was dead before he hit the floor.

  Martel’s mission was done.

  But men like Martel aren’t satisfied until they wreak as much damage as they possibly can.

  So he stood over the judge’s body and as the widow watched in horror pumped round after round into the judge’s face.

  Seven more shots, for a total of eight.

  He saved the last two rounds.

  Millie Stone had been happily married to the judge for thirty seven years. And he was gone in an instant.

  It was way too much for Millie to handle and she stood like a statue, just staring at the crumpled heap on the floor in front of her.

  Martel was not a man of his word, as the judge had hoped he’d be.

  And it was not enough that he kill his prey. He had to make sure that the dead man’s loved ones suffered as well.

  With the gun still clutched tightly in his right hand, he reached out with his left and grabbed a fistful of Millie’s gray hair.

  “Come with me, bitch,” he growled as he fairly dragged the poor woman to the bedroom.

  “I’m gonna give you something that worthless old man probably hasn’t given you in years.”

  Twenty minutes later Millie lay, ravaged and beaten, in a fetal position in the middle of her bed.

  Her eyes were closed and her tears flowed freely beneath her hands which covered her face.

  She didn’t see Martel raise his weapon once again. Didn’t see him pull the trigger, not once but twice.

  And mercifully, she didn’t hear the shots or feel the pain.

  Chapter 2

  By the end of the next day Martel would kill again and
again.

  Five more times, as a matter of fact.

  This time using Judge Stone’s handgun and a box of ammunition he found in a kitchen cabinet, Martel drove his stolen truck to a country road not far from Eden.

  He knew the road well because just prior to his arrest some years before, he fancied the woman who lived in the farmhouse at the end of the road.

  Fancied her so much, in fact, that he stalked her.

  He would have eventually raped and killed her, but he’d been pulled over for speeding by a State Trooper, who ran his name through the system and found that Martel had a warrant for the prostitute murders.

  That had been news to Martel, who was unaware that his DNA had come back as a match to bodily fluids he’d left at the crime scenes.

  Had he known there was a warrant out for him, he wouldn’t have pulled over. He’d have tried to outrun the cops to the Mexican border.

  But the State Trooper knew his stuff. He knew there was a good chance this felon would run, so he called for backup and then apologized profusely to Martel for the delay.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’m going to let you off with a warning, but first I have to wait for confirmation that your insurance is valid. Our computer system is moving painfully slow today, and it’s taking longer than normal.

  “We’ll have you on your way in just a few minutes. Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

  Suddenly, a second cruiser appeared out of nowhere. By the time Martel realized he’d been had it was too late. The second cruiser boxed him in, and the first trooper had his weapon drawn and was holding it just behind Martel’s left ear.

  So the young farmer’s wife at the end of the long dirt road had gotten a reprieve that day.

  But Martel had thought of her often during his days in prison.

  And he had a long list of things he wanted to do to her, if and when he ever managed to escape the criminal justice system.

  The day after he murdered Judge Stone and his wife, he went back to that farmhouse with the intent of killing the husband and the children and making the wife his sex slave.