The Dream Widow Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Information

  The Story So Far (A Synopsis of Book One)

  Map of Station and the Valley

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  Author’s Note

  The Dream Widow

  Valley of the Sleeping Birds [2]

  Stephen Colegrove

  (2013)

  * * *

  Rating: ★★★★★

  Tags: Hard Science Fiction, High Tech, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Adventure, Literature Fiction

  Hard Science Fictionttt High Techttt Science Fiction Fantasyttt Science Fictionttt Post-Apocalypticttt Adventurettt Literature Fictionttt

  You saved the girl. Three hundred years after the bomb, that's still a thing people do. And you did it.

  Together you fought through wild animals, savage tribes, and hostile, technologically-advanced humans to find a cure for her seizures. You were bitten by giant lizards, shot by your own gun, and buried alive. You even made it back to the mountain refuge that's supported your people for three centuries.

  You met those long dead and those only dead in memory. You found friends and deadly enemies. What you didn't count on was them finding you.

  In the sequel to "A Girl Called Badger," the machinery beneath the mountain refuge begins to fail. The villagers face the rapid destruction of a centuries-old way of life as a hostile army approaches from the east.

  About the Author

  Wanted on twelve systems for a crime he didn't commit, the author grew up watching anything and everything sci-fi: Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Space: 1999, Star Wars, and The A-Team. Oh, and Airwolf. Author is elbowing me in the ribs painfully--I am to emphasize his love for Airwolf, and not screw it up by making it sarcastic or hipster-ironic like I always do. Author wishes he could fly a secret government helicopter with Ernest Borgnine behind him in the dickie seat? (That's what he said, trust me.) Author's early years were spent running from wastelanders in the hills of southern Ohio. After college he turned away glittering job offers in food service and insurance and worked for the post office. He taught Bad English in China and Germany, became a Master of Teaching English Thing, joined an internet startup for the free lunches, learned about the science of fire (this can't be a real thing), and worked on a 911 ambulance (he's still working there, trust me). In author's free time he stays one foot ahead of the federales and gives his assistant a raise of 20,000 kopecks and a car and Diner's Club. Author says to tell you his literary influences are Hemingway and Raymond Carver but I can see him through the basement window and he only reads garbage Star Trek fan-fic and that Alan Partridge biography over and over.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Information

  The Story So Far (A Synopsis of Book One)

  Map of Station and the Valley

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  Author’s Note

  The Dream Widow

  Stephen Colegrove

  (2013)

  * * *

  Rating: ★★★★★

  Tags: Hard Science Fiction, High Tech, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Adventure, Literature Fiction

  Hard Science Fictionttt High Techttt Science Fiction Fantasyttt Science Fictionttt Post-Apocalypticttt Adventurettt Literature Fictionttt

  You saved the girl. Three hundred years after the bomb, that's still a thing people do. And you did it.

  Together you fought through wild animals, savage tribes, and hostile, technologically-advanced humans to find a cure for her seizures. You were bitten by giant lizards, shot by your own gun, and buried alive. You even made it back to the mountain refuge that's supported your people for three centuries.

  You met those long dead and those only dead in memory. You found friends and deadly enemies. What you didn't count on was them finding you.

  In the sequel to "A Girl Called Badger," the machinery beneath the mountain refuge begins to fail. The villagers face the rapid destruction of a centuries-old way of life as a hostile army approaches from the east.

  About the Author

  Wanted on twelve systems for a crime he didn't commit, the author grew up watching anything and everything sci-fi: Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Space: 1999, Star Wars, and The A-Team. Oh, and Airwolf. Author is elbowing me in the ribs painfully--I am to emphasize his love for Airwolf, and not screw it up by making it sarcastic or hipster-ironic like I always do. Author wishes he could fly a secret government helicopter with Ernest Borgnine behind him in the dickie seat? (That's what he said, trust me.) Author's early years were spent running from wastelanders in the hills of southern Ohio. After college he turned away glittering job offers in food service and insurance and worked for the post office. He taught Bad English in China and Germany, became a Master of Teaching English Thing, joined an internet startup for the free lunches, learned about the science of fire (this can't be a real thing), and worked on a 911 ambulance (he's still working there, trust me). In author's free time he stays one foot ahead of the federales and gives his assistant a raise of 20,000 kopecks and a car and Diner's Club. Author says to tell you his literary influences are Hemingway and Raymond Carver but I can see him through the basement window and he only reads garbage Star Trek fan-fic and that Alan Partridge biography over and over.

  The Dream Widow

  Valley of the Sleeping Birds Book Two

  by Stephen Colegrove

  Copyright Information

  THE DREAM WIDOW

  Copyright 2013 Stephen Colegrove

  First Edition: March 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Holder. Requests for permission should be directed to S. Colegrove via e-mail at [email protected].

  Cover art by Zummerfish

  (zummerfish.deviantart.com)

  Find out more about the author and upcoming books at the links below:

  dreamwidow.com

  agirlcalledbadger.com

  valleyofthesleepingbird.com

  Facebook

  Twitter @stevecolegrove

  Also by the author:

  A Girl Called Badger (Sleeping Birds Book One)

  Many thanks to all the friends and family who supported me during the creation of this book.

  The Story So Far (A Synopsis of Book One)

  Three centuries after the viral holocaust, WILSON lives in a mountain community in the ruins of an old
research complex. Some of the machinery still works and provides heat, water, and warning of intruders. During a secretive coming-of-age ceremony at age twelve all villagers are given mysterious implants. The implants of BADGER, a village hunter, begin to give her seizures. While searching for more information on the sickness, she and Wilson fall in love. An old database reveals that her seizures will become fatal in six weeks.

  The teenagers brave spiders and poisonous lizards in the abandoned tunnels under the village and learn that an old military base in the east holds a possible cure. FATHER REED––Wilson's teacher and leader of the village––organizes an expedition but orders Wilson to stay behind. He defiantly follows the travelers, surviving attacks from wolves and bears and capture by a hostile tribe. Halfway to Colorado Springs he rejoins Badger at David, a friendly village.

  Wilson thought his father had died in an ambush years before but discovers he has become a religious figure among the tribal people at David. His father travels east with Wilson and perishes in a deadly ambush. Alone again, Wilson and Badger cross the ruins of Colorado Springs and find the military base. The device they need to cure Badger––a sequencer––is missing. A slave-trading group called The Circle capture the pair and Wilson is shot at close range.

  Perspective shifts three hundred years in the past to 2053. JACK GARCIA is a survival expert working at the military complex high in the mountains that becomes Wilson’s home. The facility researches astronaut survival on alien planets and hibernation technology for space travel. A deadly virus spreads across the nation. With nuclear war imminent, Jack is sent down the mountain to retrieve a special device from a base in the east––the same device Wilson seeks for Badger’s cure. Jack finds the device but is badly injured during a nuclear strike on the city.

  An ugly dog drags Wilson from his grave, and his implant wakes him after five days in a coma. He rescues Badger and they struggle through the mountains to David. The Circle follow and destroy the village with advanced weaponry and a tank.

  Wilson leads the survivors west to Station and takes Badger to the underground tombs where the old technology is implanted. A mysterious voice cures Badger and reveals himself to be a 350-year-old Jack Garcia. He was badly injured during the nuclear strike on Colorado Springs but his friends returned him and the sequencer to the mountain base. The only option for his survival was to place him in hibernation. Many of the base leadership also entered chambers, but over time all died or left for the outside world. Jack and two ‘vegetables’ are the only survivors.

  With Badger cured and most of their questions answered, Wilson and Badger leave the underground tombs.

  Map of Station and the Valley

  The following map, although not exactly to scale, indicates the major features of Station including: Old Man, The Tombs, Windy Peak, Yellow Mountain, The Corral, Leather Workshop, Trenches, Pass, Lake, and the Field.

  ONE

  Blood pressure’s dropping––I can’t believe you sent him through decon.

  Why not?

  Just look at him!

  Stop talking and get another line. Use the jugular.

  Got it.

  As long as there’s power we save his life, end of the world or not.

  The man startled at the sound of a book dropped on marble. He tried to speak but his teeth clicked on hard plastic in his mouth.

  Watch out, he’s waking up. Give him twenty more.

  That’s too much.

  Do it.

  The man woke underwater covered in azure light and a web of black cables. He thrashed in the liquid until he realized he was not drowning. Somehow, impossibly, he breathed. After a day, a month, or a handful of seconds the visions began.

  An English garden hedged in cedar. A red-fruited hawthorn. A cinnamon tree.

  The man’s left hand rested on the snow-white armrest of a wooden recliner. He stared at it, touched it with his fingers.

  “How does it feel?”

  A doctor with a beard like slapped-on coffee grounds sat in a chair across from the man.

  “Is this Heaven or Hell?” asked the man.

  The doctor smiled. “Neither, because you’re not dead. You survived.”

  “Survived what?”

  “You were badly injured after the nuclear blast. Do you remember the crash?”

  The man shook his head.

  “We had to amputate your legs above the knee and your right arm. To save your life we had to put you in one of the controller beds.”

  The man stared at the sandals on his feet and his tan cargo shorts. He wiggled his toes.

  “Those aren’t real,” said the doctor. “And neither am I. This is ... think of it as a space in your mind. You control parts of it.”

  “This is what we worked on at Altmann, isn’t it?”

  The doctor nodded. “Don’t worry––I’ll be here to help you deal with everything. I owe you that much.”

  The man stared at the fingernails on his left hand. All were cut short. The index and middle fingernails were black with grime.

  “Greg?”

  The doctor was gone.

  Over time he spoke with the others who floated in separate tanks nearby or lay in caskets along the walls. He began to see outside the garden. He watched the survivors in the valley plow the earth, hunt mule deer, and relearn what had been forgotten.

  The others in their tanks of jumbled wire taught the man how to control the systems in the bunkers. The garden was the keystone, a mask for levers in his mind. He learned everything from the absorption rate of control rods in the power plant to the maximum pressure load on a personal shower head. More importantly, he learned how to keep the survivors warm and safe.

  The man slept for months, sometimes years at a time, until woken by a chirping alarm or timed maintenance request. The people he’d known before the war grew old and died in the bunkers. Sometimes he wished the surgeons had failed, that his saviors had left him in the twisted wreckage of the minivan. When his wife passed away at the age of seventy-two he refused to speak for half a century.

  WILSON AIMED HIS CROSSBOW at the mule deer but the tiny, white-painted sights twirled like fireflies. He shot his bolt and missed. Before the brown-eyed doe could flee into the night, bolts from the two other boys thumped into her chest. The doe thrashed in the leaves for only a moment.

  The two boys untied Wilson from the tree-stand and built a campfire. All three relaxed, enjoying the smell of roasted venison and the warmth of crackling flames. Wilson’s face and lips were still numb from the blackberry wine.

  “This is a stupid tradition,” he said.

  “Stupid or not, you’d feel bad if you didn’t do it,” said Mast, the bigger of the three.

  “Hey, Wilson,” said the other one, a thin boy. “What do you and a goat have in common?”

  “I don’t know, Robb.”

  “You’ll both be tied up tomorrow!”

  Robb fell backwards and rolled on the leaves in a fit of giggles.

  “Thanks for the fortieth joke about that,” said Wilson.

  “Just ignore him and cheer up, friend,” said Mast.

  Wilson stared at the fire and listened to drips of deer fat pop on the logs. “What was in that wine you gave me?”

  Mast shrugged. “Nothing but the special ingredient.”

  “You’re both lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

  “We’re all lucky. In the old days you had to kill a bear before the wedding.”

  “I think–”

  “You’re going to be sick?”

  “Yes, and I think a doe is more appro.... pp...priate....”

  “Don’t throw up near me! Get away,” said Robb.

  Mast shook his head. “To think that Badger has to look at your ugly face for the rest of her life. It’s making me sick, too.”

  Wilson wiped his mouth. “What a great friend.”

  “I know. You’re welcome.”

  Robb had stopped giggling. He’d taken off his moccasins and now cleaned h
is toes with a stick.

  “Tell us about the Circle machines, Wilson.”

  “For the love of cats, stop asking him,” said Mast.

  “But I want to hear how he blew up the tank.”

  Wilson shook his head. “All I saw was a fireball. Stop asking me about it.”

  “No need to get mad,” said Mast. “It’s your special night. Aren’t you having fun?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just ... things are changing too fast,” said Wilson. “After my father’s death, the escape, and the attack on the village, I don’t want to talk about the Circle. I feel like Darius could show up at any moment.”

  “That guy? He’s got to be dead. You said Badger cut off his–”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “Fine,” said Mast. “But I’d be more worried about that fossilized graybeard under the mountain. With all those machines keeping him alive, he’s barely human. What if he snaps over breakfast and floods the valley with gas?”

  “If he even eats breakfast,” said Robb.

  “Listen, I know Jack better than anyone,” said Wilson. “He’s kept us safe for three hundred years, he’s not going to chuck everything in the bin because it’s a Tuesday.”

  Robb looked up from his toe-cleaning. “Today’s Saturday!”

  “That was an example.”

  Mast pointed at Robb. “Like you: an example of how to shave a bobcat and teach it to walk.”

  Robb hissed.

  BADGER ADDED A CUP of water to the mixture of cornmeal, lard, salt, and honey and stirred the dough. She’d only been doing this for an hour but her hands were aching.

  “This is a stupid tradition,” she said.

  “Aren’t they all, dear?” said Wilson’s mother, Mary, from the other end of the kitchen. She twisted a dial that controlled temperature for the wall oven.

  “Yes, but this one is even stupider. I should be the one hunting a deer and he should be making the bread.”