180 Days and Counting... Series Box Set books 1 - 3 Read online

  No time

  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 1

  No Time

  Book 1

  180 Days and Counting… Series

  B.R. Paulson

  No time

  If you knew the end was here, who would you tell? Who would believe you?

  In Cady’s case, no one would take her word at face value. Not anymore.

  A microbiologist in another time and a prepper by choice, Cady hasn’t been in the science industry in years. She gave up a promising career to pursue life with her husband in the woods.

  When a man from her past resurfaces with vague warnings and promises to uphold overzealous plans from their college days, Cady must remember the details or lose more than a friendship.

  The entire human race stands in the balance.

  With Jackson on one end of the ethical debate and Cady on the other, the release of a virus more deadly than any the world has seen can be any second… any second…

  Can Cady convince Jackson to stop? Or will she die with the rest of the population?

  Grab this thriller and jump into the apocalypse. Hold your breath! Paulson will take you for a ride.

  Prologue

  Would that be her time to die? Cady thought she’d made her peace with death, but as chills ravaged her body and aches destroyed her nerve endings, she didn’t know if she still wanted to die. What if the vaccine failed? She didn’t have enough time to figure out the answers to any of her questions. She needed time.

  She wanted more time.

  All she’d tried to do was save as many people as possible.

  Her hope hadn’t taken into account the vast devastation planned or the fact that pain was a part of the game. The game that centered around eradicating the population.

  Her friend betrayed her. Her husband abandoned her.

  All she had left was her daughter. Everyone else would be dead by now, or worse off than she was.

  Cady didn’t have the right to complain, yet she longed to end her suffering with the Glock hiding under her bed. Yet, what could she possibly hope to accomplish with a bullet in her brain?

  Lying on the floor beside her bed, she reached under the mattress and pulled the gun from its position of safety. The weight was comforting as she tightened her fingers on the handle. She squeezed her eyes shut and slumped back to the carpet.

  Nothing was soft or calming. The threads of the carpet abraded her skin, every nerve screaming to be left alone, yet itching at the same time.

  It would be okay for her to end it. No one would know. No one would care.

  If she killed herself, every sacrifice would be in vain. Her daughter’s pain would be for nothing.

  Cady dragged a breath through her swollen and cracked lips. She didn’t want to open her eyes and find the sun beating through the window. She didn’t want to acknowledge the chill in the air as an illusion to a fever. She just wanted all of her blankets on top of her, warming her in the sun.

  Half-heartedly, she reached up and tugged on the blankets, but couldn’t budge them. What was she thinking about? Oh, right, killing herself. Everything would be a waste. Cady didn’t like waste, and all of that would be the worst kind.

  She groaned… if only the vaccine had been enough.

  Chapter 1

  Cady

  “Smell like the end of the world. The revolutionary new fragrance that will stop his heart and restart hers. Coming soon to stores near you.” The commercial on the sixty-five inch television screen faded to a fuzzy black.

  Cady sat back on her haunches, eyebrows raised as she rested her palms on the tops of her thighs.

  Thick snow fell outside her windows, past the four-foot perimeter of the wraparound deck. If she listened hard, she would be able to hear the popping of the firewood in the next room.

  She didn’t usually watch TV but lately she’d taken an interest in reality shows based on homesteads while she inventoried her storage. There wasn’t a lot she could do outside for preparing with feet of snow blocking the garden entrance and the greenhouse door. Taking up the shows had been a desperate attempt to keep her sanity. Recently she’d begun binge watching Mountain Men. The show was filled with great tips and prepper information she couldn’t get enough of.

  Her favorite tip so far involved the butchering of a large pig. The men had explained that after draining the blood, they soaked large towels in boiling water. They then laid the towels out, spread neatly on the pig’s hide, and let the boiling water saturate the skin and hair. After a few minutes they were able to carefully shave a thin layer of skin and the hide hair from the pig without a large mess.

  Not that Cady had pigs, but she might one day. The fact that the information was so easy to use made it a fun fact to absorb while she was going through the tedious task of checking her emergency preparedness items.

  Each weekend she filled her afternoons with checking the family’s supplies and improving on a skill. With the political climate, it was only a matter of time until something happened. Cady’s entire goal revolved around making sure her daughter survived anything that happened. She pulled the third - and last - bright yellow seventy-two hour kit toward her and opened the top zipper.

  A poncho should be on top. “Good, at least that wasn’t taken.” Cady rolled her eyes. Yes, at least that was there. What else had made it past her husband’s rabid desire to destroy everything she worked toward? She poked around the main pocket and nodded when she saw the main items she was checking for were present.

  For her state of mind, thinking about her presently-absent husband wasn’t the best move. The commercial returned and Cady furrowed her brow. Twice in one break?

  They really wanted to sell that perfume which hadn’t even released yet. “Smell like the end of the world.”

  Cady chuckled, tightening the rear strap on the large hiking backpack. No one was in the room with her, but she found it funny to talk to herself out loud. “Who would want to smell like the end of the world?” Smelling like decay and rot wasn't her idea of fun. Which wasn’t that what the end would be like? Death and sickness? She couldn’t imagine anything different. Moving the bag to the side, she glanced again at the large screen set about ten feet from her.

  Bailey flopped into the room, her long auburn hair flowing behind her. She pouted as she claimed the middle cushion on the couch by the wall opposite the TV. “Dad might want to smell like the end. Maybe then you'd pay attention to him.” She smirked as she raised her foot onto the couch, bending her knee to the side and fiddling with the top of her ankle sock. At least she’d had the decency to take her shoes off before coming inside this time.

  At thirteen, Bailey pushed the boundaries of Terrible Teen. She didn’t like her mom – at least that was the sentiment she exuded whenever she was within sight of Cady. No telling what she said when she wasn’t around.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about things like that.” Cady kept her tone light. She wasn’t going to start anything with her daughter. Cady’s relationship with Zach was none of Bailey’s business. Snapping another strap, Cady turned
back to the television.

  “I think I have the right to know, if my parents are going to get a divorce.” Bailey snapped, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her bent knees. Fear narrowed her eyes and she couldn’t hide her vulnerability from her mother.

  Cady remembered feeling those same things years ago with her own parents. Thankfully, nothing had happened to warrant the emergence of any concern, but Cady couldn’t promise anything like that to her daughter. There was too much under the bridge between her and Zach and she wasn’t sure there was any way to recover from it. They’d married for the wrong reasons and held on for even worse ones.

  The mention of divorce upset Cady more than she wanted to own. She struggled to keep her emotions under control. Divorce. Who would have believed that she’d be facing the prospect of divorce in her own marriage not more than fourteen years after committing to her husband?

  If she wanted to get through the next few days filled with unknowns, Cady would just have to ignore Bailey.

  Of course, Bailey was daddy's little girl. She was an only child and between her mom and dad, she was spoiled past the brat point. The young girl was afforded anything she wanted. Flipping her alliances between her parents was something she did often, but she always returned to her dad. Cady had begun expecting it and found little solace when Bailey was on Cady’s side.

  Focusing on her kit and opening the last strap, Cady chewed on her bottom lip. She couldn’t remember if her first aid kit needed more sterile gauze. She would have to go through the packages again. She was also running low on ibuprofen. She leaned over and added the newest remembered item to the list on her notepad set to the side. “We should do another dry run this week. I’m not sure I have everything and those newest MREs might not taste very good.”

  Bailey didn’t say anything else as Mountain Men came back on. Her silence was probably a good thing. Cady was irritated by Bailey’s comment and then her silence. Did Cady stick up for herself when she wasn’t even sure what the accusation was? There was no point fighting about any of it.

  There was no point fighting. They couldn’t control anything that was happening anyway. Zach had made his choice more than obvious.

  Zach… He’d never been overly affectionate and as Cady had delved deeper into the prepper lifestyle, Zach had pulled further away.

  Cady paid as much attention to Zach as she had to, or as much as she could. He drove long-haul trucks and was gone a lot of the time. When he was home, he berated her for not going out and finding a job with her microbiology degree. He hated driving truck. The economy that far north didn’t allow for a lot of electrical engineering which was what his education was in.

  Lab work wasn’t much different with regard to availability which was what Cady would end up doing with her degree. North Idaho was great with a lot of things, but jobs weren’t one of them, unless you were in construction or hospitality.

  As much as Zack treated Bailey like a princess, she was capable – even if she was a daddy's girl. She played along with the girly façade he wanted to see her as, even though it was something she wasn’t. As soon as he was gone, Bailey traded in the skirts and curls for jeans, t-shirts, and braids. Riding around on her bike and climbing trees struck her fancy, not sitting around pretending to have a tea party. At only thirteen years old, she was a fairly independent child. Cady liked to think that was thanks to her and not the babying Bailey underwent from her father.

  The perpetual pout on Bailey’s face was destined to annoy Cady something fast. Bailey kicked her foot. “When will Dad be home? He promised to take me fishing this spring.” Ah, the infamous fishing trip. The only time Zach relented on letting Bailey be a tomboy, simply because he wanted a fishing buddy.

  The man was enough to drive Cady nuts. At least he didn’t make Bailey wear a dress while they fished, but she avoided the suggestion even in jest, just in case he did decide to give it a shot.

  Cady kept her tone light, even though she wanted to tell Bailey to get her feet off the couch. “Friday. He said he should be home on or before Friday.” Almost a week. Cady didn’t want the time to pass as fast as she knew it would. As much as he complained about truck driving, the job gave Cady a respite from his negativity and his demands.

  Zach would never let Cady forget how much he hated his job. He wanted to move to California or Oregon or Texas where there were jobs in his field. But Cady refused to move. If he wanted to relocate and find a job that he liked, he was welcome to it, especially after the last year. If things continued on as they were, he might still do just that.

  She wasn’t against him finding work he liked. She just had a feeling they were supposed to stay in north Idaho. Something anchored her there and she wouldn’t leave. She wasn’t one to ignore her gut instincts and the feeling to stay was stronger than her knowledge in organic chemistry.

  Staring at the television, Bailey didn’t respond to Cady’s answer about her father. “What's dinner going to be?” Changing the topic, Bailey dropped her foot and leaned back on the couch. Her sigh echoed around the room, creating a tic in her mom’s right eyelid.

  Rolling her shoulders and leaning her head to the side, Cady took a deep breath to calm her irritation. There was no point in getting frustrated with Bailey when they were the only two there. “Well, I thought we could have an easy night. I've got some things still to do.” She pointed toward the kitchen. “I was just thinking leftovers. We have a lot to pick from – pizza, spaghetti, and I think we have burritos, too.” She glanced at Bailey. “No point in wasting them.”

  “No point in wasting them.” Bailey formed the sentence at the same time Cady did.

  Cady laughed. “Jinx.” Maybe Bailey’s attitude was going to be good for the night. What Cady wouldn’t give for a break from the teenager syndrome. She smiled fully at her daughter.

  Rolling her eyes, Bailey huffed. “Mom, no one says that anymore.” She shoved herself from the couch and stormed from the living room, her arms tight at her sides. Leaving behind a room filled with confusion, she didn’t look back at her mom.

  Once again, Cady couldn't do anything right. Her momentary excitement deflated, Cady stood and pulled the packs into a pile. At least she knew Bailey and Zach shared the same sentiment about Cady. She was never doing anything right. They liked to joke about what she was bad at and what she messed up which only made Cady want to try even less.

  And the teasing about prepping was incessant. At least Bailey had left the room before digging in about that part of Cady’s preferences. Cady wasn’t sure how far she could stand to be pushed, but with her nerves on edge, she had a feeling it wasn’t far.

  The only things she loved doing more than the rest of her family hated were her prepper things. Zach didn’t support her preparations for emergencies in any form. He even refused to let Cady spend any of their money on prepper items or food storage. He said anything like that was a waste of time. The world wasn’t going to have any problems with food or natural disasters – at least not where they were.

  And yet… he was a truck driver. He had to know that if any of the truck drivers – long haul or otherwise – quit or if any of the trucks stopped or if there was a strike, there would be no supplies brought to the stores. What then?

  If they maintained an attitude of living only in the present, they would starve. Cady had a well-stocked food storage shoved under the house in the crawlspace. Zach never went down there, in fact, Cady wasn’t sure he knew how to access the space. Cady never had to explain where the funds came from to stock it. She had been building the stockpile with the standard grocery money for years.

  Since Bailey was gone most of the time with friends and she didn't understand her mother's prepping fanaticism, Cady didn't feel the need to explain what she was doing.

  Looking over the bags one more time, she double-checked for anything left unsecured and shut any undone snaps to make sure all the openings were closed. She lugged the backpacks with one thick strap slung over her shoulder and one
in each hand to the closet under the stairs on the other side of the living room. Shoving the packs inside onto a wide shelf, she snugged them against a bright orange EMT bag that held their portable first aid supplies. She still needed to go over those items.

  Maybe she was obsessing. It seemed like she was obsessing. Was that one more thing she needed to go over?

  With only a little time left before she had to grab leftovers from the fridge – no way was Bailey going to help – Cady went to her office off the foyer and sat at her desk. Another secret she had from her husband was a side job as an online science tutor. Helping college students figure out their microbiology and biology papers brought in a little extra money to help fund her prepping plans and grow her nest egg.

  She wasn’t dumb. The type of relationship she had with her husband wasn’t a forever kind. Sadly, she fell in love with an ideal… not reality. Getting pregnant before she could figure out he wasn’t the one for her changed her plans and altered her dreams.

  Cady hated when her plans changed. Taking on prepping worked well as a stress-reliever. Putting everything she had into making sure they were ready for anything had become her passion.

  The prepper groups she was in were serious about their storage, their knowledge, and conspiracies. She’d heard them all but nothing was leaning toward anything real. At least… not that she could make sense of. She knew too much science, too much logic.

  Sometimes, even for all her work and storage, she wondered just what she was prepping for.

  Chapter 2

  Cady

  Blinking at the wide forty-inch monitor, Cady took a deep breath. The overwhelming number of emails from students were more than enough to keep her busy for the next three weeks. Thankfully, mid-winter break would start soon and she would get a break. She just needed to push aside her personal issues and prioritize what tasks needed to be done when.

  After her list was complete of what she needed to work on immediately and what could wait, she’d find a minute to get dinner on. More importantly, though, she would just scour her inbox for any more information from the home owners’ association. She’d been trying to get a straight answer for a few weeks now and her last email had been bold and slightly accusatory.