Ashley's Evolution , The Chronicles of Ashley Stone Vol.3: The NOSOI Virus Saga A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series, #3

By Ashley Stone and Ben Stone

The NOSOI virus, America's deadliest Bioweapon has been set loose upon the world. As a global pandemic erupts, America descends into chaos. At first, our cities were war zones, now they have been completely lost to the ever-growing horde of infected. The only chance humans had for survival was in the small towns and rural landscapes far away from large populations. The NOSOI Virus doesn't kill its victims; instead, it turns them into something worse; crazed psychopaths, who feel no pain and know no limits. Becoming zombie-like creatures, which are extremely difficult to kill, and killing them is the only answer. Once infected, there is no coming back.

The struggle for survival continues as the pandemic rages on. In this viral outbreak thriller series, our heroes must learn how to survive in a post-apocalyptic plague, infected world.

In Volume 3 of the Ashley Stone Chronicles; Ben, a former green beret, his wife Ashley, a WMD K9 Handler, and their dog Thor, aid the survivors of Concrete in sweeping the infected from their small town in the Cascades. This rural community was lucky enough to have everything they needed to build a new future. With the world in chaos and all modern amenities gone, our friends in Concrete have found a way to restore their community. With a flowing river that powers their hydroelectric dam, they are coming back from the dark ages and restoring electricity to their small town. Having fought the infected for months, they've now learned of the new threat posed by the former inmates of the WA State's prison, and are preparing to defend their town from all invaders. If only Ben's former military brothers can arrive in time to aid in the fight.

Former Teammate Rob is Ben's best friend. He's been given a hack assignment to lead a team of scientist to stop the growing plague. The only problem, his tier 1 team is comprised of former military, many of them disabled. It was a job they were never supposed to complete, and it was really a suicide mission. But, they have combined their skills and beaten the odds. Now all Rob wants to do is get this ragtag group of operators back home to his friends in Concrete, but there's a problem. They've found a solution, a virus that will complete the gene sequence and kill off the infected. Rob must fight to get it into the right hands and still get to Concrete in time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley Stone
• Release date: Nov 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393056706

Ashley Stone

The real Ben and Ashley are avid competitive shooters; USPSA, 2-Gun, 3-Gun, and IDPA. They also do Schutzhund with Large breed import German Shepherds and work for a large military/LEO provider. Enjoy motorcycles and have a real sense of adventure. Past that if we told you, we would have to ___, well you know….. Feel free to contact us for gear questions or feedback. Facebook @AshleyStoneTacticalFiction [e-mail] Instagram Ashely_Stone1911 Go to our website www.nosoiproject.com and sign up for our newsletter

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE: CHRISTMAS TRINITY

Ben and I were busy loading out the Jeep, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was so happy, it was as if someone turned on an inner light.  We were going home, even if it was just for a short while. It was a chance to have a quiet Christmas, all to ourselves, away from all the death and destruction that constantly surrounded us. What used to be a short drive up to the back side of Mount Sauk, would now take us much longer. The rear seats of the Jeep Wrangler were folded down, and the large cargo area was filled with the tools of war. There were weapon bags, ammo cans, a STOMP medical backpack, MREs, Pelican containers that held our night vision, suppressors, and communication gear. There were also several sets of body armor and equipment vests. It was all a jumbled mess. Ben and I were both fastidious about our gear, we were usually never this disorganized. I guess a couple of weeks living in the plague apocalypse will do that to you.  This all still seemed unreal to me, but it was getting easier.

We spent quite some time moving several of the larger items up from the Wrangler’s hold into the cargo basket that topped the Jeep’s hardtop. I passed the containers upward to Ben as he stood high on the ladder. I couldn’t help it, but my feelings wandered, he was such an exquisite figure on the ladder, the thoughts of getting home made my cheeks burn in the icy air.   Ben looked at me and smiled, that devil must have read my mind.

Ashley, are you still with me here? You look a little flushed. This stuff isn't going to load itself. Still grinning, Ben stifled a laugh.

Yes, of course, Sir. I smiled back, knowing he had caught me in my daydream.

Okay, back to business, we had permanently mounted that ladder to the back of the vehicle, it came in handy.  Ben had to work hard to organize the containers as neatly and tightly as possible. It was miserable work in the cold December rain. Any small drop in the temperature would turn this wet drizzle into snowfall. Once he had it all loaded, we worked our way around the cargo basket securing the bungee-like strands that formed the cargo net. It was like unraveling a bag of coat hangers. I hated dealing with the damn thing, especially in the freezing rain of the Northwest. It didn’t help that I could barely reach the top.  But, the net did the job well.  Standing on top of the rear tires, we each worked a side of the Jeep until we had the cargo net spread out and all the hooks were secured neatly to the sides of the metal basket. It was a pain in the ass to deal with, but it held our irreplaceable gear securely. In this world, everything in that basket was like gold, the difference between life and death.

With part of the cargo stowed above, we had been able to make enough room for Thor. Who had been running around the Jeep, trying so desperately to be part of the exercise. I yelled, Mount up Boy, and he bounded through the rear passenger door and into the Jeep. It was a high jump, but he made it with ease. The big German Shepherd outweighed me by ten or fifteen pounds, but even with his size, he was still athletic and nimble. He made negotiating these types of obstacles seem easy. Thor got comfortable and placed his head between the front seats. Using the center armrest as a pillow, so he would be close to Ben and me. That was our Thor, always as close to us as possible. We loved him dearly, but as with most K9s, I knew he loved us more. He would die for us, and he was truly part of our family.

Ben put me in the passenger seat and made sure I was belted in. I could do it myself, but this was one of those ways he babied me, even in this harsh reality it made us feel close.

The days of calling 911 were over.  If you fucked up now, there was no one coming to save you. Only the self-reliant and strong remained, the sheeple had long since disappeared. I remembered one of Ben’s team saying, Mary Jane rotten crotch, and her three welfare babies don’t survive this shit. Now, only those who were mentally and physically prepared were still alive, and we were all on our own.

I checked my handgun. The Smith & Wesson M&P CORE was secure in my Safariland holster. Three levels of retention would mean it would be there when I needed it. I double-checked my Tavor bullpup rifle, making sure that the safety was on and the magazine was locked into place. I knew there was a round in the chamber. I had checked it when I loaded it, there was no need to recheck it. I’ve seen press checks cause more problems than they ever solved. If I loaded it this morning, and it was always in my possession, then it still had a round in the chamber. It was the mags you had to worry about. A bump against the mag release could partially dislodge the magazine. You would fire a round, and the mag would hit the deck. That could ruin your whole day, or life for that matter because now this shit was for real. No more training, no more shooting matches, just bullets into the plague victims. One big fuck up, and you’re probably not going to survive it.

I finished checking all of my spare magazines, making sure they were secure in their pouches. Then I laid my Tavor between my legs, allowing it to dangle at the end of its single point sling. Ben was squaring himself away in the driver’s seat, making sure all his gear was accessible as well. We wore our Millennium gas masks; Ben had insisted on it. If we were going outside the wire, it was full precautions. I really didn’t want to, we were going to be in the Jeep the whole time, but I always deferred to Ben on matters of survival. So here I sat, wearing that damn mask again. You would think I would have gotten used to it by now, but you just don’t. It was a lot of work for a simple drive home. This world was unrecognizable when compared to the one we lived in only a few weeks ago.

Ben turned the ignition switch, and the Wrangler rumbled to life. He looked at me and asked, Are you ready, Angel?

Always, I replied and batted my baby blues at him. Which he failed to notice through the damn mask.

I was dead tired, exhausted. But the thought of some downtime and a hot shower with my husband had elated my spirits.

The Jeep began to roll forward, and we passed through the gate from the high schools parking lot, outbound. One of the loggers waved us through and locked it behind us. They were starting to build a wall of Connex’s along the outside of the fence line that surrounded the parking lot. A couple of more runs to the rail yard and they would have it finished. That would make our little base much more secure. It was progress.

Thor was nuzzling my arm, looking for attention. I stroked his head and scratched behind his ears, but brought my attention level to full focus. We were in dangerous country now. Nothing out here, but us and plague victims. Time to focus on the present and watch our six.

Ben drove the Jeep away from the high school, along the outskirts of Concrete. I want to avoid the tight confines of downtown. He told me as we bypassed Main Street. So far, the infected had proven to be insufficient in quantity to overwhelm our scavenging parties. Each encounter had eaten away at their numbers and not to mention our ammunition supply. But there were less of them. Finally, we were winning.

I really want to expand the poisoning operations, Ben said as if he were reading my thoughts.

That would be smart, I responded. It’s a lot less risky than digging them out of every building in town. I really didn’t want to talk about this now. It was Christmas eve, and we were heading home, away from all of this shit. I really didn’t want to deal with it anymore, put the apocalypse on a pause. I just wanted to pretend for a little while.  Get home and hideout, just me, Ben and Thor. But we had promised Sheriff Walker we would help, and we couldn’t hide out forever. We needed to retake the town and gather as many survivors as possible. There was safety in numbers, I knew that and understood why we had to do it. But we were going to take a break for a couple of days, and I had already left the sheepdog in me behind, if only for a short time.

We turned right heading toward the road that would take us to the Thompson Bridge. That was the gateway that would lead us out of town and into the Cascades.  We took a residential road, lined with family homes. This was normally a beautiful place, a true slice of perfect Americana, like a Rockwell painting. Usually, you would see all the houses decked out with lights and homemade wreaths, all the holiday flair. But now it was clogged with abandoned vehicles, leftovers from the influx of refugees that had fled from Seattle. It was passable but tight, barely enough room for our wide four-wheel drive to transit. The clearing crews had not made it this far out from the high school. Other than pushing a few vehicles out of the way. We hadn’t even started clearing this part of town yet. It was really getting close, abandoned cars lined the road almost bumper to bumper, leaving us no room to get off the road.

Fred said they had made this road passible, but he didn’t say anything about it being this tight.

I could tell Ben didn’t like this, there was tension in his voice as he threaded the Jeep through the confines of the abandoned vehicles. Just ahead the road would turn, and the terrain would open up. We should be able to see the bridge from there, the old erector set style bridge spanning high above the Nooksack River, leading out of Concrete and into the mountains.

We worked through the turn, and instead of a view of the bridge, we found that the road was blocked entirely. Stalled cars blocked the roadway, a sudden panic gripped me, there was no way out.

Fuck, this isn’t right! Ben fumed. Fred said he cleared this himself. Ashley be ready, something is wrong with this shit.

Roger that. Was all I could muster, you know when you have that feeling that the shit is about to hit the fan?  This was all wrong, I could feel it. I prepared myself for what I knew was coming.

Ben threw the Jeep in reverse and began backing out of the noose we had just been ensnared in. It was probably a half-mile back to where this traffic snarl had started. If we could get back to that point, we could work our way around this.  Suddenly, Thor went into an alert posture, that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, every fiber of my being prepping for what was next.

Backing around that bend showed the true nature of our predicament. A van had been pushed into the road from a driveway after we had driven through. Fuck, we were trapped.

It’s an ambush! Ben yelled. And with that, the infected began to pour out of all the hidden recesses that the quiet neighborhood had provided.

We can’t stay here, they’ll come through the windows, Ben yelled over the screech of the incoming wave of infected. We’ve got to get out of the Jeep, Ash, get onto the roof rack. I dumped the seat belt and popped open the door. Thor looked at me, ready to bolt. I froze, not sure what to do.

Lock him in! Ben screamed at me. So, I hit the lock and shut the door. I made it to the rear tire and started to climb upward, grabbing for the edge of the roof basket. My hands slipped from the rain, the back of my mind starting to panic, I could hear them closing in on me.  Pushing those thoughts back, I jumped up pulling myself and the thirty pounds of gear I wore toward the top of the Jeep, and hopefully, to safety.

The infected were coming in a rush, they were almost on me.

Shit, I’m not going to make it, I cursed to myself scrambling still to get out of their reach. Fuck, This is how it’s going to end, and I won’t have even fired a shot.

Then just as the thought crossed my mind, Ben’s hands were upon me. He had made it to the top of the Jeep with ease. He grabbed the drag strap on the back of my vest and pulled me up onto the pile of gear packed into the roof rack. I felt a hand grasping at my long ponytail, but then it was gone. Ben pulled me hard, upward, just out of the reaching grasp of the infected. He had me with his left hand, while the other held his STI tactical handgun engaging the infected. I could feel the overpressure event as he emptied the big stick magazine into the wave of infected just below. Twenty-five rounds of .40 caliber hollow points caused the momentum of the wave to falter as I gained a kneeling position facing the opposite side of the Jeep.

I took a breath, I was with Ben, and I was okay, I put my fears aside and let my warrior side take over.  Time froze as I became part of the fight, everything began moving in slow motion for me as my focus heightened. I realized they were hitting us from the other side as well. They were enveloping the Jeep, surrounding us, trying to claw their way to the top. I flipped the safety off the Tavor as I brought it to my shoulder and began to hose down the wave of infected as it crashed into my side of the vehicle.

I was looking through the Aimpoint optic and pulling the trigger as fast as I could, tearing apart the infected closest to me. It was them or us, and it was definitely not going to be us. I could hear Thor going nuts inside the Jeep, but the infected were only interested in getting to Ben and I. Suddenly, I felt the massive blast of Ben’s shorty SCAR-H kicking into the fight, his handgun holstered for now. Thankfully, they couldn’t reach us. We were elevated, and they could only climb upward in a few places. It made it easy to drive them back down. Every round Ben fired, planted an infected in the dirt. It took three or four rounds from the Tavor to accomplish the same task. I ran dry within moments with my first mag. I hit the release and let it tumble down onto the ground below the Jeep, grabbing a fresh one from my speed pouch I hit the bolt release and continued to pour down fire from above.

Abruptly, just as quickly as it had started, it was over.  The wave of infected finally broke, they began to flee, but most of them lay broken on the concrete in the roadway. We had turned the tide and sent them packing. I could hear Ben’s pace slow as he tracked them fleeing in the distance, knocking down one after the other. I tried to follow suit, but the 5.56 rifle lacked the same punch as his .308 SCAR.  I was shaking from the encounter, the adrenaline dump making my hands tremble, in the aftermath of the fight.

Through the haze of the gunfire, I could see one lone figure standing in the distance. He was definitely infected, but somehow different, he lacked the jerky motions and labored shuffle typical of the usual plague victims. Ben saw him too. This strange infected man looked at us with purpose, almost anger. Ben was slapping another mag home and bringing the big rifle to bear, but the was figure was gone before Ben could lay the dot on him.

Did you see that? I asked sheepishly.

Yeah, I saw it, he answered me in the sudden quiet that surrounded us.

What was it? I asked again, afraid of the answer.

It’s a game-changer, Ben said quietly...

I laid on the futon, the dedicated sleeping area in our underground bunker. The air was chilly, but not cold. There was very little power available. Just enough to run the lights and hot water heater, but not much else. The small power wheel dam in our stream was running slow. The creek was freezing up, and the flow was at a low ebb. I could hear Ben talking on the ham radio. I was so exhausted from our earlier encounter, fighting the need for sleep. The details of his conversation floating through the air, my tired ears straining to pick up the sounds.

It was an ambush, Ben said.

I’m telling you they were working as a team. He said again, emphatically. His voice was hard, and the anger was palatable.

We burned over 200 rounds and were barely able to break their attack.

There was something terribly eerie and disturbing about that specific infected, he didn’t move like the rest. He seemed to be in control of the situation, I got the notion he was in control of the others. Ben sighed, knowing the truth of his words.

We almost didn’t make it today, it was a close call.

As I laid there, remembering the day. I was shaken by the event. We had been in a couple of other scrapes like this. But it had never been this close, and we had always had more help. I realized that we really didn’t need to run around the town by ourselves, we should have had a backup. We needed to operate in larger groups in the future, our survival might depend on it.

Finally, I was comfortable, I felt truly clean for the first time in a week. The hot shower had been wonderful, it’s amazing how the small things can make such a difference. Now, I just wanted Ben to finish warning the group and come hold me. I wanted to let the horror of the world drift away if only for a little while. Trying to recapture my mood from when we were packing out. It was Christmas Eve after all, and then I slipped into the darkness of deep sleep.

Christmas day came late for us. We spent the morning together in bed, enjoying the time to be alone, all by ourselves.  The intimate time with Ben was just what I needed after the trauma of the day before.  I rose reluctantly, enjoying the chance to be lazy.  We were starving, so after making us a hardy breakfast, Ben explained to me that he wanted to go a little further up the mountain. He said it would have a fresh coat of snow and give us that special Christmas feeling. So, we geared up heavy again and headed upstairs. Before the plague, we never went anywhere unarmed, we always carried concealed. It was light and easy. Those days were gone, to go out now, required a full combat loadout. That meant a rifle and handgun as well as all of the kit that went with it.

It took Ben a few minutes to put snow chains on the Razor, the little side by side needed some help in a heavy snowpack. When he finished, we mounted up. Thor was sitting in the floorboard between my legs, hanging his head slightly out of the open doorway scenting the wind. It was always tight when the three of us rode together. But, Thor loved riding like this. Close contact with me always made him happy.  Watching him sniffing the fresh snow floating down around us made me laugh like it was old times. I was learning to enjoy the smallest moments of normalcy.

It wasn’t a long trip. We ended up beside one of the mountain’s many streams. The area was absolutely beautiful. There was a fresh blanket of snow covering this part of the mountainside. All of the evergreens looked magical with the dusting of snow atop their branches.  The air was cold and smelled like Christmas trees, what more could I ask for. As I looked out over the peaceful view of the snow-covered mountains in the distance. The vista that met me was a complete contrast to the way I felt. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment striving to let go of all the horrors we had endured.  I wanted to hold onto this moment in time just as it was, pure and clean.  I opened my eyes, and knew that somehow everything would be okay, together we would get through this, and some form of normality would return.

Ben looked at me, wondering what thoughts were going on in my head.  But he didn’t ask.  He grabbed my hand and led me down toward the frosty stream.  I laughed as we stumbled through the snow like children.  Ben pulled me toward a couple of large boulders along the edge of the stream. I smiled, watching Thor jumping and playing in the fresh snow like a young pup. I turned back to Ben as he cleared the snow off one large stone and gently set me on top, placing a kiss atop my head. Everything was so peaceful and beautiful, it was a great idea to come up here, if only for a little while.

Ben pulled a package out of the small backpack he was wearing. It was wrapped in a beautiful gold metallic paper with a wide red ribbon tied into a bow. It suddenly occurred to me that it was Christmas day and he had brought me this gift. I had bought some presents for Ben early on, but the plague had curtailed my shopping. The few that I had were hidden at home in the cold dark house. I immediately felt guilty. Ben always showered me with gifts during the holidays. He had such a magical way of making me feel special. I was the only person in his life, and he always wanted me to know how much he loved me. I could not have found a better mate.

Ben, I don’t have anything for you. I stuttered in my guilt.

"Ashley, the world ended. I didn’t expect anything, love.