Martha

By David Edward

From best-selling author David Edward comes the thrilling end to the Purgatory Oaths series!

As the apocalypse looms and the gates of heaven shatter, Judge Stone must confront his greatest challenge yet: saving a world after it has already been destroyed.

With the help of Blue, the fallen angel who once betrayed him and will again, Stone embarks on a perilous journey to the four corners, battling demonic forces and his own inner demons.

As their conflicting ideologies clash and the stakes grow ever higher, Stone must make a critical choice that will determine the fate of humanity in the heart-pounding conclusion to the "Judge Stone" series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Edward
• Release date: Aug 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223189589

David Edward

D. Edward served as a Special Agent in the US Army in the 1980s and 1990s and is a veteran of multiple overseas combat tours. He was the Special Agent in Charge of the 1990 Panama Canal counter-terrorism threat assessment report to the US Congress. Edward is a graduate of the United States Army Intelligence School where he studied advanced HUMINT (Human Intelligence) and battlefield counterintelligence; also completing training at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, Central America. He holds advanced degrees in engineering including a Ph.D. from NCU, three related M.Sc. degrees (MBA, MSIT, MSIM), and has an undergraduate degree in business (BSBA). His books typically reach the Amazon Kindle top 10 upon release in their genre. 'End of Reason' was his first work to reach #1 on Amazon in its category, on June 22, 2021. 'Unreasonable' reached #1 as a pre-order and held the spot for over a month upon release. You can follow his publication schedule here: d-edward.com or email him at his first name, the at sign, the first three letters of the word Florida, a dot, and the word cloud. He did have a Twitter account but then he thought it was stupid so he canceled it.

Book preview

OTHER FICTION BY DAVID EDWARD

Dirk Lasher Thrillers

●  Panama Red

●  Drive Faster

●  Meat Market

●  Ground Game

●  Prayer Drum

●  Down Ballot

Supernatural Thrillers

●  Alamosa

●  The Smalls

●  The Bigs

●  Martha

Westerns

●  Rick Calhoon and the Town Full of Really Evil Cannibals

Sci-Fi

●  X7

BOOK DESCRIPTION

From best-selling author David Edward comes the thrilling end to the Purgatory Oaths series!

As the apocalypse looms and the gates of heaven shatter, Judge Stone must confront his greatest challenge yet: saving a world after it has already been destroyed.

With the help of Blue, the fallen angel who once betrayed him and will again, Stone embarks on a perilous journey to the four corners, battling demonic forces and his own inner demons.

As their conflicting ideologies clash and the stakes grow ever higher, Stone must make a critical choice that will determine the fate of humanity in the heart-pounding conclusion to the Judge Stone series.

MARTHA

JUDGE STONE BOOK 4

CHAPTER 1

AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD

The sun hadn’t shown for several months. It had gotten considerably colder, and fewer plants were growing.

The color green has left the world, just like most people, Stone thought to himself. Not people, but their souls. We’re hip-deep in people, or at least their soulless bodies.

Blue was struggling to keep up. She always struggled to keep up. Stone knew it was an act designed to make things harder on him; she was a fallen daemon and the cause of the end of the world after all.

The fact she tried from time to time was a miracle, not her walking pace.

Stone didn’t turn around. I ain’t stopping no more. You either keep up with me, or you go it alone.

Blue was abrasive and selfish. She knew how to walk the line, and she knew the inhospitable landscape would quickly get the better of her without Stone.

Stone knew it as well. What he didn’t know was if he needed Blue or not. The answer to resetting everything might simply be to kill her. The problem was, if he did and was wrong, he would eliminate his only chance of turning things around. And he would lose the only person on the planet that seemed to know where Martha was.

But even that was a question. Was Blue really able to sense where Martha was? She had predicted that Martha would not be at Stone's Northport home, claiming Martha had believed it necessary to leave the property and move on. Sure enough, the house had been ransacked when they arrived, and Martha was nowhere to be found.

The problem was, it didn’t take a genius to guess that, given what they had seen on the way. Next, Blue had told him that Martha was heading south to the Four Corners, the Navajo Nation reservation, where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah all came together.

Martha was a Seminole Indian from Florida. She had been her tribe’s Medicine Woman. Between what she learned growing up, and what she had experienced in her time married to Stone, she had developed an understanding of the spirit world that was only bested by Stone’s actual first-hand experiences.

Stone and Martha had been forced apart as things fell apart in Detroit. But he had vowed to find her and was working to that end now. He and Blue had started the long walk from Northport, Michigan, to the Four Corners thirteen hundred miles away.

They had left over a month ago, and the days had become blurred together. At first, it was a difficult journey, trying to avoid the soulless while not attracting the growing number of shadows, or worse, the unjudged. Since the three spirit realms were flooded with human souls at the end, the numbers that were judged unworthy and returned to the physical realm as little mindless evil monsters called the shadows had increased exponentially.

But the bodies of the people had started wearing out, and the shadows were being drawn away into the little communities of the unjudged that remained. The unjudged were the people who remained after the gates crashed and the guardians departed the upper realms.

There were few living remaining, and Stone noted the irony that it was primarily the people who would have been judged as unworthy.

Basically, only the worst of the worst seemed to remain in the physical realm. The dangers now came from the new congregations of people that were forming into new societies. With plants dying out, followed quickly by the animals that depended on them for food, these communities slowly transitioned to cannibalism.

People, with a soul or without, had rapidly become the dominant food source on earth.

Stone believed he could turn it all around.

He forced himself to believe it.

Without hope, there was nothing. He had worked too hard and been through too much to give up. Even if he had to lie to himself, which he didn’t think he was doing.

Yet, anyway.

He knew holding out hope would eventually reach a natural end.

***

Stone watched Blue eat part of the scrawny rabbit he had caught with the trap. He had cooked it on a low fire during the day, keeping the flames minimal enough not to produce a lot of smoke.

A couple months ago, there would have been rabbits everywhere, and they would have been fat and plump.

He watched Blue wipe the grease from the little animal on her pants. She had a frustrating habit of crunching on the bones. It was messy and hard to watch and hear.

Stone continued looking at her. The lack of hygiene on display had caused him to lose his appetite.

Don’t even get me started with the nightmare that bodily functions have been with her.

I have a fifty-fifty chance of ending all this and causing everything to reset if I simply shoot her in the face. I know it looks like a woman; but that’s just it playing on my weaknesses. That thing is evil, and it destroyed the world.

Then he considered the other side of the argument.

Sure, but what if killing her is the final nail in the coffin. What if we need her to cause the reset? There is so much I don’t know, and I have no one to seek wisdom from.

I’m still hungry, Blue looked over at him as she wiped her hands on her shirt.

Ain’t no more, Stone said, working to not show the disgust he felt to his core.

She kicked some dirt like a little child having a tantrum. Go reset your stupid trap. I can’t walk no more if I’m still this hungry.

She spat something out that had been caught in her teeth, then smelled the grease on her fingers. These mannerisms infuriated Stone. He knew that was why she did them.

***

It was the middle of the night. A group of unjudged people had been chasing them for several hours. Blue, for all her frustrating purposeful mannerisms, was on her game now and was undoubtedly an asset in times like this.

She has a remarkable capacity for self-preservation, Stone noted as they paused in their flight to regroup.

They are still three, Blue said. It’s the alpha male and two big henchmen. Blue sometimes spoke oddly, the spoken language being new to her.

You want the main fella or the two henchmen? Stone asked, pulling his hunting knife off his belt. He had run out of ammunition for his rifle and two colt pistols some time ago.

Blue had two small little daggers, one for each hand. She was fast and used the daggers to quickly stab her opponents, leveraging her speed over physical strength.

Stone had his hunting knife. He wasn’t elegant or quick like Blue was; instead relying on force and sheer brutality. At first, he had been hesitant to take the remaining people’s lives. It took him several weeks to realize that these were all bad people. Every single one. When they passed, they would have been judged unworthy, if the system had still been in place. He had not yet found a single person that remained who could be redeemed in life or death.

There was a twinkle in her eye. You take the main guy. You’re too slow to handle two men as capable as these, Blue said, smiling, in anticipation of combat.

Stone grunted his approval. He wasn’t too slow to handle two men, but he liked that Blue thought so. It might come in handy later.

The air changed. Stone could hear the approaching men. They were quiet and didn’t know they had given themselves away. Blue heard it as well, she smiled an evil smile, and gave a nod to Stone right before she turned and disappeared into the darkness.

The silence got even more pronounced, then Stone heard the soft squishing sounds of Blue working her magic with the little knives. He moved from out of his cover in the direction he believed the giant leader of the group was.

When he found the man, Blue had ended him just as brutally as she had finished the other two formidable but smaller men. About a dozen stab wounds near the chest and back, and a deep cut through the side of each man’s throat.

She was covered in blood but looked euphoric; her eyes were wide and bright.

Just these three? Stone asked, used to ignoring how much Blue enjoyed killing people.

I don’t hear more, she said, keeping her voice down like he had. Then her face changed.

Stone knew what was about to happen and dreaded it.

We can eat off these three for weeks! she said too loudly. A lot more meat here than on those stupid rabbits you keep feeding me.

Quiet, Stone scolded her. And you already know my rules about this.

Blue looked at him and let her evil smile turn playful. She made a show of opening her mouth, making bite motions, and slowly moving her head near one of the downed men. Stone had seen this before and knew she was about to take a few bites out of the man and swallow them in front of him, chewing with her mouth open, working to agitate him even more.

It had gone on like this for weeks; and it continued like this for several more weeks. Stone figured they had to be near the south side of Missouri by now. He was trying to angle it so they hit Kansas, not Oklahoma. He was familiar with Kansas. Oklahoma was nothing but trouble.

Before the world ended, Stone had owned a successful chain of diners. Bars when things were really rolling, then diners from necessity.

But in 1926, during prohibition, the fact that Stone and Martha had been able to adjust quickly enough to save the business was a testament to their forethought and relationship.

One of Stone’s shops, a Fox & Hound, was in Wichita, Kansas. Wichita was a good-sized town on the southern side of Kansas, pretty much exactly on the way between Michigan and the Four Corners. He hoped he could pick up some supplies there and use the pub location to rest up for a couple days. Both he and Blue were tired from the constant pressures of navigating the ever-evolving hostile landscapes.

There wasn’t any easy way to approach the town; it sat on a plain, and you could see it almost a full two days before you arrived. They had camped at Gregory's Cemetery, about a twelve-hour walk from the center of town. Stone had often been to Wichita; he remembered much about the area.

Stone stood the first watch and Blue had taken the second. She shook him awake. He looked at the sky, there was no sign of morning.

Is something wrong? Stone mumbled on instinct as he pushed himself to a sitting position, trying to force himself awake.

I figure it’s about three, Blue said, walking back over to the tombstone she had been sitting on.

Stone nodded. The plan was to get an early start, so they got to Wichita with a good amount of light still left in the day.

We got any of the biscuits left from Springfield? Stone asked. He was hungry. If they could get to the shop in town, there should be many canned goods still in the restaurant, and he could make trail provisions again as he had done now a couple times before. They mostly had to scavenge for provisions now. There were still a few rabbits and what not, but much fewer than several weeks ago.

He had learned as an officer during the American Civil War how to bake biscuits that didn’t weigh too much so you could carry a bunch of them. Plus, they lasted for months while still remaining edible. They were hard as a rock and tasted terrible, but compared to not eating, they were a godsend. Put a biscuit in a small cup with a bit of water, and ten minutes later, you have something you could eat that would carry you the rest of the day.

Blue dismissively shook her head, I ate the last one about two days ago.

I didn’t set any new traps, Stone said, resigned to the situation. Going to be a long day.

Blue looked at him with a look that Stone didn’t recognize.

At some point, Blue said almost delicately. At some point, she repeated, you are going to have to start letting me eat the things we kill.

Stone was growing tired of this conversation. He was frustrated because he feared she was right.

Maybe, he said gruffly as he stood up, but not today. Let’s police up the area and get moving. We can be at the pub by mid-afternoon if we push ourselves.

I’m going to struggle to keep up if I don’t get any more food, Blue said, still speaking kindly, which was entirely out of character for her.

Stone was just glad she had dropped the cannibal idea, at least for now.

Not today, Blue, Stone said, not returning any of the softness when he spoke. Today, you will be a shining example of a trail hand. Let’s get to the pub with plenty of light and secure it. I’ll make extra biscuits this time, enough for the rest of the trip. And we can take an extra day to rest up there, provided we can secure it. We’ll add an entire day of doing nothing. How does that sound?

Blue looked at him for a long time.

Is today your birthday? she finally asked.

Stone knew her well enough