Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Holding On
Fourth and Final Book
of the Isolation Series
By Nathan Jones
Copyright © 2021 Nathan Jones
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional. While most locations are real some artistic license has been taken in describing them, and some locations are entirely fictional.
Books by Nathan Jones
BEST LAID PLANS
Fuel
Shortage
Invasion
Reclamation
Determination
NUCLEAR WINTER
First Winter
First Spring
Chain Breakers
Going Home
Fallen City
MOUNTAIN MAN
Badlands
Homecoming
Homeland
Mountain War
Final Stand
Lone Valley
ISOLATION
Shut In
Going Out
Starting Anew
Holding On
PART ONE
HOLDING ON
Prologue
Fury
Be cheerful.
That's what Chet McCleese's mom had always told him, when he was a kid. Our brains can be pretty dumb sometimes, and if you act like you're happy, even when you're not feeling that way, you can fool your brain into believing you actually are. Then you become happy. Pretty neat, huh kiddo?
And even if that doesn't work, she'd added, everyone feels drawn to happy, energetic people. If you do your best to be cheerful then you'll get along better with others.
He'd done his best to follow his mom's advice growing up, and it had certainly seemed to help. Ben had usually been better at it, less prone to bouts of gloominess or sudden flashes of anger where he had to fight to keep from saying or doing something he'd regret.
Or at least, better at keeping that junk to himself.
Chet didn't know when he'd started being angry all the time. Sometime after the Zolos crisis started, and he'd been forced to stay cooped up in a crowded farmhouse with his and his girlfriend Aimee Mason's families jostling for elbow room. Tempers had been frayed all around, although everyone was doing their best.
Being with Aimee was usually the happiest he ever was, and since his life had been pretty good before the world had gone to pot that was a high bar. But it had been almost impossible to find moments of privacy with so many people around, especially since she'd insisted they not share a bed while her parents were living with them.
Which was hard to argue; some awkwardness was better left avoided, especially when everyone was already on edge.
And then those selfish a-holes Tony and Denna Dryden had gone and grabbed a doorknob, spreading the Zolos that would kill almost everyone Chet loved before going merrily on their way. That was probably when the anger had really become a constant simmer, quick to flash to a boil in spite of his best efforts.
Like right now; he wasn't sure he'd ever been this furious, except maybe when the Drydens had confessed they'd been the ones who infected his family.
Ben was swearing a blue streak on the other side of the room, where a bunch of their family photos had been thrown into a pile on the floor and apparently stomped on. As if one bad turn deserved another.
That wasn't the extent of the damage, either. There were gaping holes in the walls where they'd been kicked or smashed with something, windows had been shattered, the cushions and padding on couches and chairs had been slashed, either searching for hidden goodies or just out of a sheer love of destruction.
There were clothes strewn across the downstairs hall, and he dreaded going into the bedrooms to see how badly they'd been destroyed. He did anyway, starting with the master bedroom, and his rage ratcheted up a notch as even his worst fears were exceeded.
Dressers and bedside tables had been upended, drawers smashed. His parents' bed had a huge damp patch in the center of it, and the reek of urine painted a pretty clear picture of why. Peeking into the master bathroom he saw the mirror shattered, the sink and shower fixtures torn out, and it looked as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to the toilet. After taking a dump in it. And wiping with their mom's favorite Sunday dress.
Her recent death was still a raw open wound of grief, and the sight of that was the last straw. The sheer lack of respect, of humanity . . .
Chet stormed back out into the living room, where his brother was crouched carefully trying to rescue as many family photos as he could. Several were torn, but even so he gingerly pulled them free of their broken frames and shards of glass and made a careful pile of them.
“Don't go into Mom and Dad's room,” Chet told him, voice shaking. “You don't want to see what they did.”
Ben grunted. “I wish we'd been here,” he said bitterly.
Chet did too. Back when they'd been scavenging with Nick they'd been dropping in on the house every few days in the evenings, after an exhausting day's work. There'd been a bit of worry about the place when they went into their 21 days of isolation, but after Jay had ruined that with his biological attack of Zolos-contaminated water balloons they'd decided that they finally should go and check the place.
Only they'd waited too long.
“What're we going to tell Dad?” Ben mumbled, setting aside the photos and dropping his head into his hands. “Losing Mom already hit him so hard, and now this? They put their lives into building this place, and Grandma and Grandpa before them.”
Chet sighed, sinking down next to his brother and wrapping a heavy arm around his shoulders. “At least they didn't burn it down. Most of this can be repaired or replaced.”
“How can they do it?” his brother demanded, rage breaking free across his normally cheerful features. “They act like we desecrated graves or a church or something because we scavenged their houses and took only what
