Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Read online

  The 2nd THREE Irish End Game Books

  4-5-6

  Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  Blind Sided

  Rising Tides

  Cold Comfort

  It's the second 3 books in the Irish End Game series that takes an average American family and puts them in the middle of a post-apocalyptic melt-down in a rural setting in Ireland. Blind Sided is Book 4 and shows what happens when people who have lost their faith turn to the next best thing—no matter how bloody. Book 5, Rising Tides, continues the saga when John travels to Wales to find his step brother, Gavin and finds, instead, a world plague ready to decimate all of Europe. Book 6, Cold Comfort, is the chilling result brought home to Ameriland when a ruthless opportunist takes advantage in a post-apocalyptic world. The Irish End Game is a thrilling page-turner that will have you stocking your pantry for the apocalypse and wondering how well you really know your neighbors.

  The adventure continues!

  Blind Sided

  Book 4 of the Irish End Game Serie

  When the world comes crashing down around you, it’s important to believe in something…

  After four years of living in a post-apocalyptic world one thing Mike and Sarah know is that nothing ever stays the same. Just when life had begun to settle down—and all their immediate needs met—a threat comes at them from a totally unexpected source.

  Not England or roaming bands of thugs, not the US or even the Middle East. This time it’s the land itself—the very bushes and trees of Ireland that they’ll have to protect themselves from.

  Could the bomb have opened an ancient portal long kept shut? Could there really be fairies and mystical beings running through the woods? Or is the evil that's creeping out of that portal something very, very human?

  BLIND SIDED

  Book 4 in the I

  rish End Game Series

  Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  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 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  PROLOGUE

  The evening air was warm on Maeve’s skin. Her mum would shite if she could see exactly how much skin Maeve was exposing to the air tonight but then her mum had never been young and certainly had never caught the eye of someone like Jimmy O’Sullivan.

  Maeve stretched her arms over her head in a languid move that made her sister, Gael, turn to look at her.

  “He won’t meet you here, you know,” Gael said. “It’s too public.”

  “He will.”

  Maeve smiled to herself. She was sure the crackle of the bonfire in the center of the lake could be heard for thirty kilometers. The sparks from the highest point of the conflagration snapped and exploded against the dark blue sky. Maeve loved summer solstice. To think they never used to celebrate it before the bomb dropped!

  The summer festival was always so much fun—the food, the laughter, the music. The rest of the year was nothing but hard work and hunger, but Midsummer Eve was heaven. Even better than Christmas. Especially now that Christmas wasn’t presents and pigging out any more but shivering and moldy potatoes saved from the summer harvest.

  Maeve’s eyes took in the vision of the flames shooting out of the bonfire. It was stacked twenty feet high and floated on its own raft in the middle of the lake. An hour ago, when it was lit, a chorus of cheers erupted from the crowd of neighbors and family.

  She scanned the group. Jimmy would be here. She knew he would. And if the way he’d been looking at her was any indication, she was pretty sure she could add another special memory to Midsummer after tonight. She glanced at Gael. Normally, she loved spending time with her twin. They were inseparable, sure they were. But tonight she would need Gael to be on her own for a bit.

  “You’re not even watching the bonfire,” Gael admonished her. “I tell you, he won’t come to you. He’s got a girlfriend.”

  Gael was obviously jealous. Maeve felt a twinge of pity for her sister. It wasn’t looks, of course. They were identical in that way. But Gael was mousey and quiet. Lads liked a bit of fire in their lasses. They liked some spirit. Maeve grinned. One thing her mum had always said was that Maeve had enough spirit for both girls. And while Mum hadn’t said it like it was a good thing, Maeve knew better.

  She heard the footsteps come from behind but she didn’t turn around. Best not to appear too eager. Some things hadn’t changed even from her mum’s time. She slipped an arm around Gael as though oblivious to his approach, as though she hadn’t been waiting for him at all. As though she wasn’t ready to fall into his arms the minute he snapped his fingers.

  Unfortunately, Gael didn’t appear to understand the game because she jerked out of Maeve's embrace and turned to face him.

  “Oh!” Gael said, her hand to her mouth. “You startled me, creeping up on us like that.”

  He was bigger than Maeve remembered and it suddenly occurred to her that she’d never really been that close to Jimmy before. They’d only ever exchanged winks and grins while bringing the goats in from the pasture or sitting across the evening cookfires.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Jimmy said, a sly grin cracking his handsome face. His eyes flickered from sister to sister.

  That was bold, Maeve thought, annoyed that he didn’t address only her. Was it possible he couldn’t tell them apart?

  “Well, here I am,” Maeve said. She tossed her head and looked back at the bonfire to show she didn’t care at all that he was there.

  “Shall we take a walk?” he said, his hand resting on Maeve's arm. “Some place a little less crowded?”

  Maeve turned to inform him as tartly as she knew how that she was comfortable right where she was when she noticed he didn’t just have his hand on her arm.

  He had his other hand on Gael's arm. And Gael was looking into his eyes like she was mesmerized.

  Maeve held her chin high as she attempted to pull her arm from his grasp.

  “Is it the two of us you’ll be wanting, then?” she asked. “Because we are not a matched set.”

  “We aren’t,” Gael said breathily, her eyes focused on Jimmy’s. The reflection of the burning bonfire created shadows over the planes of his cheeks, making him look strangely…demonic. “And yet we are.”

  Was she daft? Maeve looked from her sister to Jimmy. Now his eyes were on Maeve. And only Maeve. His mouth softened into a smile and for a moment Maeve imagined those lips on hers. A small sigh escaped her.

  “Shall we go?” he said again, putting his hand back on Maeve's arm.

  This time she let him pull her away from the crowd and the noise and the hum of the festival. Away and into the dark forest around them.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sarah didn’t like being this far from the compound.

  At least not on foot. She shifted the bag of bandages, antibiotics and pain meds on her shoulder and turned to look at her sister-in-law Fiona who had stopped in the middle of the dusty road to rearrange the heavy gun belt on her hips.

  “Why don’t you just get Mickey to make you one of your own?” Sarah said, frowning. “You’re about fifty poun
ds lighter than Declan. You need your own holster.”

  “This works fine, ta,” Fiona said, grimacing as she jerked at the belt.

  “I’ll bet your hip is rubbed raw with it. Honestly, Fi, you are the stubbornest person I ever met.”

  “I’m that sure you’re talking about yourself,” Fi said. She hurried to catch up.

  The road back to the compound was full of ruts and holes. Four years earlier, before the EMP obliterated all electronics in Ireland, this had been a well-maintained paved road. Now, with horses and wagons the main mode of transportation, it was often easier to walk on the verge of it or around it than actually on it.

  “We couldn’t have taken the horses?” Sarah said.

  “We probably should have,” Fiona admitted. “I didn’t remember it was so far.”

  It was Mike’s fault anyway, Sarah thought as she stumbled over a rock in the damaged road. If he hadn’t had this idea that as the inhabitants of New Dublin—or whatever the villagers were calling the compound now—they were responsible for those in the outlying areas, she and Fiona would not be spending two days every month tramping all over the countryside dispensing food and medicine to the poor. Not that Sarah begrudged that. Not at all.

  It was true that this part of Ireland had more harshly felt the effects of the dirty bomb that had exploded over the Irish Sea four years ago. At least more than other areas closer to the bigger villages and towns. It had been a long hard four years of learning to farm, finding alternate ways of communication and travel, and learning to survive. And in the end, most people in the outlying villages had struggled unsuccessfully to grasp the necessary skills—even at the cost of their own lives.

  The compound was now the only town outside of Limerick for over five hundred miles that behaved almost as much as any town in pre-Crisis times. They had working electric interior lights, motion-activated flood lights, a satellite phone for emergency contact with the outside world, a Jeep Wrangler in addition to a larger truck, C4 explosives, a cache of semi-automatic weapons, and enough medical supplies to outfit a small clinic.

  When Sarah returned from the States last year with nearly everything the average American Wal-Mart had in its inventory, the camp changed from a collection of tents and huts with a bunch of teenagers patrolling the perimeter, to a well-fortified town with enough food and medicine to make the last four years feel like they’d never happened.

  To everyone living within its walls, anyway.

  Sarah knew the villagers were counting on the new mill Mike was building to provide them with work and with a guaranteed supply of flour for the hard years ahead. Mike had sent teams out last summer to teach the locals how to farm and fish. But come autumn, they still had nothing in their larders and storage cellars.

  Along with his son Gavin and Sarah’s son John, Mike had driven a truck full of corn, potatoes and smoked bacon to two villages last week. Even though it had only been four years since gas-powered vehicles were seen in Ireland, the truck was looked upon by the villagers like it was powered by angels and pixie dust—so amazed were they to see an operating vehicle again.

  “I’m not even sure we’re doing any good,” Sarah said. “One guy in Ballinagh had a foot that was badly infected but when I tried to give him the antibiotics he just asked me if I could bring whiskey next time.”

  “Aye, well,” Fiona said and shrugged. “Life’s hard now, sure it is. Mike should let them come live in the compound.”

  “You know he won’t. And you know why,” Sarah said.

  But when Sarah thought of Mike’s edict, it saddened her. It was one thing for her to want to close the doors. She always was a little stand-offish—but Mike was an arms-open-wide kind of guy. Until last year, he hadn’t known a stranger. But that was last year.

  “I feel like Lady Got-Rocks,” she said, “going around dispensing bandaids and ibuprofen like some benign pharmacy fairy. Why can’t we just give the extra food and medicine to the priest? Isn’t that where the charity should be coming from? This is embarrassing.”

  “Nobody likes charity no matter who it’s coming from,” Fiona said. “When work on the mill gets under way, it’ll be different.”

  Mike had marked out a stretch of land outside the compound where the grist mill was to be built. Sarah had to admit the idea was brilliant. Not only because the people needed a food source that wasn’t based on electricity but because they needed to work.

  “You’re just grumbling because your feet hurt,” Fiona continued. “Besides, not everyone goes to the priest. Or likes him, come to that.”

  “What are you talking about? Father Ryan? Why wouldn’t they like him?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, Sarah, but some say he rubs them wrong. Besides, most people have their pride and coming hat-in-hand to the local vicar—who would likely insist they stay for mass—is asking a lot from people who are already hard put upon.”

  “Yeah, I can see where it’d be easier taking a handout from Mike and his Yank wife than sitting through an hour of church.”

  Sarah didn’t feel as annoyed as she was sure she sounded. While the trip seemed like a lot of work for very little, the fact that Mike asked her to do it was all that really mattered. It was possible he was assuaging his guilt over not allowing anyone new into the compound. She wouldn’t make it harder on him, in that case. These were his people after all.

  Even if half the time they were trying to kill him and everyone he held dear.

  “Oh!” Fiona gave a gasp and stopped walking. Sarah turned to see what she was looking at. They were passing a broken down cottage on the side of the road—which didn’t mean it wasn’t inhabited. In the years since the bomb, cottages rotated through several different owners as people left for the towns—or England if they thought it might be better there—or were driven out by bandits and hooligans. The cottages stood vacant until gypsies or other wanderers moved in for a night or a month.

  Before the bomb, a barking dog would alert you to the fact that the house was inhabited. These days that was rarely the case. As food became scarce, so did people’s pets. A pack of once-domestic, now feral dogs lived near the compound. They weren’t yet a problem to face but Sarah knew they would be some day.

  “What is it?” Sarah asked, squinting at the house. The door was shut but a front window was open. A curtain fluttered inside and Sarah glimpsed a blue dish on the sill.

  “Nothing,” Fiona said. She turned away but Sarah could tell she was troubled.

  “Don’t make me go over there and see for myself, Fiona. As you’ve already pointed out, my feet hurt.”

  “It’s a dish of milk,” Fiona said, motioning to the road ahead of them. “Let’s shake a leg or we’ll miss dinner.”

  “Since we’ll be the ones making it, that’s not bloody likely,” Sarah said, still standing in the road. “What the hell is a dish of milk doing in a window sill?”

  “Will you come on, then, Sarah Donovan?” Fiona said peevishly. “I’ll tell you as we walk if you’re that intent.”

  Sarah hurried to catch up to Fiona who was walking quickly now as though she was trying to put distance between her and the cottage.

  “Have you not heard any of the gossip at all?” Fiona asked.

  “What gossip? And where would I hear it from?”

  “From the village we just spent the day tramping around? Did nobody say a word to you?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m the last person they’d tell any secrets to.”

  “Well, sure, it’s not secrets, precisely, they’ll be keeping.”

  “Come on, Fiona. We’ve got two miles before home. Don’t make me spend every step of it digging this out of you. The gossip. Spill it.”

  Fiona scanned the sides of the road. “Sure, I don’t believe it myself, mind. But there is talk in the villages about someone who claimed that he saw something in the forest.”

  “I’ll bite. What did he see in the forest?”

  “Something not possible to see.”


  “Okay, Fiona, you know how I said I had two miles to hear this story no matter how long it took?”

  “Sarah, it’s just superstition but to rural people around these parts—”

  “Up until four years ago, these rural people all had computers and iPods. So what are you trying to say?”

  “I heard from two different sources that somebody claimed to see the trees in Daughton’s Way…walking.”

  “Wait. You mean as in…walking?”

  “It’s just silly gossip, Sarah. From a group of superstitious people who are likely to believe anything they hear, no matter how daft.”

  They walked in silence for a moment before Sarah spoke again. “So what does that have to do with the house with the dish in the window?”

  Fiona sighed and quickened her pace. “Nothing,” she said. “Only me old granny used to tell the tale that if you wanted to call the fairies to do your bidding, sure, you’d leave a dish of milk on a window sill.”

  “The fairies.”

  “Sarah, I’m as sure as you are that it’s all stuff and nonsense. I’m an educated woman, you know.”

  “Then how come you’re acting like you’ve just seen a ghost?”

  *****

  Mike stood in the observation tower at the north wall of the compound. Climbing the wooden ladder in order to squeeze into the two-man room at the top of the structure had left him with a pounding heart. He hated heights.

  Tommy Donaghue sat in front of the video screen. Tommy was a good lad, a little older than Mike’s boy Gavin and brilliant with electronics. Since the bomb—and before Sarah came back with her Santa’s bag of goodies last year—Tommy hadn’t had much opportunity to demonstrate his skills. Now he was able to keep things running and while the screen wasn’t connected to the Internet—that would still be years off—it was connected to six strategically placed video cameras in order to monitor the main entry points of the compound.