A Town Called Discovery Read online

  A TOWN CALLED DISCOVERY

  RR HAYWOOD

  Copyright © 2020 by RR Haywood

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Mark Swan.

  ALSO BY RR HAYWOOD

  EXTRACTED SERIES

  EXTRACTED

  EXECUTED

  EXTINCT

  Block-buster Time-Travel

  #1 Amazon US

  #1 Amazon UK

  #1 Audible US & UK

  Washington Post & WSJ Best-seller

  In 2061, a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.

  A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

  Safa Patel is an elite police officer, on duty when Downing Street comes under terrorist attack. As armed men storm through the breach, she dispatches them all.

  'Mad' Harry Madden is a legend of the Second World War. Not only did he complete an impossible mission—to plant charges on a heavily defended submarine base—but he also escaped with his life.

  Ben Ryder is just an insurance investigator. But as a young man he witnessed a gang assaulting a woman and her child. He went to their rescue, and killed all five.

  Can these three heroes, extracted from their timelines at the point of death, save the world?

  THE WORLDSHIP HUMILITY

  #1 Audible bestselling smash hit narrated by Colin Morgan, star of Merlin & Humans.

  #1 Amazon bestselling Science-Fiction

  “A rollicking, action packed space adventure…”

  “Best read of the year!”

  “An original and exceptionally entertaining book.”

  “A beautifully written and humorous adventure.”

  Sam, an airlock operative, is bored. Living in space should be full of adventure, except it isn’t, and he fills his time hacking 3-D movie posters.

  Petty thief Yasmine Dufont grew up in the lawless lower levels of the ship, surrounded by violence and squalor, and now she wants out. She wants to escape to the luxury of the Ab-Spa, where they eat real food instead of rats and synth cubes.

  Meanwhile, the sleek-hulled, unmanned Gagarin has come back from the ever-continuing search for a new home. Nearly all hope is lost that a new planet will ever be found, until the Gagarin returns with a code of information that suggests a habitable planet has been found. This news should be shared with the whole fleet, but a few rogue captains want to colonise it for themselves.

  When Yasmine inadvertently steals the code, she and Sam become caught up in a dangerous game of murder, corruption, political wrangling and...porridge, with sex-addicted Detective Zhang Woo hot on their heels, his own life at risk if he fails to get the code back.

  THE UNDEAD SERIES

  THE UK’s #1 Horror Series

  Available on Amazon & Audible

  “The Best Series Ever…”

  The Undead. The First Seven Days

  The Undead. The Second Week.

  The Undead Day Fifteen.

  The Undead Day Sixteen.

  The Undead Day Seventeen

  The Undead Day Eighteen

  The Undead Day Nineteen

  The Undead Day Twenty

  The Undead Day Twenty-One

  The Undead Twenty-Two

  The Undead Twenty-Three: The Fort

  The Undead Twenty-Four: Equilibrium

  Blood on the Floor

  An Undead novel

  Blood at the Premiere

  An Undead novel

  The Camping Shop

  An Undead novella

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  CONTENTS

  A Town Called Discovery

  Prologue

  1. This beginning

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  9. A town called Discovery

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  20. Monday

  21. The Day After Carpe Diem

  22. Tuesday

  23. The day after Carpe Diem

  24. Wednesday

  25. Thursday

  Chapter 26

  27. Ypres, Belgium, 1917

  28. Discovery

  29. Ypres, Belgium, 1917

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  33. Couples Therapy

  Afterword

  Also by RR Haywood

  A TOWN CALLED DISCOVERY

  RR Haywood

  PROLOGUE

  In the beginning

  She runs between the high hedges on a concrete path. Sprinting with sweat pouring down her face and sodden blue coveralls clinging to her frame. Her bare feet slap the path and somewhere behind her the dogs snarl and bark as they give chase.

  Confusion inside. She has no self. No identity but the terror she felt is now channelled into a burning rage that pushes her on to find him, to hurt him, to kill him.

  Everything hurts and she bleeds from her hands, from her arms and from her feet that leave slick spots of blood on the path she flies over.

  The last corner. The straight section to the door. She screams out to summon energy but she’s so tired now and her face pales with crimson blooms as her vision closes in.

  The dogs breach the corner behind her, leaning into the curve then coming straight to power on in her wake, scenting her blood and her fear and she sprints with everything she has, not breathing, not looking back.

  She can make it. She can reach the door but there’s nothing left to give after that. She can’t do it all again. Please not again.

  The door slams open as she staggers out, readying for the drop but she lands on a concrete path, yelling out at the shock of it and rolling quickly in expectation of the dogs savaging her but they stop at the door, not crossing the threshold.

  She rolls on her back, gasping for air as the foot presses down into her neck. She bucks and heaves, grabbing it with both hands and gurgling at the weight bearing down.

  Cold blue eyes set in a rugged, handsome face stare into hers. The same cold blue eyes she has seen through all of this.

  He smiles like a wolf and holds her pinned while staring into her hazel eyes flecked with green and when he speaks his voice is harsh and bitter. ‘Well done, little Roshi…welcome to Discovery.’

  1

  THIS BEGINNING

  A dream. A nightmare. He is falling through the air towards an ocean of huge rolling waves. He has no self. He has no name. He screams to wake before he hits the surface because everyone knows if you die in a dream you die for real.

  He hits the surface and feels the bones in his legs snap from the impact. Saltwater fills his lungs and where images of his life should be flashing through there is only a void, and in his final seconds of life, he sees an open-topped inflatable boat go whizzing past helmed by a figure i
n a hooded waterproof smock then he sinks down into the water with his vision closing in as his body shuts down to die.

  He screams because he died but he is back to falling through the air still not knowing who he is and the next impact is brutal, breaking both his legs and he drowns in agony, watching the bubbles in the water formed from the spin of the propeller as the boat moves slowly overhead but a heartbeat later he is back to falling again and searches his mind for any trace memory of who he is.

  It happens dozens of times. Over and again. Dropping through the air into an ocean that feels as hard as concrete and each time the same boat is there, helmed by the same hooded figure watching him die. Fear and terror mix with utter confusion to create a hysteria he cannot break free from and he slams into the water, breaking his spine but clings to life as the boat slows and the hooded figure leans over the side.

  ‘Getting boring now.’

  A female voice mocking in a tone that only makes his terror worse and he screams out but the water rushes in to make him choke and gag and drown and die.

  Back to falling, back to screaming, back to abject panic but he spots the figure in the boat holding something in the air above her head. Two white scorecards, both printed with zeros and the figure shakes her head as his scream goes past only to cut off when he hits the surface sending a plume of water into the boat. She leans forward, peering over the edge to watch him flailing in obvious agony from his broken limbs.

  ‘Try not dying?’ she shouts.

  It repeats over and again until he becomes driven to the point of insanity, clawing his own eyes out, punching himself, breaking his own nose and jaw and crushing his own windpipe to make it stop. He hurts himself for the sheer lunacy of it, desperate to do anything to break the cycle. Praying for it to end but it never does. It goes on. Repeating. Over and again. Falling and dying with each an agonising death in perpetuity coupled with an absolute loss of his mind.

  Then, in a split second of lucid thought between the ravings of his alien mind, he spots the figure in the boat standing like a starfish and an image of a skydiver rushes through his mind, except he doesn’t know how he knows that.

  Splaying his arms and legs slows the acceleration. He tries and he dies but gradually learns to angle and position to achieve the best deceleration and the realisation comes that he needs to master how he hits the water.

  A belly flops hurts like mad and near on kills him instantly and headfirst is not a nice sensation as there is a split second of life after the skull pops open in which he knows his brain is on the outside.

  He gains position and glides then at the last second, angles to dive into the water. The impact snaps his neck.

  He tries again and breaks his spine.

  ‘Oh my god this is taking forever,’ she yells, holding her arms out while swamped in the waterproof clothing.

  Position, glide, tuck and he dives into the wave but he goes too deep and the blackness surrounding him renders him unable to know which direction the surface is in. Pure frustration hits but it’s hopeless and in seething fury, he sucks water into his lungs to reset and do it again.

  Fall, position, glide, angle and dive. He goes deep and the second the force of the drop abates so he starts to kick to gain the surface but the pressure from the weight of water stays the same and there is no discernible difference in light. His body demands air, sending signals to his mouth to open and his lungs to breathe in. He kicks harder, using more energy which makes the demand for air only greater. His vision starts closing in. He begs internally not to die again and fights to swim, to live as the urge to breathe in takes over his will and as his mouth opens so his head breaches the surface and he gasps to suck pure beautiful air into his body.

  ‘Well done honey pot,’ the figure in the boat calls out, giving him a slow sarcastic hand clap.

  ‘Help me…’ he gasps, spraying water from his mouth while treading water.

  ‘Er…I just did?’ she guns the engine and powers off as he screams out for her to stop and the last thing he notices, is the name of the boat.

  Discovery.

  2

  Sharp stones cut and dig into his knees and hands as he crawls from the sea, desperate to be away from the waves that crash and threaten to suck him back into the water.

  How he got here is a blur of rising and falling while being carried by huge rolling waves, growing cold and confused until the sea deposited him with a nasty thud and scrape over the shingle and now he crawls, whimpering and bleeding as the waves slam him down and drag him back.

  Finally, he gets far enough away to slump sobbing, naked and terrified on a large flat rock to lie curled up under a driving rain and his mind lessens the immediacy of danger but he still doesn’t know who he is. There is nothing before this. He can give the names of things but when he looks to the back of his hands, he does not recognise them.

  The shore is only a jut of land with the ocean on three sides and the cliff behind him. There is nowhere to go and no sign of ships that he can wave to for help. No aircraft heard in the sky. Nothing. He waits, fretting, panicking, freezing and terrified then screams out in absolute dread on seeing a freak wave surging from the ocean that slams him into the rocks before dragging him out to drown and die.

  An instant later he is back to life with his body scraping over the shingle and once more runs to break free from the waves trying to drag him back out. He stops at the foot of the cliff, gasping for air and desperately looking for a way out while trying to watch the waves crashing on the beach. There is nowhere to go but up and so he starts to climb, weak, shaky, cold and hurting.

  He gets ten metres up when his right-hand slips and he tumbles down to land with a crack of a leg bone-breaking on the rocks below, crying out in agony and horror at his leg now at a right angle from the knee down.

  ‘That wasn’t very good was it,’ the same female voice comes sails clearly from the top of the cliff.

  ‘HELP ME,’ he roars but she doesn’t answer. He bellows and begs as the rain falls and his body heat reduces while his lifeblood pours over the rocks and doesn’t see the huge wave coming again that once more rags him over the rocks before taking him out to die.

  Sharp stones cut and dig into his knees and hands. He tries to run but slips and the waves pull him back. On he goes, fighting and desperate to stagger away from the sea to the flat rock.

  ‘Up you come, bubble-gum,’ the voice sails down, the same one from the boat.

  ‘WHO ARE YOU?’

  ‘You’ve got to climb up, my brave bear.’

  ‘TELL ME WHO I AM!’ he screams so hard his voice breaks.

  ‘Climb up before the wave comes…’

  He starts climbing but the screed is loose, the nooks and crannies wet and slippery when he tries to find purchase. He falls time and again, dying instantly, dying slowly, dying constantly until the face of the cliff is memorised almost intimately while all the time she mocks and goads until finally, with teeth bared he reaches the top and scrabbles to reach a hand over the lip but the grass is too wet to grip and so he tumbles back, screaming out with frustration.

  ‘Oh, that was so close,’ she calls out as he plummets, hitting the rocks to die in searing agony while looking up to a figure leaning over the cliff edge. ‘Next time, buttercup…’

  He reaches the top, grimacing with exertion as he drives his fingers into the wet earth to gain enough purchase to slowly inch his naked body over with his bare arse facing the sky and his naked legs dangling down. A surge of effort and he rolls over the soaking wet grass, gasping for air before coming to rest on his back then screaming in fear and trying to get away but it’s too late.

  ‘YOU KILLED ME,’ he roars from the shore after running from the waves once more.

  ‘Sorry,’ she calls down in a sing-song voice. ‘Try again.’

  ‘Why? What did I do?’

  ‘Come back up, my brave tiger and we’ll chat.’

  ‘NO.’

  ‘The wave will come.’ />
  With dread in his gut, he reaches the top to peer over the edge to a black-robed figure with a heavy cowl over its head staring down at gloved hands resting on the shaft of a woodcutter axe. The same axe that cut through his neck when he rolled onto his back. She doesn’t speak or move and with mere seconds to go before his grip gives out, he climbs over.

  He waits at the base again never realising there was such pain as having his dick chopped off. It was worse than when he bit through his tongue. Worse than when his bones jutted from his skin. Worse than all of them.

  ‘YOU CHOPPED MY DICK OFF.’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘My dick,’ he mutters, climbing up again. ‘My actual dick…’ he stops to look down at it, shaking his head at the surrealness and the abstract existence of whatever this is.

  An idea forms and he climbs faster, reaching the top to check her position before springing up to his feet and grabbing fistfuls of the robe as the axe bites in his shoulder. The agony is searing but no worse than any other time he has died and he throws himself backwards off the cliff while gripping the robe to take her with him, and as they plummet so the cowl comes down and his world fills with raven black hair and hazel almond shaped eyes flecked with green set in flawless skin above full lips that smile to show a tiny gap between her front teeth and the scent of cherry blossom fills his nose as she laughs without fear. ‘Good try handsome…’ they hit the rocks and death once more claims his mind.