Alone: Book 1: Facing Armageddon (25 page)

     “I assume you’re a prepper too?”

     Dave was caught off guard by the question. He didn’t know how to respond.

     Frank laughed.

     “I’ll assume from the night vision goggles and bunny rabbits and seeds that you are. It’s okay. I am too. But I have to say I’m impressed about the whole rabbit thing. I wish I’d thought of keeping them myself.

     “Since you’re out of the loop, Dave, let me fill you in on some things. Like I said, I’m a prepper too. One of the things I saved from the magnetic blast was a ham radio. It was always a hobby of mine. There are twenty of us around the city and county who have working radios, and we’ve been sharing notes.

     “FEMA is on the scene. Don’t ask me how, but they’ve got working helicopters and vehicles. Not many, and I don’t know how they got them, but maybe it’s one of those things you just shouldn’t ask.

     “Anyway, they’re saying they don’t have a lot of resources to pass out, but they’re going house to house pulling out dead bodies. They’re putting them in the streets in big piles and burning them. They say it’s to prevent disease from spreading and killing the survivors. Although I haven’t decided yet which is worse. The stench from the bodies or the stench from the fires.”

     Dave pondered the information carefully. It pretty much confirmed what he’d suspected.

     He didn’t know why, but he blurted out some information he shouldn’t have.

     “They probably bypassed the onboard comput
er and installed a new ignition.”

     “Beg your pardon?”

     Dave regretted opening his mouth, but the cat was out of the bag now. And he felt he could trust this friendly sheriff’s deputy, so he went on.

     “If they saved the right parts in a Faraday cage, they could replace some of the components on a vehicle and get it running again. All they’d need is a good starter solenoid, a new ignition switch, fuses and battery. They could bypass everything else and run the new ignition directly through the battery to the starter.”

     “Well, I’ll be damned. That’s another thing I never thought about.”

     Dave looked worried, even through the goggles.

     “Don’t worry, friend. I’ll keep that bit of information to myself. I’ll assume you just heard that rumor, and have no working car parts yourself.”

     Dave breathed a sigh of relief.

     “Yes. That’s right.”

    Frank smiled a broad smile that Dave sensed was genuine.

     “I won’t keep you, Dave. You have a reputation to maintain, so I’ll let you be on your way. We’ll talk another time, I hope. I won’t invade your territory. But Eva and I are always here if we can help you in any way.”

     “What did you mean, I have a reputation to maintain?”

     “Oh, I guess you really don’t know, do you?”

     “Know what?”

     “The survivors… there are only a few dozen within a square mile now. They’ve pretty much relegated you to sainthood. They call you ‘God’s messenger that comes in the night.’ They don’t know who you are, but they know of your work. And they appreciate it.”

     “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just a desire to share what I have.”

     “Don’t sell yourself short, Dave. Whether you know it or not, you’ve saved a lot of lives. And even more than that, you’ve restored hope. A lot of families have crops of corn and wheat now to get them through the winter. They have a means to collect water. They’re getting protein occasionally by eating one of the rabbits. It’s not much to you, but to them it’s everything in the world.”

     Dave didn’t know what to say.

     Frank held out his hand again and Dave took it.

     “As I said, I won’t keep you. But I will offer my help. Anything you need that I can do to help your cause, you say the word. You can find me here, day and night.”

     “Okay, Frank. I’ll remember that, and thank you.”

     “No problem. Keep doing what you’re doing, my friend, and God bless you.”

     Dave finished his rounds, leaving the rest of the
seed bags on various abandoned cars around the neighborhood. He was surprised to find out there were so few survivors left.

     And he hoped the ones who were left could make it through the harsh winter to come.

     There had been enough dying already.

Thank you for reading

ALONE, Book 1.

It was a fun book to write. I hope you enjoyed it.

The next book in this series will be titled

ALONE, Book 2

AN UNKIND WINTER

      In
An Unkind Winter
, Mother Nature plays a cruel trick by delivering one of the harshest winters on record. Dave joins forces with Frank and Eva to help the weaker of the neighbors survive from day to day.

     Not everybody makes it.

     But Dave does, and he misses Sarah and the girls more and more with each passing day.

     He finally can’t stand the separation any more and starts planning his incredible journey, a thousand miles to the north, to retrieve his family and bring them back home.

ALONE, Book 2

AN UNKIND WINTER

Will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in
October, 2014.

Please enjoy this preview of

BREAKOUT:

BREAKOUT

is Book 3 in the “Final Dawn” series, and is available now at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com

     Hannah hadn’t slept in a real bed for a very long time. For six and a half years she and Mark had slept on a four inch mattress in the back of a recreational vehicle, deeply hidden within an abandoned salt mine.

     Oh, the mattress wasn’t that bad. Not really. And considering that most of the world was dying outside the mine while she was able to sleep safely at night, she really had nothing to complain about.

     But now that the group had finally broken out of the mine and ventured out into a brave new world, Hannah was looking forward to a real bed, soft and warm and big enough to stretch out in.

     And now, on their very first night outside the mine and in a nearby walled compound, she was sleeping like a baby.

     Was.

     But not any more.

     Little Markie, almost six and a total mini-me of his father, crawled into bed beside her and poked his finger into her cheek. Three times.

     “Mommy, are you awake?”

     Hannah was now somewhere between slumber and consciousness, in that foggy zone where one isn’t sure whether or not they’re dreaming.

     But she sure hoped she was.

     Then she felt it again. The tapping of the finger. And the accompanying words: “Mommy, are you awake?”

     “No, honey. Mommy is sleeping.”

    
Please be a dream. Please be a dream.

     “Mommy, I’m afraid.”

     Nothing gets a mother’s attention faster than a child who’s afraid. Hannah’s eyes were instantly open, her mind immediately searching for whatever had frightened her dear child.

     She looked at Markie, lying in the bed beside her.

     “Afraid of what, little sailor?”

     “I don’t like this place. I want to go home.”

     Her heart sank.

     She lifted up the covers so little Markie could crawl inside with her and Mark. Then she patted her pillow. “Lay your little head right here and snuggle with Mommy. Tell me why you’re afraid.”

     “I don’t like my new bed. I want to go home.”

     “Honey, we
are
home. We just stayed in the other place while we were waiting for it to get light again outside. And waiting for it to be warm again, so we could come out of the mine. This will be our home from now on. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

     The cramped RV in the back of the mine was the only home Markie had ever known.

     “No. I don’t like it. I’m scared.”

     “Why don’t you like it, honey? What scares you about it?”

     “My bed is way too big. It’s big enough for monsters to live in. I don’t want to wake up and find monsters in my bed. And I can’t see you and Daddy from my new bed. I could see you and Daddy before, except when you closed the door. And then I could see the door. But I can’t even see your door from my new bed. And I’m scared.”

     “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

     She held him close.

     “I know for a fact that no monsters will ever get in your bed. No monsters are allowed in this building. Your daddy put a big sign out in front that says ‘Monsters Go Away.’ So all of the monsters have to go bother somebody else. They can’t even come in here.”

     “Can’t they break in?”

     “Nope. We have monster proof locks. We had to order them special from the Monster Proof Store. And your silly daddy, he hung them upside down the first time. So Uncle Bryan had to come and show him how to do it right.”

     “Daddy
is
pretty silly, huh?”

     “You got that right, little buddy. He’s sillier than all the sand on the beach.”

     “No, Mommy. He’s sillier than all the stars in the sky.”

     “No, little sailor. He’s sillier than all the water in the ocean.”

     Markie’s face grew serious.

     “Mommy?”

     “Yes, sir?”

     “I’ve never seen those things… stars and beaches and oceans. Except in picture books. Will I ever get to see them for real?”

     She brushed aside some hair that had fallen into eyes.

     “Oh, yes. Maybe not the ocean. We’re very far away. And the beaches, well, they’re the oceans’ next door neighbors. We’ll try to take you to see both of them someday. But the stars, the stars live right here with us in our new home.”

     “They do? For the reals?”

     “Yes, sir. For the reals.”

     “When can I see them?”

     “I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow night we’ll ask Daddy how to get up to the roof. And we’ll all go up there, and if it’s not too cloudy, maybe we can see the stars. Oh, and maybe even the moon too.”

     His eyes grew as big as saucers.

     “The moon too?”

     “Yep. If it’s out. Sometimes it hides for a few days.”

     “Oh, I hope it’s not hiding. I want to see it
and
the stars.”

     Hannah turned her head to look at Mark. He was still sleeping like a baby, his mouth open and a long line of drool soaking his pillow. He very softly snored, but not enough to keep anyone else from sleeping.

     That, apparently, was little Markie’s job.

     “Honey, if Mommy lets you snuggle and sleep with her tonight, can we figure out what to do about your bed tomorrow?”

     “Okay, deal. And can we put a ‘Monsters Go Away’ sign on my bedroom door, just in case they accidentally get in?”

     “Okay, deal.”

     He snuggled against Hannah’s bosom and put his arm around her. Or at least as far as it would reach. She held him close.

     But before she drifted back to sleep, her curiosity got the best of her.

     “Markie?”

     “Yes, Mommy?”

     “How come every time you get scared, you always wake me up instead of your daddy?”

     “Because you’re softer.”

Please enjoy this preview of

THE CLEANSING:

THE CLEANSING

is available now at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com

     Ron Bennett was a scumbag. Not in his own eyes, of course. He thought quite highly of himself. As a former President of the United States, he was well known, and people paid him lip service and told him how great he was everywhere he went. But they did that to every former President, simply because, well, how often does the average person ever get a chance to meet one?