We climbed a small hill, Scott holding up a fist to tell us to stop when he was able to see over the crest. We froze in place, listening and watching his hand as well as continually scanning our individual zones. A moment later he snapped his hand fully open, extending all five fingers before m...
Over the past week I’d been putting a lot of thought into how we would get to Arizona. I’d stared at maps for hours, made notes, calculated how fast we could move and made lists of equipment we’d need to carry once we left the relative security of the boat. Rachel had asked to see what I was do...
Reaching the back, I raised the gate and released a spring loaded piece of vinyl that was stretched from the back of the rear seat to the inside of the back door. It was designed to conceal whatever cargo was being carried from view through the large, rear window.Beneath it, a large, gunmetal g...
“So where from here?” Rachel asked as she pushed an empty plate towards the middle of the table. “North for a little, then turn west.” I answered around a mouthful of food. “I still think avoiding Nashville is a very good idea.” Rachel nodded then leaned across the table and stole some of the f...
If I had to guess, I’d say the dent in the earth was made by an ancient meteor strike. The terrain for the past several miles had been perfectly flat, then for the past few hundred yards we had made a gentle climb to reach the lip. Spread out below us was a perfect circle, pressed fifty feet in...
Still, I kept a sharp ear out for the sounds of approaching aircraft. I’d already prepared the girls on what to do if I heard one. On either side of the road was open desert with large tracts of barren desert between occasional outcroppings of rock. If I gave the word, we were going to do our ...
They encountered the occasional infected, Dog warning them in advance each time with a low growl. So far it had only been males, many of them in horrible physical condition, but they were expecting a screaming attack from a female at any moment. They didn’t bother to kill the males, the pitiful...
Pulling up a security system window, she spent several minutes going through the logs. She was looking for any record of one of her co-workers having accessed the data stream specific to Major Chase. None of them had, but there was something else she needed to check. Closing the security logs, ...
“I got separated from my laptop in the confusion of your arrest, but I’ve got the Navy working on reviewing sat imagery and tracking the helicopter. I’ll call them as soon as we get to the Colonel.” He said, never taking his eyes off the road. Nodding, I leaned back in the seat and let out a f...
The two-lane road at the bottom of the exit was obscured with muddy water that had washed onto it through a break in an adjacent dike. The heavy Lexus navigated the axle deep water without any drama, wrapping me in the luxury of its air conditioning and ventilated seats. This was the most comfo...
and I was falling. My brain sped up and wasted a blink of time thinking it was either termites or dry rot that had weakened the board, then my feet and legs were thrashing at the infecteds’ eye level. The rafter that had snapped had a couple of exposed nail heads and my rifle’s sling had caught...
The female was small, a girl somewhere in her early teens actually, and while she was fast and ferocious she just didn’t have enough mass to be very strong. Holding her snapping teeth at bay with the RG-6, I freed a hand that had been tangled in its sling and grabbed a fistful of her long hair. ...