Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

back. She pushed him away with one hand and pulled at the stuck seatbelt latch with the other. The belt refused to release her from her restraints. Unable to extricate herself from her seat and her ability to fight back ebbing with her blood as it flowed down her neck, she was forced to sit and watch him swallow chunks of her flesh from her face and neck as he set about satiating his hunger. When she brought her hands back up to push him away, he merely bit off fingers and devoured them instead. Her death came slowly and painfully, and her screams were heard by no one.

7.
     
    Shortly after parting ways with Dr. Caldwell, the sun decided to call it a day, making room for the burnt hues of evening. Neil Jordan, through his exhaustion and internal anguish, still forced enough emotion to be amazed by the brevity and beauty of Alaska’s autumn. The golds and reds of the season, like spilled paint, splashed onto the trees in mellow autumnal smiles.
    There was no smile for Neil though. He wasn’t certain that he would ever find it in himself to ever smile again. He tried to remind himself that the melodrama would not please Dr. Caldwell but he couldn’t help his pain. When Dr. Caldwell, who had been bitten, demanded that Neil lead away their small clan of survivors, he obeyed. He did so without thinking or, more importantly and perhaps more tragically, without feeling. The acute ache starting in his chest and then spreading like a miserable disease to his extremities and back again was a powerful force of self-doubt and loathing, but it didn’t rear its poisonous head until it was too late.
    He didn’t doubt the logic of leaving the doctor to his unavoidable fate, but turning their backs on him and leaving him to face it alone seemed a cruel measure. It didn’t matter that he’d asked them to do exactly that. Dr. Caldwell was as much a brother to Neil as anyone in the world, including his actual brother living in Middle America somewhere. Neil felt nothing but guilt and a profound sense of loss, though his faculties were not functioning well enough for him to be able to frame such a rational thought. The cold burn in his chest would not allow it, and he was forced to remember what he wanted to forget
    He regretted their stoic departure. He regretted not having said so many things to his friend. Maybe that was just how it was with loss. He’d never really lost anyone that close to him and was not prepared for the emotional ice pick lodged to the handle in his chest.
    It had only been a few months, not even a season, since they had all come together as desperate survivors. Their experiences bonded them each to the other as tight or tighter than the prototypical nuclear family. Neil had come to depend upon the good doctor’s steadfast rationality and strength, maybe more than anyone else in the group. There wasn’t a single decision or action taken that the doctor had not in some way helped to shape. Whenever Neil faltered, Dr. Caldwell was always willing to hold the reins until Neil regained his direction.
    Neil thought back on his last conversation with Dr. Caldwell and the days leading up to their parting. They’d been fighting for their lives for so long and seeing all hope slowly slip further and further from view. If it wasn’t for the doctor, Neil doubted if they would ever have made it as far as they had. He, as much as anyone, was responsible for keeping them all going. He didn’t deserve the end that he surely faced. No one did, but especially Dr. Caldwell. He was a good man; something of a dying breed. Neil hoped that the doctor’s final moments were at least peaceful.
    Neil wasn’t the only one suffering. They all were. But Emma, she was in a completely different dimension of pain from everyone else. When she finally allowed herself to be pulled away from Dr. Caldwell, she felt a spark of light, tiny and struggling in the deepest recesses of her being, snuffed out and sent away. That beacon’s demise