Annihilation (The Seamus Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

erected in her own makeshift shelter from bad things. I can’t help but sit down next to her. She is too sweet to ever be in pain or fear. Grace has cried during movies before. She cries during scary movies, dramatic movies and almost always Gracie will even find a point to cry in funny movies. But I know this is different. The movie is just white noise. Everyone’s mind is elsewhere. Well, maybe except Liam’s, I think when he laughs loudly at the next funny part of the movie.
    “What was that movie we saw for your birthday?” Liam asks. We’ve been to the movies for my last seven birthdays, so he’s not really narrowing anything down for me. This is how he is.
    “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I say, but this is our dynamic, so he is already adding useless details that he knows will jog my memory. The fact is, though, that I was able to make the connection with the way his mind works. He’s thinking about “The Hunger Games,” which we saw for my thirteenth birthday.
    Now my mind is racing again. Government-controlled rations, government-controlled health stasis. Could this “killer cold” have been created by the government as a weapon? Is it being unleashed only on the states that do not support the current president? He would have plausible deniability and the states that support him would never question the truth. It seems vaguely possible. We don’t know anyone in the Midwest or middle America. Everyone we are trying to connect with is on one of the coasts. The liberal coasts. Of course, with New England and California gone, the United States is left with the “strong American heartland.” The bulk of the population is erased, and all that is left is hard-working Republican farmers.
    The phone rings. It scares us all, but there is no movement. I don’t know how much wine Dad has had but I know he’ll answer. I’ll have to come back to my conspiracy theory later.
    “Ryan calm down. Let me come pick you up, it’ll be okay,” Dad says into the phone as he walks into the family room.
    The BANG is audible through the phone. Dad yells “NO!” but it’s a futile gesture. Uncle Ryan is dead. He was a really great uncle, but right now I’m not sad.
    “Dad, was he coughing?”
    “No. He was fine. Healthy like us,” he says, followed by a long silence.
    “Aunt Stacie and the twins were sick yesterday. They died this morning some time. But Uncle Ryan was fine. He was just sad. He loved them so much he didn’t want to go on without them.” Dad is staring out the door, talking to himself, mostly. There was another adult close by that he knows and cares about and who survived the “killer cold”— but now he’s gone.
    The “killer cold” did not affect my dad and Uncle Ryan. I share some of their DNA, so I am optimistic about my chances. I wonder if Grace and Liam think about their chances for long-term survival.
    Grace was born in China to parents she never knew and has no way to trace. For all we know, they could also be alive. Or they could have died years ago in an accident, from cancer or starvation. I wonder if this has an effect on her outlook for life. She has always been able to just deal with things the way they are. It’s not ignorance or acceptance; more like understanding. But she never dwells on anything or lets what could have been affect her dreams or goals. I think that if she isn’t sick now she will survive.
    Liam is in a similar but different situation. He knew his first family in Ethiopia, his parents, his sisters and his aunt. He was young but somewhere in his brain he must remember their faces and voices. He also knows that his parents passed away years ago. Their deaths were listed as “high blood pressure” and “weak heart,” which are pretty general descriptions. His extended family tried to keep him but could not. They barely had the resources to provide food for themselves. His relatives may have survived, but how can we ever get in touch with