Day One (Book 1): Alive Read Online Free PDF Page A

door!”
    I wasted no time, as they left the front of my vehicle, and floored it. The tires spun on the wet pavement and caught traction a second later. A few of the violent people turned from the Officer and gave chase, only to stop a block later and head back toward the station. I tried to watch in the rear view mirror for as long as I could, hoping that the Officer who had come out and told me to leave would let the man in. The door never opened and as they hit him I rounded the corner.
    I sped down Main Street, not worrying the slightest about being pulled over, watching the darkened sky light with the fires from homes, shops, schools, cars, and lightning. They were everywhere and it looked like hell on earth to me, as if the very Gates of Hell had burst open allowing every evil thing to take up residence in the small town. It was sickening to see and I fought to keep what I had for dinner earlier that night in my stomach. A sudden onslaught of the painkillers surged through me and I felt a euphoric state of mind glass over my worried filled eyes.
    The rain fell heavier as I neared the center of town, which offered me a brighter glimpse into the ghastly pits of hell. People ran down the sidewalks, frightened for their lives as they were chased. Some were not fast enough and were run down, quickly overwhelmed by small groups of five to seven of those things. Everywhere I looked there was death. I was glad that my Daughter was asleep and unable to see what was happening all around her.
    Several times people would run in front of me, hoping that I would stop and help them or run them down so they didn’t have to face the wretched things chasing them any longer. I instead swerved and sped up, to avoid any further mishaps that might render us vulnerable and open to more attacks. I had been lucky so far and if there was anything I knew about luck, it was that eventually it runs out.
    The sting of the cowardly man within surfaced. I felt like a traitor to those poor people. People I had known since I was a small boy. Now they were being murdered in front of me and instead of stopping to help, as a normal person would have done, I just sped up and never looked back. I left them.
    I left them all to die.
    I ran like the coward I had once been called.
    You cannot do anything to help any of them, and the moment you try… well, you know what will happen then. Just get to the interstate where the National Guard is. They are better equipped to handle a situation like this than you are. My mind told him, although I didn’t feel any better in listening to it. The cowardly feeling crawled all over me until I could actually feel it moving like an insect swarming my skin.
    As the edge of town slipped closer and the street lights grew fainter, the dark unknown grew brighter and I found myself thinking about the people I knew personally. And I wondered if they were alright? Wondered if they were still alive and had heard about the containment area at the interstate, or if they had been murdered like so many others.
    The need to text or call them forced me to grab my phone from the cup holder, which diverted my eyes from the road for only a split second. But who would I text first? Or better yet, what would I say to them? It’s not like there was a plan for what was happening, because had there been then it never would have transpired. I scanned through my contacts, shifting between the bright screen and the dimly lit road ahead – back and forth.
    I can say with all honesty that things do happen in the split seconds it takes for us to blink, look at the radio or text and drive. I never actually saw the person, just heard their screams of terror and looked up to see a woman trying to get out of my way. It was too late. The SUV struck her, casting her flailing body through the air like a ragdoll. The sound of locked wheels sliding on the pavement raced outward and the vehicle came to a stop sideways.
    “Holy shit!” I said, still braced