Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours Read Online Free PDF

internet disappearing. It was too much. An overload. She found herself on the street outside her house.
    Crying.
    Quietly weeping.
    An absurdity. Crying in the street.
    Tears were nothing new, but they were a thing that she hid, indulged in private. To find herself in a public place with a wet face was beyond imagining. Too ridiculous for words. It was a fair indication of the dreadful state of things.
    She was familiar with being alone.
    Philosophically.
    Emotionally.
    But not in the reality of a dead world.
    <><><>
    When they were changing, when her parents were slowly metamorphosing into something unknowable, Angela retreated to her core.
    She rediscovered the essence of being alone.
    There was no one but you.
    She paid more attention to her mother. Monitored her stepfather, but always ended up at her mother’s side.
    Watched in horrified awe as hair fell away and body seemed to shrink and be redefined.
    Skin tightening to a leathery, striated shell that covered a skeletal frame.
    Watched in stunned silence as jaw deformed and hands and feet became taloned weapons that didn’t belong on a human being.
    <><><>
    When they woke up, she killed.
    And ran.
    A knife from the kitchen. Taken from a broken drawer.
    Plunged repeatedly into a mother that was a twisted parody of what she had been. There was no choice, it was kill or be killed.
    When her stepfather began to rise, she fled. Despite desperately wanting to kill.
    She’d been fleeing ever since.
     
    Angela Gacek loved black.
    Believed that she had a dark soul.
    The belief would be tested.



Chapter 6
Crossing
    Pearcey gunned the engine and the car growled. A subdued roar, a deep rumbling vibration that only hinted at the power that was available to him.
    Carlton Pearcey understood driving and was good at it.
    He loved cars.
    Just as he loved reading and art and architecture. They were things that he treasured in his heart but never talked about. He wasn’t any expert with the arts, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take pleasure from them.
    The things in which he did have expertise were things that gave him no joy. Weapons and violence and death.
    They had at first. Those awful interests. They’d lifted him beyond what he was.
    When he was younger.
    When time and life didn’t seem so precious. Back then, being big and good with a gun and able to break stuff was a heady mix.
    Intoxicating.
    An infatuation.
    It lasted a fair while and then began to diminish.
    Like old photographs, some things fade.
     
    In seconds, they were accelerating wildly. Devouring the short span of the bridge like the short dash it should have been.
    It was straightforward.
    He slewed the Jag left and right as he dodged stalled vehicles. No problem, driving at speed through obstacles.
    And then slammed the superb brakes. Tested their quality and was impressed.
    There was a motorcycle.
    Lying across the road and preventing any further progress. No driving over it, not if he wanted to go much further after that.
    What looked like a body lay close to it.
    Pearcey rested his hands on the steering wheel and let out a breath. Wanted to scream with frustration.
    Nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever fucking simple.
    “I’m gonna have to drag that out of the way.”
    He looked at Gallagher but he didn’t need to explain. The mechanics were obvious to someone like Sonny.
    “It’ll be easier with two.”
    Gallagher didn’t elaborate, just stroked the door release and got out.
    Pearcey followed and then overtook him.
    Arrived at the fallen motorbike first.
    It lay on its side like some downed beast.
    Pearcey was distracted.
    The smell of the river.
    It was like dirt and freedom and fear all mixed together.
    It had never hit him this strongly before. Maybe it was the lack of noise and traffic. Maybe because he rarely stood on the bridge. Just travelled it. Admired it from inside whatever he was driving.
     
    The body was a man.
    His leg still trapped beneath the weight of the bike. A butterfly