Ping - From the Apocalypse Read Online Free PDF

soon, okay?”
    As she turned the corner t hey both peeped.
    “ I’m glad I found you too,” she called back to them. Then, thumbtacking two sheets of cardboard over the broken window to help keep in the heat, she finally went back for her groceries, throwing in a couple of candy bars Wendy had stashed in a drawer.

Chapter Six
    The Phone Call
    (January 15th to 16th , Year One, AP)
     
    When Kate finally stepped inside with her four bags, she went straight to the fridge and cleared it out, filling a giant bowl with snow from the backyard and sliding it onto the top rack, with her food all around it. But by then, the wind had begun to pick up outside and the temperature was rapidly dropping. Cold drafts puffed in through the cracks around the windows and doors, and she wished they’d had a chance to finish their renovating. The kitchen was already freezing.
    She left the other packages on the counter, suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion — feeling so terrible, in fact, that she worried about the threat of a relapse. After building up the fire and falling into her chair, she nibbled at a candy bar, hoping it would restore some energy; but her stomach was queasy, her neck glands swollen and it hurt to move. Eventually she shivered, wrapped in blankets by the blaze, her cough growing increasingly painful and she was certain the fever had returned.
    She drifted into a fitful night, consumed by a troubling dream that lasted until dawn: some poor child needing to be rescued, pleading and urging her to help him — but trapped in the snow, as much as she wanted to — there was nothing she could do. By morning her wavering spirits had completely plummeted.
    It must have been guilt over not bringing the cockatiels home last night, she decided, while struggling to get down some breakfast. But, she was certain they’d be fine for a while, and her returning illness was of far more concern. It was her own fault for pushing herself before she was ready — though she was out of food. But she hadn’t even taken a proper bath and that couldn’t be good for her health.
    She slogged to the back of the yard, coughing pathetically. At the woodpile she sat for a while, resting, though it was unpleasantly nippy without a hint of sun. “I’ll dig a proper grave in the spring my darling Jon. I promise.” Then, trudging over to the shed, she dug out a bath-sized container, threw some logs into it and hauled her load back to the house.
    When steam began to rise from the stockpot, she carefully slid it from the rack over the fire onto the hearth. After adding more water to make it a comfortable temperature, she removed her clothes and stood in front of the crackling heat, gasping at the dense, crusty bumps all over her and at her protruding bones — shocked to discover how emaciated she’d become.
    Fighting tears, she sat down in the container, filled a plastic jug and drizzled the warm water over her head. She lathered her long dark hair and then her body with shampoo, wiping off the excess foam. Shivering, she rinsed with the last of the water. Then, swathed in towels, she sat on the hearth sobbing, while the heat radiated over her.
    Finally, she shuffled to the bathroom. Her scalp was also encrusted with scabs and her hair impossibly tangled. She snipped a long, reddish-brown strand close to her scalp, continuing all the way around and then running her fingers through the inch that was left, blowing out a huge sigh. On his side of their closet, she found Jon’s flannel shirt, slipped it over her pajamas and fell into bed under a heap of covers.
     
    She flushed brownish pee down the toilet and looked in the mirror. With her short hair and the bruises around her eyes she reminded herself of a raccoon. She zipped up a sweater, pulled on a winter hat and dragged her scrawny body to the front window.
    Still no signs of life anywhere.
    N o fresh tracks in the snow, no cars arriving or departing, no hovering spaceships in the sky. Nothing,