Red Death: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

Red Death: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Red Death: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Read Online Free PDF
Author: D.L. Robinson
Tags: post apocalyptic
most people got upset, so she stopped. But this week, she began to notice a lot of her friends list was absent. They simply were not posting. And a few more posted cryptic one liners like “Sick,” or “Ugh, house full of flu here.” This didn’t help calm her fears.
    That night, something woke her up. The projection clock on her ceiling said it was almost 4 a.m. Tara lay there for a minute, and then became aware of the steady drone of large vehicles on the street out front. After a moment, out of curiosity she got up and looked out the window.
    Truck after military truck rolled by, end to end, bumper to bumper, all camo colored. The line stretched as far as she could see. “LEE!” she yelled, and heard him yelp awake. “C’mere, quick!”
    Tara watched at least twenty more go by before Lee joined her at the window. He whistled under his breath. She counted out loud. “Thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight,” she kept it up until the end of the line, sixty-seven, all together.
    “I think the sound of them passing is what woke me up. I laid there listening for at least a minute before I got up, so I must’ve missed a bunch. There must be a hundred and fifty at least!”
    Lee looked worried. “This can’t be a very good sign, I’m afraid. Any large movement of troops within the US usually signifies something happening. Especially here in this rural area, without a base anywhere nearby.”
    They crawled back in bed and Lee dozed off right away, but Tara couldn’t stop her mind. She stared at the ceiling, chest heavy, watching the numbers on the projection clock changing.
    ~
    The next morning, Tara decided to call Mary with what they’d seen. She picked up on the second ring.
    “Mary, I’m getting scared. A huge line of military trucks went by at four in the morning. I counted sixty-seven after I got up to look out, and they’d been going past a while before I got to the window.”
    “Oh, no,” Mary worried. “I just heard from our neighbor Anna down at the end of the street. She ran to the store early this morning. Two soldiers were outside the entrance holding a little radar-gun looking thing pointed at each person’s head before they went in! She said they stopped one guy, and someone in a spacesuit led him around the corner, behind the store. She didn’t know where.”
    “Oh, dear God.” Tara hung up and stood there in a daze. It’s on. They’re checking for fever.
    To her it felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting, waiting. It’s you who’s waiting, Tara, that’s why it seems that way. She walked into the kitchen and stood staring at the cans in the pantry. She felt very protective over them somehow. She really wanted to laugh at her foolishness, but couldn’t.
    Deep down, she knew there wasn’t enough to sustain them for long. Not nearly long enough anyway. Before the media went quiet on the stories about Ebola, they’d been reporting a maximum 21 days from Ebola exposure to symptoms. But Tara did some research and read about a few people showing symptoms at 30 days and beyond. So ideally, she and Lee needed enough food to last them through the initial “die off,” and maybe the second wave too.  That was a long time.  Even if the average case showed symptoms by 21 days, the second wave would be 42 days.
    The WHO and CDC’s rules originally claimed two 21 day quarantine periods without a new case meant the outbreak was over. So, she and Lee needed 42 days of food in a best case scenario. However, Tara thought 60 days was probably more like it, to really be safe.
    Sixty days. We’re gonna run out long before that. She stared into the stacked rows of cans uneasily. We need enough to be able to bug out for six months. I’d feel better if we had that much. That’s 180 days of food. At three cans of food each per day, that was 1,080 cans!
    They didn’t have that much. If they were careful, maybe they could go a month. Tara’s dark sense of humor kicked in again.
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