Slow Burn (Book 3): Destroyer Read Online Free PDF

of the infected mixed with the shrieks of the dying.
    I tried to clear my mind and disappear, even for just a second, but images of dead faces haunted me: Jerome, Wilkins, Earl, the Ogre, the Harpy, Felicity, Marcy, and a thousand white faces that used to be human. No, were human. Just unfortunate, diseased humans.
    Amber was in that procession. Steph’s dead face would join soon. The virus was very effectively killing off every person to which I had even the tiniest connection.
    The virus was binging on humanity, one overflowing spoonful after another, and with each death, human civilization ticked inexorably toward its end. And what the virus didn’t destroy, the natural entropy of the universe would. Long held at bay by human arrogance, it would soon crumble the fragile foundations of the world. Fires burned in east Austin. Blazing refineries in Houston disgorged untold tons of toxicity. The reactors would eventually melt down, and our failing dams would wash the reactors’ Chernobyl waste into the oceans , killing everything in the marine world as well.
    Empty skyscrapers would be tombstones to our dead cities. Satellites would fall from the sky. When the blood of our dead was washed away by time, the rusting carcasses of a billion cars would again stain the earth red.
    How much of that would I live to see? Did I want to see any of it?
    Did I want to face a future alone among the mindless monsters?
    Alone!
    Lost in the blackness of my mood, my scavenged cell phone buzzed in my pocket, teasing me with evidence of another life that would soon come to a violent end.
    I wanted to cry, but the Ogre and the Harpy had beaten so, so many tears out of me, and nothing seemed to anger them more than a little boy’s tears.
    I felt like I was twelve years old again, alone and imprisoned in a heartless world with countless days of pain in my past and endless days of fear in my future.
    And I knelt at Amber’s body while Russell’s wails vocalized my pain.
    The cell phone buzzed again.
    And Jerome —cowardly, lying, useless Jerome—killed for no reason at all. What the fuck was that?
    Was there a path forward, a road out of the darkness? Could I once again find in myself the strength that stood me before the Ogre’s wrath so many years ago, or would life’s cruelty finally prevail?
    As I searched my heart for that answer, the cell phone vibrated for half a second, then cut short.
    Whether the battery in the phone, the life at the other end, or the hope of the caller —something else had just died.

Chapter 5
    I thought about a buddy of mine from seventh grade, Benny Clark. We met after school one afternoon to settle with our fists some little something so trivial that memory misplaced it almost immediately once it was over.
    We fought that afternoon, or more accurately, we boxed. But I didn't try ; not really. Benny was a smaller kid than me, and that made a real difference at that age. And though we were fighting, he was my friend, and I had no desire to hurt him. He wasn't big enough to pack a punch that could hurt me. So, the fight was destined to go unresolved.
    But assistant principal McQuig, being much more observant than I’d have given him credit for, caught us both and hauled us to his office. He laid a choice on the table: we could take the paddle, or he would call our parents to explain the suspension.
    Well, that was a no-brainer for both Benny and me. He opted for the combo pac k— the call and a suspension. I asked to the point of begging for the paddle.
    Paddling was punishment with an end. I'd bend over the desk and McQuig would haul back for a baseball-style swing and lay into my ass with all his gray-haired might. There was no defined number of swats for fighting, nor for any offense. Punishment ended when McQuig's temper settled, or his back and shoulders grew tired. This usually happened between three and five swats.
    It was a difficult dynamic to predict. In the mornings, McQuig was full of energy and