The Last Tribe Read Online Free PDF Page A

servicing the students, faculty, and residents of the
town.  Two of the dorms were converted into morgues soon after.  Travel
restrictions meant parents could not claim bodies.  Most of the parents were
sick or dead.  Even without the travel issues, the kids and their bodies, were
orphans. 
    Darrin and Greg were best friends
since the first day freshman year.  They played baseball together in the fall
and spring.  When roommate signups came out the previous year, they knew
immediately they would room together, share baseball stories from the summer,
help each other out on homework.  It was a friendship that lasted a lifetime,
Darrin’s lifetime.
    Greg kept Darrin’s bed made and left
his side of the room alone after they took Darrin away in August.  Darrin did
not like his property touched, not that anyone did, but he was particularly
protective.  Greg kept to his side of the room for the first month, even after
he knew Darrin and all the other kids were dead.  Greg did not so much as sit
on Darrin’s bed or touch his books, desk, or clothes. 
    Soon after the last phone call with
his father, Greg went through Darrin’s things.  He looked for anything he could
find that would help him survive; better clothes, knives, maps, anything.  Greg
searched the entire dorm.  He knew he had to travel light to Hanover.  He
treated his mission like a scavenger hunt.  One day he looked for the best pair
of pants.  He would find a pair and put them in his shoulder bag until he
scavenged better pants with more pockets or warmer fabric.  The scavenger hunt
list included essential items he needed for the long trek north.
    Greg began sleeping under his bed
after they took Darrin away.  He set up soft blankets on the floor, and went
under at night.  Anyone looking for students or scavenging for food and supplies
would not see him through the small door window.  Greg found a master key on
one of the dead counselors in the morgue dorm.  He randomly locked rooms in the
dorm so it would seem natural that his room was locked.  He also messed up his
room, giving it the appearance of having been picked over.  He found food in
the cafeteria and moved it to his room so he would not have to leave the dorm. 
He stopped using light at night. 
    Greg was used to being monitored. 
He was 14 and at prep school.  It was hard for him to understand that no one
was looking for him.  Even after the phone call with this father, when it was
explained that everyone was dead or dying, Greg was certain there were other
people around.  He treated finding food, staying out of sight, beefing up his
supplies, like it was a game.  How quickly could he get in and out of a
building, how slowly and stealthily could he move through campus? 
    Greg was too young to realize
Hightower Academy’s campus shut down weeks earlier.  Doctors worked in the
dorms, people in yellow hazmat suits moved bodies from the quarantine to the morgue,
but all activity stopped long ago.  The power was off.  The phones did not
work.  No one came to campus.  Greg managed to slip through the cracks.  He was
the only person alive at Hightower, and had been for close to a month.
    Greg stayed in his room and hid,
but no one was looking for him. 
    The world was dead.
    After the doctors and yellow
plastic people left campus, Greg continued to hear airplanes, helicopters, and
loud diesel military vehicles.  When Greg spoke to his father on the phone, the
helicopters and jets were a constant in the air, moving from air force bases in
New Hampshire and Boston.  Each week the number of aircraft lessened until there
was one plane a day or every other day.  One week ago Greg saw a jet heading
out to the Atlantic, straight East.  Since that last plane, all manmade noise
ceased.
    Greg was in New England in late
fall, needing to travel 100+ miles by foot or bike to Hanover, New Hampshire. 
He studied maps, and knew the two highways he needed to take.  Despite