The Lazarus Impact Read Online Free PDF Page A

into the shelter. His years spent reading science fiction comic books make him extra cautious. This strange soot is poisonous, and he assumes the worst of all possible scenarios if he contacts it. He imagines his skin burning to the bone, or the debris dissolving his shoes or clothes, getting to his body and liquefying it into green ooze, or turning him into some bloodthirsty mutant. But his parents are physically intact, in one piece. He shakes everything from his thoughts. This is what I’ve prepared for . I can do this .
    Brandon opens the lock to the generator with the combination he remembered. With a few draining tugs of the pull-start engine it rumbles to a rattling hum. He checks his fuel supply; he will have to ration it carefully, and attempt to get more if he plans to hole up at the bunker for an extended period of time. The closest gas station is about five miles away.
    Eager to try to contact Apocalypta with his computer and electronics powered up, and frightened of the mysterious debris, he hurriedly turns back to the hatch. But he notices something on the way. The bodies; his parents are gone. He spins his head in all directions. His breathing frantically quickens with his heartbeat in tow. They are nowhere to be seen. Were they still alive? No . I checked . The panic consumes him. His overactive comic book imagination kicks in when he hears a light rustling in the woods behind him. Something moves among the trees within the lengthening early evening shadows. Alien abduction? ... Zombies .
    Freaked out, he whips open the hatch, kicks off his sneakers, and scurries back down into the fully lit and buzzing shelter, hoping he didn’t track in any toxic dust. If they’re alive they will knock . He reassures himself again and again. He cries, thinking of his parents.

CHAPTER 7
     
    Where am I? Sheryl wakes up in a hospital connected to machines by tubes and wires. A laboratory style gas mask covers her face. She feels pain in her shoulder, but she's surprised to see it in a sling. The last thing she remembers is Stephen coughing up blood. She pulls the wires and tubes off of herself, igniting a storm of alarming machine noises. She begins to peel the gas mask off her face, but then she remembers. The dust . A nurse rushes in, also wearing a gas mask.
    “Leave that mask on, ma’am. The debris from the cloud is dangerous,” the nurse warns. Sheryl leaves it on.
    “Where are my sons? Are they alright?” she asks as the nurse pushes a few buttons to override the machines, stopping the noise.
    A doctor enters the room and sits beside her bed. He too wears a mask. In fact Sheryl notices that the entire staff has masks on as they hurriedly pass by in the hallway. The hospital is buzzing with activity. This can’t be normal .
    “Where are my boys?” Sheryl asks with tears welling up in her eyes.
    “I’m Dr. Levy. I fixed up your arm there. You had a dislocated shoulder.”
    “Answer me!” she yells.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bassonnet. They didn’t make it. Stephen died in the crash, and Bobby passed shortly after due to complications from breathing the dust outside,” he explains.
    “Why am I alive? Why did you save me?” she asks.
    “When the ambulance got to the accident you weren’t breathing. They revived you on the way to the hospital and here you are,” he says.
    A storm of emotions churns inside Sheryl. He answered how, not why . What reason is there to live without my boys? She feels alone, guilty, angry, responsible. “Take me to see them.”
    “Mrs. Bassonnet, we can’t,” the nurse begins to explain.
    “Now!” she insists. Dr. Levy nods at the nurse, giving the okay.
    Sheryl’s body aches with each step as they walk down the chaotic hallway that leads from the ER to the morgue.
    “You’re lucky to be alive,” the nurse says.
    “Am I?” Sheryl responds after a reflective pause.
    “You didn’t breathe the dust. People are slowly dying because of it.”
    “My life is nothing without