The Reawakening (The Living Dead Trilogy, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

fact, if you haven’t noticed, all the animals around here are acting strange.”
    “Maybe this mad cow virus is jumping ship.”
    “I don’t care what’s causing this or why it’s happening. I’m worried about our safety right now, especially Dar’s. She’s on the couch downstairs in a state of shock.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that, Thom, but right now I have to deal with Susan.”
    “Maybe you should take Susan to the hospital.”
    “Hospital? Are you kidding me? The nearest emergency room is almost an hour away, and if her temperature gets any higher while we’re on the road, I’ll have no way to control it.”
    Susan closed her eyes and seemed to fall into a deep sleep. Rick put the back of his hand on her forehead and looked back up at me with worried concern.
    “She’s sleeping now. I gave her some anti-viral medicine and a handful of Tylenols to help reduce the fever. Hopefully with a little rest, she’ll come out of it.”
    “When you talked about this virus jumping ship, Rick, were you implying that humans are susceptible as well?”
    “It’s highly unlikely, but theoretically, the virus could have been transmitted to Susan. Fortunately, many of these viruses aren’t lethal to humans. Makes us sick as hell, shit our brains out, but isn’t typically fatal. Of course, there are some viruses that are lethal, but I doubt this one has that potential.”
    “What about AIDs? Wasn’t that transmitted from bats? And didn’t that Ebola outbreak a few years back make the leap from monkeys to humans?”
    Rick stared at me with a grim expression before walking out of the room. I followed closely behind, feeling ashamed for bringing up such a grim subject with his wife so ill in the other room.
    “Those are extremely rare examples, Thom. No offense, but we both know who the expert is on these matters. Now let’s give Susan some rest.”
    I felt terrible for bringing this subject up, but I was thinking about Dar, my wife and Stephen back home. The situation up here frightened me, and I wondered if people around town had been experiencing the same phenomenon? The planet was in terrible shape and getting worse by the day, and I wondered whether these events were in any way connected.
    “Rick,” I said, following him down the stairs, “is there any way we can find out if this situation is isolated, or if it’s happening elsewhere?”
    “Thom, we moved up here to escape the modern world.” Rick sat down at the dining room table and poured himself a cup of coffee. “We don’t own a TV or radio. I’m thoroughly convinced that all that technological bullshit is what helped ruin our society.”
    “You don’t really believe that?”
    “Look around the place. See any of those things here?”
    “So you live like a peasant. Good for you, Rick, but how else are we going to learn what is happening out there?”
    “Susan and I usually get our news when we visit the local store to pick up groceries. Once a month, we drive down to Bangor and pick up a load of books and some trade magazines, maybe a few newspapers. The only subject I keep up on these days is genetics.”
    I went into the living room to check on Dar and found her asleep on the couch. She was snoring and had her head on her hands. I placed the back of my fingers on her forehead and to my relief found her temperature normal. I returned to the dining room, plunked myself in the chair across from Rick, and poured myself a cup of coffee.
    “So what do we do now?” I asked. “I’m not going to leave now that Susan is ill.”
    “I appreciate that, but all we can do now is sit and wait, and see what develops. I’m sure this whole matter will blow over in a couple of days.”
    “A couple of days?” I complained. “My wife and son are down in Boston expecting us to arrive home tomorrow, and now I can’t even get a hold of them because there’s no signal up here and you guys don’t own a phone or a computer. So no, Rick, I don’t have a