The Secret: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

notice. I spent my working days navigating the internet, not browsing the web but actually working to design systems. Not that I was completely convinced my company was on the side of the angels…
    Anyway. I felt crippled to be cut off like this. And even more, I felt stupid to be so bothered by it just now. When my family was in danger.
    Maybe it was just easier to think about losing the flow of information than to dwell on what I’d seen tonight? Cowardly of me, if true.
    And then there was Tim…out in the storm, searching for his wife. On one hand, if he hadn’t found her immediately, there was a somewhat better chance she was still alive. On the other…maybe he had found her. Maybe even right away, right outside our door. Maybe he—or what was left of him—was lying there with pieces of her, and we’d find their bones in the morning.
    Was I doing the right thing, sitting here? Should I be out in the night with Tim?
    My eyes burned. But I didn’t expect to have trouble staying awake.
    I figured I’d wait till dawn, however long that was, and trade places with Rebecca then. If Tim didn’t come back first.
    Just around the corner from me, in our living room, stood an ancient grandfather clock. Aside from Felicia’s cell phone, which we’d shut down to save its battery, that clock was probably the only working timepiece in the house. But it was silent. Its ticking, which I’d grown up listening to and had soothed me after many a childish nightmare, bothered Rebecca when she tried to sleep. And tonight I hadn’t thought of winding it.
    Right then I’d have given a lot to hear it.
     
    * * *
     
    E ventually Rebecca came out of my office and sat with me. The moon had gone down by then and I could barely make out her features, but it was nice to have the company. We sat in silence, holding hands. Occasionally even staging a thumb war.
    When the light started to come back she gave me a little shove and I went into the office to see if I could sleep.
     
    * * *
     
    I woke to a sound like…more thunder? But it went on for too long, and I felt my house tremble.
    I found Rebecca standing a couple of feet from a living room window. “Any idea what that was?” I asked her.
    “No. Well…it came from the east,” she said. “If it was an explosion…”
    “The prison.” I put an arm around her shoulders. Not much else in that direction. Though it could have been out in the woods, or on somebody’s farm, for all I knew. Or maybe it was a whole bunch of naked hairy cannibals with fangs, jumping up and down. Somewhere close.
    “Ash? What do we do now? I don’t…have a clue.”
    I shook my head. “Any sign of Tim? Or Susie? Or—those things?”
     
    * * *
     
    T he kids started to wake up about an hour—it felt like an hour—later. We still had running water, and an old-style gas water heater with a pilot light, so we took some time and got everybody cleaned up.
    Meanwhile I found enough working pieces from various machines to assemble a computer that would boot up, and installed some software I might need. I’d have preferred a laptop, but no luck. We didn’t have internet access from the house anymore, of course, but I had an idea about that.
    I got Robbie to go out with me and stored the computer in my truck’s toolbox so it’d be handy later. Maybe I could find out what the outside world thought was happening. I also wanted to get out of town as quickly as possible…but could we really leave without hearing from Tim? Or Susie? Not that I had much faith either one of them would come back.
    But I couldn’t just leave them behind. Could I?
    Not easily, it turned out.
     

Chapter Four
     
    “D O NOT LEAVE YOUR HOMES. THIS AREA HAS BEEN CONTAMINATED BY TERRORIST ATTACK. IT IS NOT SAFE. HOMELAND SECURITY AND THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL HAVE QUARANTINED THE AREA, WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE NATIONAL GUARD. REPEAT. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOMES. STAY INDOORS. WE WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN IT IS SAFE TO COME