The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken Read Online Free PDF

shirt over her nose as the rancid smell of rotting meat and spoiled milk caused her to take a step back. She had to force herself not to gag as the odor assaulted her senses. Breathing through her mouth only made her taste it too so she snapped her mouth closed.
    "We'll sweep through and make sure it's safe before we start gathering supplies. From the looks of things we can at least bag stuff up and set it aside to make it quicker for us when we come back." Carl spoke with assurance but he was starting to look a little green around the gills by the time he was done.
    Riley glanced out the window, past the car and to the town beyond. The street remained just as serene as it had when they'd driven through it. From here, it almost seemed as if it had all been a dream, and the world was just the same as it had been Monday morning. A shiver slid down her spine and despite the sauna-like heat of the day, she couldn't suppress a shudder as an ominous feeling settled over her.
    "What about the car?" she asked.
    "It will be ok, they're not going to get far without the keys," Carl reminded her.
    She still felt uncomfortable leaving it unguarded though. She couldn't shake the feeling that someone would be in there waiting to pounce on them when they returned. "Nobody would want to steal that hunk of junk anyway," John said.
    "It's gotten us this far," she reminded him.
    John shrugged and glanced out the window at it. "True, but it won't get us much further if we don't have something other than chips and jerky to fuel us ."
    Riley nodded and turned away from the window. If someone was waiting for them then they had better be faster and stronger than a bullet. She winced as John's sneaker squeaked on the linoleum; it was gratingly loud in the hushed store. Walking to the first row they split off as Carl and John went all the way to the end while she and Xander stayed at the top. Keeping pace with each other they walked down the rows as they searched for someone hiding amongst the aisles.
    A few of the rows had goods lying in the middle of them and dark stains on the floor, but in the dim illumination she couldn't tell what the stains were. There were carriages discarded amongst the aisles like old relics of a time forgotten. She wondered if in a thousand years, if there was even still something of the human race left, if they would uncover these artifacts and put them in a museum like humans did with lost civilizations now.
    One carriage still had a purse in the front of it, its owner having run out in a panic after the initial quakes started. Why hadn't they taken their cars? Her step faltered as the thought blazed through her mind. There were no people in here, no bodies so far, but there had been cars in the parking lot outside.
    Maybe they all hopped into a vehicle or two together. It wasn't the best answer but it was the only one she could come up with. Staying together, being with people they knew, would have been a natural instinct for the people that left here and one that she would have shared.
    She could feel every beat of her heart in her ears as on each new row she kept expecting to find some hideous creature, but the store remained strangely empty up until the last row. Her hands fell back to her sides as she lowered the gun. A small tremor shook her hand as unreasonable dread held her firmly within its relentless grasp.
    "I don't like this," she said to Xander.
    "Neither do I."
    Carl held up his hand and gestured toward something they couldn't see in between the deli counter and the back row of refrigerated goods that was now stinking up the air. "Bathroom," he called in a hushed whisper.
    He gestured to John and then disappeared down the hall that they couldn't see. John glanced nervously at them before focusing his attention on wherever Carl had gone. Riley didn't have to go to the bathroom but even so she felt like she was doing the pee pee dance as she shifted from foot to foot.
    She heaved an audible breath of relief