THEM (Book 0): Invasion Read Online Free PDF

guys chasing that girl? The beer cooler was mostly left untouched, the cash register was full, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why they left the cash and took off after her. Could’ve been to rape her, sure. But every crook I’d ever known would get the cash first, then they’d go after other objectives. Even criminals have their priorities.
    Also, there were no signs of gunfire inside the store. There had been a struggle, but I hadn’t found any loose casings or bullet holes anywhere. I supposed they could have taken their time to pick them up, but I doubted those two shufflers would’ve bothered. From what I could tell, they both had been so strung out I doubted either had been thinking coherently. That being said, they had still been with it enough to chase a girl through the woods to her death. How all three ended up going over was anyone’s guess.
    I decided to consider it an unsolved mystery and leave it for Dennis Farina to figure out. As tragic as it all was, I had more important things to think about. Namely, getting to Austin intact and rescuing my aging parents from God-knew-what was going to happen once the shit hit the fan. I figured the first thing that would happen would be the looting, followed by food riots, then roving gangs. The good news was that Mom and Dad lived in a nicer area of town, far away from where most of the criminal element lived. The bad news was that they lived exactly where I would go to find victims were I an enterprising criminal facing a nuclear apocalypse.
    Not cool. I decided to pull out the girl’s cell phone and try to give Mom a call. I got a low battery indicator, so I headed back into the store to snag a cell charger. I drove back to the cabin the long way, just to see what was going on elsewhere in this one horse town. I cruised on down toward Leakey, telling myself that I was just going to look around and avoid contact with anyone. Just for insurance, I slapped a magazine in my rifle and put it barrel down in the passenger footwell, out of sight, where I could grab it if I needed.
    As I drove slowly down the road, I came across a lot of abandoned cars. All were newer models that relied on fancy computer equipment to keep them running. A car is a sort of Faraday cage, but any exposed antenna will suck in a strong EMP signal like a Dyson in a dust storm. I suspected all those new cars were basically bricked by the EMP generated by the bombs that were dropped on San Antonio and Austin.
    I was moving slow enough to avoid colliding with any sudden obstacles that might pop up, but not so fast that I couldn’t see inside the cars. All of them were empty, but a few showed signs of violence. Smashed windows, along with plenty of blood and gore. I said another silent prayer, both for those folks and for myself, and wondered if the whole world had gone mad already. I glanced at a few houses as I passed by and saw one or two curtains flutter, but witnessed absolutely no sign of anyone out and about. Obviously, people were scared and hunkering down, and I couldn’t blame them after what I had seen.
    About a mile out of Leakey I came across a semi-truck pulled off the side of the road. The door was closed, but I could see someone slumped in the cab. I pulled over, grabbed the rifle and the first aid kit I’d snagged at the gas station, and walked over to see if I could help. As I walked up, I could see someone had smeared blood and what I assumed were guts all over the outside of the cab. It also looked like they’d been trying to get inside the cab, banging on the glass and whatnot.
    I looked around but saw no sign of anyone nearby. I climbed up on the sideboard and peered inside. Blood and brains had splattered all over the roof of the cab, and the guy had a small hole in his temple. Suicide. I tried the door handle, but it was locked, so I used the glass tool on my folder to break the window, then I opened the door to get the gun. It was a small .38 caliber