White Out: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

my raft here, it'll distribute the weight enough to keep us on the surface. We’ll sink if we stay still, but I don’t plan on stopping for anything at all."
    " In case you haven’t noticed, I'm not a Siberian fur trapper," observed Annie. It was true; she was the furthest thing from tough, and she loathed the bitter cold. She often regretted choosing to live in New England because of that. But there wasn't really a choice in the matter at this point. Her livelihood was on the line.
    "We'll be fine. The first stretch I’ve got planned for us is only a couple of miles. If we can make it to The Purple Cat without incident, then we'll be all good. They'll have all kinds of supplies there and a big old fireplace. We can wait it out through the rest of this storm."
    The Purple Cat was a n atrocious idea, especially for the sake of her teetering marriage, and it wasn’t the first time Tony had surfaced it. She pictured that roaring hearth in the bar, with Tony spreading out a thick blanket, raiding the wine cellar. It was not something that Annie wanted even to think about. The bastard was always on the hunt, only thinking with his engorged phallus.
    She didn't want to go to The Purple Cat, not to rest or get warm or to raid their food supplies, although a warm meal might calm her nerves. Annie just wanted to be home, with her baby boy, warm and cuddling him close to her. The idea of hanging around an abandoned restaurant didn’t settle right with her, especially assuming other people hadn't gotten the same simple idea, that being, “go where the food is.” Tony wasn’t the only one to think that way. A typical restaurant had enough food to feed an army. It was quite possible that they would encounter an actual army.
    That aside, she couldn’t help but air her skepticism about the mode of transportation. "Are we going to test this thing out first? What if it doesn’t work?" She asked, squirming for a way to get out of leaving behind a relatively safe environment. In reality, she was terrified of what was left of the world, of what lurked beyond the iced over windows. Her eyes couldn’t bear to look at the ice-laden mess that her planet had become since last she was outdoors.
    An air of confidence overtook Tony’s facial features, almost to the threshold of cockiness. It reminded her of her father for a moment, and the comparison nearly made her squirm. "I guarantee this will work. It warmed up a bit this morning, not enough to melt it, but enough to harden the surface just a tad," Tony said. “That might be our saving grace. If we’re going to leave, it should be today.” He tapped his hand on his jury-rigged snow sled. “It’s sort of like a pontoon boat. You’ll sit in the carriage like a pretty princess (Annie resisted the urge to make a gagging noise), and I’ll stand on the back, right behind you, and shove us around with the ski poles. I’ll be right behind you.”
    Putting my crotch in your face . He hadn't said those words, but Annie imagined the tableau: the heroic stagecoach driver with the gargantuan bulge in his knickers, pushing the pair through treacherous, ungodly conditions, saving her life and brain-washing her with his proud codpiece staring her in the eye the whole damn way. She promised herself only to look ahead of them, to keep her eyes on the road. That is, if she decided to go with him at all.
    " I don’t see it happening. How are we better off than Winnie was when she went traipsing out into hell?"
    “ Because you've got Tony on your side.” Annie loathed when people referred to themselves in the third person. “I won't let anything bad happen to you. And hell, if the sled thing doesn't work, I'll put you up on my shoulders and march you all the way to The Purple Cat. And I’ll even cook you a nice dinner when we get there. I make a kick-ass chicken parmesan. Or eggplant parmesan, if they have any eggplant on hand.”
    There it was again. He did not intend to bring her home. Of