Z Children (Book 1): Awakening Read Online Free PDF

again.
    After
neurotically checking the oven to make sure my dad had turned it off, we headed
out the door. The drive to Dr. Lynn’s office took ten minutes; we passed the
kid’s school, Liberty Elementary, on the way. Once inside the small office,
Sophia and Marcel made a beeline for the books and puzzles with Grandpa
trailing behind them. I signed us in. The wait was never long, only a few
minutes or so, but the receptionist said to expect a longer-than-average wait
time this morning.
    I was surprised
at the number of patients in the office. The majority were sitting in the ‘sick
child’ area. There was one infant in the ‘well-child’ area with Sophia and
Marcel; the mother was reading and paying little attention to the cooing child
in the car carrier. I recognized one mom sitting in the sick patient
section—Jennifer Payne from church. She’d always been nicer to me than the
other mothers. Her four-year-old daughter Mary was very pale, her forehead
glistening with sweat.
    I walked over to
Jennifer and her daughter, concern wrinkling my face. “Hi, Jennifer.” I looked
at the blonde toddler, now shivering uncontrollably. “Is Mary okay?”
    Jennifer’s face
mirrored my own, “I don’t know. She’s been like this ever since our visit last
week when she got her four-year vaccinations. I called here the next day, but
Dr. Lynn said side effects were natural and to give it some time to settle in
her system.”
    “Did she get all
the vaccines on the normal tract?”
    “Yeah. She got
everything except her flu shot for the season. They were out of the nasal
application and the injected version is totally synthetic this year so my
husband didn’t want Mary to get it.”
    “I can
understand that. I’ve always been more than a little leery of vaccinations.” I
looked at Mary again; her condition seemed to be deteriorating rapidly. “I
really hope she starts to feel better soon.”
    “She’s just
getting worse, Susan. I don’t know what’s going on.”
    I nodded, my
most sympathetic expression splashed across my face as my mind focused on my
own children. The apprehension was building to boiling point in my body. I
walked back to the check-in window. The sliding glass shifted open as I
approached. The receptionist that had checked me in was gone; Nurse Kayla sat
in the rolling burgundy chair now, her hip fat folding over the sides of the
seat. I really didn’t like her; she was always a little too rough with the
children.
    “Hi, Nurse
Kayla. I was just talking to one of the other mothers and she seems to think
that her daughter started getting sick after her four-year vaccinations. Has
there been a vaccine recall or anything? There seems to be a lot more sick
patients than normal.”
    Nurse Kayla
glanced around the office apathetically. “I guess.” She looked up at me,
clearly bored. “It’s also autumn and the beginning of flu season.”
    “Oh, okay. I
guess that makes sense.” But as I walked away from the window and looked around
the room again, my gut told me otherwise. All the children were roughly the
same size, possibly around the same ages. Something was wrong. I began to walk
again, but froze in my tracks almost immediately, movement catching my
attention. One young boy sitting in the sick area stood up. His skin was pale
and the folds around his eyes were nearly grayish, but he wasn’t shivering like
Mary. I blinked rapidly, thinking the boy’s glassed-over expression was a trick
of the overhead fluorescent lights.
    The small
figure, he couldn’t be much older than Mary, walked slowly toward the
well-patient area. His movements were a bit uncoordinated at first, as if he
were new to walking, but as he gained confidence, his pace quickened slightly.
His shoulders were slightly slumped, his mouth barely parted to reveal a sliver
of off-white teeth.
    The boy walked
nearer and nearer to Sophia and Marcel. I began to move, unsure why
apprehension had suddenly mutated to panic. I was feeling