Alone by C.M. Hollerman & Jonathan Hollerman

Author:C.M. Hollerman & Jonathan Hollerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: EMP, female dystopian, female survival, female thriller, apocalyptic female
Publisher: Apoc Publishing
Published: 2016-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The rain didn’t help Beth Ann’s melancholy, except to draw her deeper into the darkness. It had only been a week since Gary left, and she didn’t know how much more she could take. She didn’t sleep well. She was always on edge, looking around, suspicious of everyone now. In her mind, people had fangs instead of teeth and their eyes glowed red. Meghan couldn’t help her, and Kristen hadn’t come to lunch since accepting her “promotion.” She missed her parents, she missed Gary, and she worried about poor Romeo who was getting weaker by the day.

She stooped into the partially collapsed entrance of the furnace and dropped to her knees. Feeling around in the darkness of one corner, she moved the leaves aside and unsnapped the lid of the tote. Carefully she opened her rain jacket and extracted the large bulge she was carrying inside. She added the t-shirts, shorts, jeans, underwear, sweatshirts, and several pairs of socks–one set for her and another for Gary–to the bin. That pretty much filled it. She set the lid back on tightly and re-hid it.

Finding a semi-dry spot to sit, she watched it rain in the expiring light. It would be completely dark by the time she reached home, and darker than usual without any moonlight to guide her. Fortunately, as this was her fourth trip to the furnace, she was beginning to know the way pretty well and had found landmarks to help along the way. The triple-trunk tree, the perfectly straight line of evergreens, the stump covered in ivy, the unique outcrops and slopes: these formed a map in her head that she had memorized going both directions.

A few months ago she wouldn’t have been caught dead sitting in this bug-infested, dark and dirty place. But now...now she just didn’t have the same options as before. She thought about how she had been such a little princess–a picky eater, obsessed with “stuff,” whining about helping her parents around the house, not trying very hard to get a teaching job, wanting everything her way. She had changed with the new world; everyone had changed. It made some people meaner and some people kinder. Some people looked for ways to take advantage of the situation; other people looked for ways to help. If she could just get out of her own way and rise above the depression and hopelessness and fear, she wondered what kind of person she could be. What was her potential? Did she really have a purpose and a calling, like the Bible said? Did she have it in her to find out?

The wild scent of mossy earth and the mingling of new life with decay stung her nose and throat. Shivering in the damp air, she pulled her hooded rain jacket tighter around her shoulders. The volume surprised her; she had apparently always tuned the sound of rain out. Beth Ann closed her eyes and listened with intention to the musical cadence of the falling drops as

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