Captives by Edward W. Robertson

Author:Edward W. Robertson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: influenza, Sci-Fi, postapocalyptic, Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, books, Captives, Novels, eotwawki, Sci-Fi Thriller, Science Fiction, Plague, post-apocalypse, postapocalypse, Thriller, virus, post apocalypse, Futuristic, High Tech, dystopia, Knifepoint, post apocalyptic, Breakers, Meltdown, science fiction series, Melt Down
ISBN: 9781500323493
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2014-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

17

By the time he came back from the garages with a new laser and what he was pretty sure was a three-pack of alien batteries for it, she was nowhere to be seen. He didn't bother to shout or wander around looking for her. He could feel it as simply as the wind on his skin: she was gone.

About god damn time.

She'd left him with the map. He spent a good long while consulting this, absentmindedly twirling the laser until he accidentally gripped both buttons at once and a blue beam scorched the cement black. Then he got up and backtracked to the town they'd come in through. The bike he'd seen on the way in was still there. Rustier than he'd expected, but it held together for the first day. Two more, and he'd be in L.A.

He spent the night in a church overlooking the ocean several miles west of Santa Barbara. Now that he was away from her, the last week felt surreal. Nightmarish. He'd lost a lot of time. Probably ought to have found a way to attack Mia or sneak away. He'd pretty much quit trying after she'd caught him with that stupid glass on the doorknob trick. He'd had opportunities. If one of them had panned out, he could have been in Los Angeles days ago.

Then again, he was here to second-guess himself, wasn't he? Hard to argue with not being dead.

He slept, then spent the first hour of the morning poking around for supplies. Nothing too heavy. It was late spring in Southern California; he could get away with a long-sleeved shirt so long as he was willing to travel by night to keep his blood flowing. As he swept the church, he lucked out: in a locked room in the basement, he found the remnants of a canned food drive. Which meant all the shit no one from the good old days had wanted to eat—cream of mushroom, vegetable broth, canned green beans—but it looked pretty good to him. He set aside the distended cans and winnowed the rest to the heartiest selections, figuring he shouldn't try to carry more than twenty. Annoyingly, there was no can opener, but he'd found knives. Not that he needed them. Shortly after meeting Carrie, she'd shown him how to open cans by vigorously rubbing the top against a piece of concrete and then squeezing the sides to pop the lid. That was probably the moment he'd fallen in love.

On the spot, he ate a can of ravioli, contemplated a cream of chicken, then decided that even if it wasn't bulging with botulism, seven-year-old chicken was about five years past his trust boundary. He selected the cream of potato instead.

To get inside, he'd destroyed the knob and couldn't close the door, so he left it hanging open. Upstairs, it occurred to him it might be valuable to have a known source of food for their trip home. Especially if, as seemed likely, they had to flee L.A. without slowing for goodies.

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