Doomsday's Child (Book 1): Doomsday's Child by Pete Aldin

Author:Pete Aldin [Aldin, Pete]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Dystopian | Zombie Apocalypse
Published: 2017-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

A nest of boulders poking from the side of the hill gave them a place to rest along with a clear view of the town below. The map dot called Birns River Bridge was a meander of short streets housed with cottages and a penchant for European trees and gardens. It lay on the far side of the actual bridge beyond the shopping district that faced the river. Narrow parkland dressed both banks of the watercourse, the far side spotted with picnic tables and some kind of memorial stone. A blackened patch of grass resolved in the field glasses as some kind of funeral pyre, charred lumps resolving as skeletons. The black had spread across the grass, like ink running; sometime in the last two months, rain had smudged it, washing it inch by inch toward the river. Twenty storefronts made up the commerical strip, decades-old, some quaint, others merely aged. The river ran fast and shallow across fist-sized pebbles. The range of hills swept north, leaving the east as grassland: grazing property lay beyond the town as far as the eye could see, peppered with small stands of bushland. North-east of the town, river and highway cut a ravine through the hills creating pretty-looking bluffs either side. A stately two-storey home rose from one of the bluffs. Its front windows would have had a fine view along the ravine, while one side would get a glimpse of swathes of farmland leading east.

A mile beyond the town off a branch road by a river tributary sat a ten cabin motor inn with a gas station on the opposite side of the road. Those two structures seemed to be the only real industry in the area. And they promised cars. Through the binoculars, Elliot could make out the regular lines of an orchard in a farm close to the township—apple trees maybe.

For the first time in weeks, he didn't feel like eating but they should try the orchard; someone had told him Tasmania produced enough varieties of apple that one was always ripe for picking regardless of the time of year.

A speckle of grey-brown shapes on a field revealed themselves as kangaroos—a weird coincidence, given recent conversation. He considered commenting as much, but small talk felt wrong, as wrong as eating. There'd been no conversation since the motorhome other than the occasional grunt necessary for course corrections.

Whatever anger Lewis had felt back at the motor home had leached away as they'd clawed their way up and down hills and through barriers of vegetation. The teenager leaned on a boulder higher up the slope, rubbing his knuckles into his thighs. His face was as empty of emotion as Elliot's heart. They could both do with a few drinks and a long sleep in that motel down there.

Now that Elliot had leaned his ass against this big rock, now that he'd stopped, it was going to take an effort to get going again. He raised the field glasses, had to blink hard a couple times to get his focus back.

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