Flashpoint (Book 2): Smolder by Ellis Tara & Kraus Mike

Author:Ellis, Tara & Kraus, Mike [Ellis, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Survival
Publisher: Muonic Press Inc
Published: 2019-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

PATTY

Mercy City Hall

Patty did her best to avoid eye contact with the group of strangers with Sandy. The three kids and young woman were seated in chairs against the wall, but the man was standing with a stern look on his handsome face. She guessed he wasn’t more than a few years younger than Sandy, maybe fifty, and was very fit for his age. Based on what she’d heard, she had expected a more needy-looking group of destitute hikers. It was going to make a difficult situation even more impossible.

Gary leaned over from where he was sitting beside Patty and spoke under his breath. “Is it really necessary to have them here?” He glanced up at the group of strangers and then back at Patty. “I thought they would already be gone by now.”

Patty bit back the retort that instantly came to mind. While she and Gary had been working surprisingly well together, they still had their fundamental differences. “I asked that they attend. We at least owe them and Sandy an explanation.”

“To what purpose?” he pressed. “We don’t owe them a thing. You heard what Sheriff Waters said.”

“Perhaps the sheriff can share his update with all of us,” Ned Allen interrupted. Gary had the decency to at least look chagrined at the previous mayor’s obvious admonishment of their not-so-private conversation.

“Of course,” Patty agreed, standing to face the large group. The meeting room in city hall was nearly overflowing with the combination of council members, committee heads, and other town leaders. She took a couple of steps back to where the whiteboard sat and turning, solemnly wiped the number 652 off with her fist. The marker squeaked as she wrote out 648, the sound eerily loud in a room that had fallen silent.

“Dr. Olsen informed me this morning that we’ve lost three more residents in the past day. Two of them from dehydration or other complications brought on by what is believed to be radiation poisoning.” Patty raised her hands as the room grew loud with multiple questions being asked at once.

“I believe it was partly due to underlying conditions,” Melissa shouted. Patty gestured to the doctor, so she stood and joined the mayor at the front of the room. “It would seem that most of us have suffered only mild headaches and some nausea. The very young and old tolerated this less and, in some cases, needed varying degrees of intervention, and are now quickly recovering. The deaths were among those already compromised, such as being diabetic, battling kidney failure, and in one case ongoing chemotherapy treatment for lung cancer. I’m not saying it makes any of those deaths less traumatic, I just want to urge you all not to panic. There was a very definitive wave in the onset and peak of symptoms, which I think we are past.”

Sheriff Waters stood as Dr. Olsen took her seat. “I’m sorry to inform you all that the fourth death was Kyle Tucker.” A fresh wave of questions and side conversations created a loud droning and the sheriff clapped his hands to restore some order.

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