Ravenous - Swarm Book 1: (An Epic Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller) by J.T. Sloane & Mike Kraus

Author:J.T. Sloane & Mike Kraus [Sloane, J.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Muonic Press Inc
Published: 2022-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

ANAYELI ALFARO. EAST SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

Anayeli couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, the faces would swim out of the darkness—Papa in his Dorados cap, mouth open in a yell as the fire bore down on him; Josh Bertoli, mouth frothing with bloody foam; the woman in the car, mouth wide in a scream; Frank; China Box Lady—all of them dead. Your fault they whispered in her head, the chorus of dead.

So instead of sleeping like everyone else, Anayeli listened. Not to the dead, but to the scanner, to drown them out. The scanner was the only thing working. The radio she had taken from the Closet of Obsolescence wouldn’t turn on and the walkie-talkies and her flashlight were useless without batteries, which she didn’t have, thanks to her pendejo of a neighbor. All night she’d kept one tea light burning and had listened, the calls getting less and less frequent as the night wore on. Maybe there were fewer emergencies. Or maybe there was no one left to call for help. Whatever it meant, she couldn’t relax, especially when the only thing to listen to was Ernesto’s rumbling breath. He was congested, the precursor to an asthma attack, and she had no idea if he’d used his inhaler or not. If it wasn’t working she didn’t know what they’d do. She’d lost too many people already. She’d been so unprepared—for everything. That was never going to happen again.

She’d almost cried when her almost-gasless van had lurched into her driveway and she saw the windows lightless, too afraid of what she might find inside to even move. But someone had pulled apart the slats of the mini-blinds, letting out the dim flickers of candlelight, and then the door had flown open and her whole family—what was left of it—had rushed out, all of them talking all at once, none of them wearing the masks she’d left for them.

“Oh, mi Corazón!” Mama’s hands had gone first to Anayeli’s cheeks, then her shoulders and arms, patting her as if to make sure she was whole. “Oh, mi Corazón!”

“We were so scared, Yeli!” Luz took up Anayeli’s hand, the non-injured one thankfully, and squeezed.

“What took you so long?” Carlota stood back from the fray, relieved enough now to be mad. Because she was hangry. Because Anayeli had been gone forever.

But then Ernesto had pointed to the shot-out window of the van and that had set Mama off again. “Ayyyyy! I knew you shouldn’t have gone solamente!” The only good thing about all the commotion was Mama hardly noticed the extra dog and it wasn’t until she was actually cooking dinner and realized they didn’t have cheese—that was back on Frank’s driveway next to the other thing she was never going to tell anyone about—that she started complaining about the meager supplies Anayeli had brought home.

Her head had bobbed to her chest, the faces rising, when the scanner crackled to life, jerking her awake. “52F! Moving north, just crossed highway—” The call cut out.

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