The Last Dawn: Apocalypse (The Last Dawn Series Book 1) by Richard C Hale

Author:Richard C Hale [Hale, Richard C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Three Thirty A.M. Publishing
Published: 2022-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

14

Surprisingly, the town of Orange Park looked remarkably lived in.

For such a low population, the streets looked clean, the shops closed but not in ruins, the grass mowed, and the houses mostly livable. It seemed that most of the people had relocated from the farthest corners of the town to this main drag by the river. Noah saw a few people sitting on porches, standing in doorways, and working in yards as they passed. A few waved, but most just watched in curious detachment. A few men with rifles were scattered along the route, but they must have gotten the word on their radios that were clipped to their belts as no one questioned or stopped them.

Noah’s old house was about a mile down the road, just off Park Street, nestled in a quiet wooded neighborhood on Doctors Lake. It took them about twenty minutes to make the walk, and as he approached the house, he could see it looked abandoned. Nobody seemed to be living in any home on the street, the houses looking lost in the growth of the lawns, cars sitting dirty and quiet in driveways that had weeds growing up through the cracks. His house looked sad, its paint faded, as if it had been sitting empty for twenty years or more. He stood in the street and stared at the place, his heart in his throat. He was afraid to go inside.

Chet came up next to him and stood staring at it.

“This it?” Chet asked, quietly, as if afraid to disturb the silent street.

“Yeah,” Noah said.

Chet waited a few minutes as Noah continued to stand there. He finally said, “You want me to go in and check?”

“No. I’ll go. If they’re in there, you might scare them.”

“Right.”

Noah took a deep breath and stepped from the street into the overgrown lawn. He went to the front door, Chet, Fiona, and Dex silently behind them, their anticipation and anxiety almost as high as his. He could feel it coming off them in waves. He tried the front door, and it was locked.

“Do you have a key?” Chet asked.

Noah shook his head, no. “Let’s try the back.”

They moved around to the side of the house by the garage and opened the gate to the backyard. His pool sat half-empty and black with algae. It smelled like a swamp as he walked past. The lake sat quiet and still beyond the last row of pines in his yard, his ski boat hanging from its brackets at the end of the dock. He was surprised it was still there.

At the back sliding glass door, he tried the handle, and it slid open with a low rumble. He stood there for a second, letting his senses feel the house, and then he stepped inside. It smelled musty and hot, a low, damp rotting smell just under it. Fiona made a small sound in her throat and then whispered for Dex to stay out here.

“I’m scared, Fiona. I don’t want to wait out here,” he said.

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