a new world: return by john o'brien

Author:john o'brien
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: apocalypse
Published: 0101-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Lynn gathers her team along with Drescoll’s and Horace’s and proceeds across the hot, black-tarred ramp toward the parking lot; her boots stick slightly to the pavement with each step. The heat has risen to the point that the tar in the pavement is seeping to the top. Her thoughts center on her route and a game plan on arriving at the CDC. Wanting to come up with a plan now but knowing it will have to wait until she actually sees the campus and structures.

Arriving at the parking lot, thankful for the open gate in the chain-link fence that separates the ramp area from the rest of the world, she sees several vehicles parked about. The ones they observed from the air. The vehicles vary in their size and type but the ones that catch her attention are the three pickups, standing out like beacons in the dark. These will be perfect, she thinks pointing them out to the others. She hears the first engine starting from the aircraft on the ramp behind her, the roar filling the still air.

“Let’s do a quick check for keys in those,” she says to Drescoll and Horace standing beside her, her finger pointing to the trucks.

They do not locate any keys hidden under the seat, in the glove box, on the visor, or any place else. At least the doors are unlocked, she thinks. Not that it would actually have been much of a hindrance. A short time later, with three steering columns pried apart and wires joined, the three pickups head out of the parking lot, the beds filled with soldiers, each team to a truck. The whirring of the rubber tires on the hot pavement accompanies the teams along the road with the sun streaming in the windshield turning the cabins into ovens. A check in her rearview shows the two other trucks following behind in intervals.

The buildings and trees lining the road pass by slowly as she makes her way to the first turn towards their destination. The heat inside the truck dulls some of the adrenaline starting to key up inside her as she draws closer to the campus. The turn takes her into a residential district, the trees lining the road on both sides, giving some shade from the swelter of the day and providing a scenic drive. With the windows down, a scent pervades the otherwise pristine area; a hint of rot and decay. Smelling like the side of a stream following a salmon run where fish lie on the banks rotting in the sun. But here, it is the smell of hundreds and thousands of bodies in the houses around that is drifting into the streets. This is just the beginning, Lynn thinks wrinkling her nose at the assault on her senses.

The sound of the aircraft that was droning faintly in the background from time to time grows louder. The deep-throated rumble soon overrides the sound of the truck engine as they progress through the decay-filled neighborhood.

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