Smolder: Echoes of the End Book 6: (A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller) by Justin Bell & Mike Kraus

Author:Justin Bell & Mike Kraus [Bell, Justin & Kraus, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Muonic Press Inc
Published: 2024-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Keegan walked slowly along the beach, his feet kicking through loose sand, occasionally crunching atop half-buried shells embedded within the coast of mainland North Carolina. The sun had set long ago, darkness had drawn it’s black curtain across the horizon, and as usual, the lingering smoke obscured most of what he could see of the field of overhead stars. The world was a different place than it had been. There were the obvious things, of course, no power, no gas, careful rationing of food and water, things most people would have expected. But there were more subtle things, too, things he might not have noticed. The fact that the stars were often shrouded by smoke, and the fact that everything was just so eerily quiet. Those two things combined isolated Keegan along that ragged edge of the beach, separated him from the rest of his family, and in fact, the rest of humanity at large. He was alone out there, perhaps in more ways than one.

His mother had strictly forbade him to go out looking for Bucky. They’d spent hours searching and if Missy was to be believed, it was dangerous out there. People lived on the islands in the Outer Banks, people who preferred their isolation, but who needed certain things. Things they were willing to take, if they had to. People like the ones who had set the trap for the sailboat earlier that day. They’d swarmed the capsized boat after it toppled over, appearing on their rowboats, circling it like hungry sharks pooling around a pool of blood or chum floating along the water.

Keegan had convinced himself that one of them had found Bucky, that one of them had swept him from the water, stolen him into one of their boats and had taken him to the island. That was the only thing that made sense. Bucky was a good swimmer, he couldn’t have just drowned in the water. Keegan’s lips parted, one hand cupped to the corner of his mouth, but he froze, eyes shifting, glancing along the darkened shoreline. He couldn’t shout, someone might hear, he had to be content to look.

Turning, he looked back over his shoulder at the small, coastal village drowned in shadow. It was just south of what passed for a major population center in the area, a short distance from a cluster of chain stores and big businesses, though its quaint structures and quiet streets might as well have separated it by nations instead of miles.

Keegan was reminded of the coastal homes back in Maine, not the popularized ones in the tourist towns, but the ones hidden within the rocky outstretches north of Acadia. Not just there, but the quiet beachfront communities between Kennebunk and Portland, the ones outsiders didn’t flock to, the ones who were allowed to mind their own business.

A few scattered homes and small town mom and pop stores lined the narrow streets, some of which were made of actual cobblestone. Each business had been shuttered,

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