Affliction Z: Abandoned Hope (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Read Free

For the time being, she had to
choose the latter.
    There was no easy route back to Roanoke, Virginia, it
seemed. They had flown non-stop to Seattle, but only because she and her
companions had driven to Washington, D.C. for their flight. To get closer to
home, her itinerary required two layovers. The first would be in Chicago for an
hour, and the second in Cincinnati for close to two. From there, she’d take a
commuter flight to Roanoke, placing her fifteen miles from her doorstep. The
trip was scheduled to last eight hours. She glanced at her watch and performed
the time conversion in her head. It would be dark by the time she opened her
front door.
    The wait at the security checkpoint was minimal. Kathy
passed through without incident. Ten minutes later she found her gate and took
a seat in an empty row next to a huge window overlooking a runway. One by one,
planes took off with no more than a thirty-second delay. In forty-five minutes,
her plane would lift off and begin its journey to Chicago.
    It had to, she told herself.
    Even if she couldn’t continue on from there, Illinois was a
hell of a lot closer to home than Washington state.
    Slowly, the seats around her were filled by other travelers.
Some were dressed in suits, perhaps setting off for a day of negotiations and
meetings and conferences. Others were dressed more casually, maybe making a
trip to visit family, or to return home, or for any myriad of reasons.
    Would any of them make it to their destinations? And if so,
what waited for them there?
    She pulled out her cell phone and tried to place a call.
Again, she received a fast busy tone. When would they get the lines fixed?
    She glanced around, noticing that nobody held a phone to
their heads. Nor were people slouched over, tapping away at their screens.
Everyone was affected by the same issue. Judging by the looks on their faces,
only a few seemed to know why. Kathy figured that was because most people got
their news from their phones these days, not the TV or the radio. The majority
of them would have listened to music from their personal library stored in
their cell phone’s memory, or their MP3 player on the way to the airport.
    Who wanted to deal with commercials?
    She looked up at the four flat screen televisions mounted to
the thick columns close to the middle aisle. Two of them were off. The other
two were tuned to a closed loop broadcast. They displayed threat assessment
information, and then travel tips.
    She wondered if whoever ran the airport knew about the
reports. They purposefully weren’t showing the information because they didn’t
want pandemonium to break out in the terminal. Under normal circumstances,
Kathy would brush such thoughts aside and label them as conspiracy theories.
But the images from earlier lingered. She could not shake free of them. She
assumed that most who saw them felt the same way.
    She tried to call Sean one more time, figuring it would be
her last attempt before landing in Chicago. To her surprise, the phone rang
twice, but then cut off. She pressed the green phone icon again, hoping to hear
the line ring. It didn’t, though. Instead, fast busy tones greeted her.
    Kathy moved quickly to get to the front of the line when it
came time to board. Everyone appeared calm. Sooner or later that would change.
Once news spread, the panic would begin. She knew that could happen at any
moment, and in no way, shape, or form would she allow herself to be thwarted by
it.
    She sat down in her seat as if she were staking a claim
along a river known for strong gold flows. Half the people who passed by made
eye contact with her. Half of those people actually smiled or nodded. One
particularly obese man stopped in the aisle in front of her. Dread filled her
as she prepared for the man to take a seat next to her. He coughed, craned his
head, and then moved one row further back and squeezed in behind her. Her seat
pushed forward, and then fell back.
    As she clutched her carry-on bag, she