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

stroke.”
    He leaned his head back and filled his lungs with
exhaust-filled air. Gesturing toward his cell phone, he said, “Give your mom a
call. See if you can get through.”
    Emma reached into the center console and retrieved the
phone. She swiped through a few screens, and then lifted the phone to her ear.
A moment later, she shook her head.
    “What?” Sean asked.
    “It’s busy,” she said.
    “Let me see.” He held out his hand and waited for her to
hand him the phone. After she did, he brought it up to the side of his head. A
fast busy signal greeted him. “Circuits are overloaded.”
    “Huh?”
    “The switching equipment that routes the calls, it must be
down or overloaded.”
    “Or destroyed by an EMP?” More than a little panic colored
her voice.
    “No, Emma, not an EMP. I’ll explain more once we get home.
Okay?”
    She exhaled heavily, and said, “Why can’t you tell me now?”
    A car jerked in front of their truck. Sean laid on the horn
and extended the middle finger of his right hand. “That’s why, Em. Assholes
like that out on the road.”
    Immediately, he regretted his outburst. The stress of
wondering whether Kathy had received his message and acted on it started to
combine with the feeling of dread rising within him. Pressure overload. The
event was coming, no doubt about it. He’d resigned himself to that already.
What concerned him most was the fact that it was just after noon, and already
the roads were packed. Driving to Charleston, South Carolina to meet Turk might
not be a possibility.
    After forty minutes on the road, Sean turned into his
driveway, driving the length of it at no more than ten miles per hour. The
truck dipped and bounced in the usual spots. The driveway changed yearly,
depending on how rough the winter and summer were. The past nine months had
been wetter than usual, resulting in plenty of new potholes that he hadn’t
filled in yet.
    He scanned the front of the house. In his haste, he’d left
the front door open. At least, he hoped it had been him. It swung forward and
back in the breeze. The wind carried the scent of freshly cut grass. He turned
his head left and glanced down at his yard. The lawn service had been over
while he was out.
    Were they oblivious to what was occurring in the world
today?
    The tall golden grass in the pasture to the right of his
house swayed side-to-side, like gentle waves on a lake reflecting the sunlight.
They hid a secret that only three people knew about. Sean’s bunker, twelve
hundred square feet of space, lay under part of the field.
    He stopped the truck in front of the garage door, reached up
and pressed the casing that housed the door opener. He didn’t drive inside,
though. Instead, he shifted the vehicle out of gear and engaged the emergency
brake while still on the driveway. Neither Sean nor Emma moved for close to two
minutes. Their rapid breathing filed the cab.
    The phone buzzed in his hand.
    “Go stand next to the garage,” he told Emma.
    She nodded, opened her door and stepped down. Once she was
far enough away, he reached under his seat and retrieved his pistol, answering
the phone at the same time.
    “How secure is that bunker of yours, Ryder?” Turk asked.
    “It’s good. Thirty feet underground and stocked for months.
Two hidden, separated points for ingress and egress. Camera security system
installed so I can monitor outside. Wires are in thick conduit and eight feet
deep until they need to run up. The whole setup, the bunker, security, is
completely solar.”
    “All right, good,” Turk said. “You’re gonna need it.”
    Sean opened the door and slid out of the truck, letting his
good foot hit the ground first. “Why’s that?”
    “I’ve got a network built up across the east coast, and the
reports I’m getting back from them ain’t good. Every major highway and
interstate is packed. People are panicking, and it’s only going to get worse
once they realize that this shit is already