Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Read Free

a Biblical scale.  
    Everything had been shut down—grocery stores, gas stations, even the local police and fire department—because there was no one left to work.   Nearly everyone was sick and in bed or on the floor and the ones who weren’t, would never rise again.  
    It was the worst pandemic to hit mankind since the Black Death of the Middle Ages—it dwarfed even the infamous 1918 Spanish Flu.   Chad thought for a second that maybe some long-distant ancestor of his had stood over a mass grave in London or Frankfurt or something, and watched the same way he had watched his little community die.   The thought gave him some small comfort.  
    The government had labeled the blossoming pandemic a series of numbers and letters that Chad found he now couldn’t remember.   Chad had to look it up online to figure out the disease sweeping the planet was an avian influenza.   The Press—what was left of them—were simply calling it The Blue Flu.   Chad didn’t need to watch the news to know why—his little sister’s face had turned a dark blue as she died.   The color was so unnatural—so unsettling—Chad knew straightaway he would never be able to forget the sight.   They called it cyanosis.   The word had been etched into Chad’s memory overnight.
    The two neighbors sat without a word as video images from deserted cities scrolled across the television screen.   London, Madrid, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Frankfurt, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Beijing.   More and more bodies were seen in the major cities, just lying in the street where they fell, now bloated and stiff.   Most cities had riots of one sort or another as the system broke down under the strain of so many deaths.   All that was left was trash and empty cars or overturned buses and dead bodies.   The violence and looting died off as soon as the people who started it began to die.  
    In Asia, where it had started, the survivors were only then beginning to crawl out from the unimaginable wreckage into the light.   New estimates of close to a billion people dead between Europe and the Pacific Ocean were simply beyond comprehension.
    It felt like it was the end of the world.
    “Don’t know when this damn bug’ll ever burn itself out…” said Mr. Miller.   He coughed, a wet, deep, pitiful sound.   “I don’t think I’ll be around to see the rebuilding, though…”
    Chad said nothing.   What could he say?   He knew he would be around, and it made his heart ache.   If Mom had only been able to stay healthy for another couple weeks, maybe she would have made it.
    He idly wondered if there were any other people out there like him.   When the Blue Flu had finally spent its fury and went away…would he be the only person left alive?
    “At least we don’t have to live through that,” the Old Man said, pointing a weak hand at the screen depicting rioting in Phoenix and Mexico City.   People broke into retail stores and carried loot in all directions.   The sickness was only now beginning to slither its way through the American Southwest from South America.  
    “Enjoy your TVs and sneakers, you lousy—“   Mr. Miller sneezed again.   “You won’t live long enough to play with that shit you’re stealing!”
    “I’ll try to get us something to eat.   You need your strength,” Chad said.   He knew the worst for Mr. Miller was just around the corner.   He had seen the sickness take its toll on too many people.   He looked at the mostly empty pantry.   When everything went bad, the truckers had stopped delivering food to the stores.   Sometimes the government just took the food.   Where they took it, no one knew.   Others stole it too, but when the government did it, it hurt more.  
    Soup.   Again.   That was all that was left.   Chad hadn’t thought about what he’d do when his last dozen cans of various soups were gone.   They had a little bread left, and some emergency foodstuffs left over from tornado