Children of the After: Awakening (book 1) Read Free Page B

stride, her eyes locked with Will’s and for a moment it
felt like the world paused around them as everything slowed into infinity.
Etched there on her younger brother’s features was a mix of pain,
disappointment, fear, and horror. None of them had known what to expect, and
all of them had come to their own conclusions as to what would lie outside
their door. Even so, neither Sam nor Jack had considered Will’s reaction to the
devastated home outside. Prior to the security vault, their home had been the
center of Will’s world.
    Home was where he felt safe and by extension why he
felt safe in the vault, but now that was gone. Home was not just walls, but was
Mom and Dad too, and now all three were taken from him. His world, as he knew
it, was broken, and Sam could see clearly through the expression on his face
the realization of his childlike perception of a world in turmoil. He was in a
familiar place, yet lost. He was with those who loved him, but alone. Poor Will
had just seen beyond the meager horrors of his imagination to the real horrors
of the world, and was destroyed because of it. Sam did the only thing she could
think of.
    Like their mother would have done if she were there, she
rushed to his side and scooped his small body up off the floor and into her
arms, coddling him close to her chest and held him tight. That act alone
triggered something within him, and his stalwart painful expression broke like
the sobs that exploded from him as tears began to run unchecked from his eyes
down Sam’s neck and chest. She knew in that instant that nothing would ever be
the same with him. With any of them, for that matter. Mom and Dad weren’t
coming back, and it was up to her to do what was right for Will and teach him
right from wrong. It was up to her to comfort him, and the realizations brought
tears to her own eyes as she herself was once again wrapped within protecting
arms as Jack came to join them. They only had each other.
    * * * * *
    Will watched as Jack opened the big door and was nearly
toppled off his feet as wind gusted through the door. The only thing that kept
him on his feet was the fact he was holding Sam’s hand. Leaning into the wind
he blinked his eyes, realizing that Jack was already out there somewhere. Lightning
flashed and he caught a glimpse of his brother not far outside the door, but
Sam blocked most of the view as her grip grew immediately more firm and stance
more rigid.
    Again the darkness came as thunder shook the vault. Sam
ushered him to the edge of the doorway hurriedly and he realized that she had
screamed during the thunder, though Will hardly heard it. Instead, he focused
on the image ingrained in his head, scorched there momentarily by a single
flash of lightning somewhere in the distance. He had expected the house to look
the same outside the vault as it had when they came in. Perhaps dusty, but the
same. Outside the door would be the bookcase that hid the entrance to the vault
and beyond that would be the living room with the grey leather furniture Mom
liked so much. Antique hardwood floors that were great for sliding in his
slippers would turn to tile at the kitchen, and spanning the length of both
rooms would be a wall of giant windows where Will could look out over the city.
Up here he felt like a super hero. At least he used to.
    Instead of the luxury custom apartment their dad had
designed, there was a great black void into nothingness. Just beyond where Jack
sprawled against what appeared to be the overturned book case, was a great hole
where once had been the living room. Had Jack ventured just a few steps further,
he would have fallen into its depths. The wall of windows appeared to be
missing and everything was dark and dirty. Then it was gone. The image fading
from his vision.
    Empty blackness returned and with it Jack came into the
vault again, but he was bleeding. Something had got him out there in the dark. Looking
to the door, Will watched for Jack’s attacker and