Sunshine Read Free Page B

the streets.
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    On the Run
     
                  How I survived those first few months I do not know. I believe a lot of luck was on my side. I had to learn almost everything. At first there were Jacks around every turn. I hide in basements, on roofs, in cars, and once in a bank vault. I too short power nap throughout the day and traveled at all times of the day. Sometimes night time was better, because they tended to rest at the darkest hours. Gradually they started to thin and traveled in packs of no more than two or three. They often fought with frequent fatalities and were highly territorial. I think their fighting saved me, because they were so distracted by their own kind.
                  I came to suspect that they group together because there was a little bit of a need for socializing still in them. They hunted when they got hungry or came upon a source of food. Unfortunately, I was on the menu these days as they didn’t mind cannibalism.
    The Jacks also had fits of rage , randomly destroying anything they could get their hands on. One second they would be walking down an alley the next they would be ripping off the nearest fire escape and sculpt it into modern art. I didn’t see much difference between a Jack and a wolf so I came to nickname a group of them “packs”. This seemed a bit wrong to me because it reminded me of one of my favorite books. If only these packs were a group of hot muscular men without shirts.
    I came across a family of other survivors in the beginning, but they turned out to be a little too crazy for my liking, so I left them after only two weeks. They were actually very excited about the whole thing. They saw killing the Jacks as a sport; “One hundred points for a head shot, only ten for the stomach”, “I killed it with a spoon. A spoon! Who knew?”, “Whoever kills the most today gets the last snickers”. I still felt pity every time I had to kill one not like I should win a giant stuffed banana. They did, however, teach me how to use a gun and even gave me a rifle when I told them I was going my own way. Oh course the leader’s son wanted me to hang around to repopulate he world. He had less teeth then I had toes, so I declined that stupendous offer.
                  On my own I decided I wanted to find out what had gone wrong. After a month I became obsessed with finding the knowledge of what happened to society. I only knew what I had seen before the power went out. I wasn’t searching for a way to fix things or even destroy the Jacks, I just wanted answers. What the hell happened?
    I was currently driving a Hybrid, but it wasn’t easy to use. Most of the roads were covered with abandoned, broken cars, and debris. I was only driving right now, because the highway was surprisingly clear. I stopped at most buildings I came across. Well, all the ones that appeared to be safe or not burned down.
                  There was very little information about what had happened in any of the buildings. The radio stations had a lot of stories explaining what had proceeded in those few days before society crashed. But they were nothing new, just different takes on the same event.
                  The hospitals were where the real information was. They had books explaining how the implants worked and how to repair them. I understood very little, but at least it was something. I found a printed email on one doctor’s desk and it appears they had nearly figured out a virus that could be broadcasted to all devices and would have caused them to turn off. It would have saved us all, but the madness within got to them before the riddle could be solved completely. Apparently the programmers hadn’t thought of adding an off switch to start with.
                  I read about how the implants were removed before it became an illegal practice. They had to insert a probe into the nasal cavity and hit a special