Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary Read Free Page B

all the medicine I had, the vitamins, band-aids, pretty much
anything that might help keep me healthy or treat an injury or illness. I even
added an old metal tool box complete with a selection of hammers, small saws,
screw drivers, and so forth that might be good to have around.
    Going
back to the less practical, I decided to keep my iPhone. It would probably
never ring again, but there were some fun games on it, in case I felt the
overwhelming need to waste time. The iPod was more useful, being loaded with
around ten thousand songs, fifty audio novels, dozens of audio dramas, and
quite a few movies and videos. Both could be recharged in the Jeep.
     
    *
* *
     
    It was afternoon
by the time I completed my preparations, the process taking longer than I
anticipated. That didn’t matter though. From the start I’d planned on departing
the following morning, at sunrise, in order to maximize the available daylight.
For this practical decision, I am incredibly and eternally grateful. I wouldn’t
have met her otherwise you see. But I’ll get to that in a minute. After
finishing, I sat on the sofa, munching on a T-bone and salad, pondering what
the world was now like. Part of this was morbid curiosity, but theorizing would
also assist in predicting how things would progress and how my plans might be
affected. Additionally, I had nothing better to do.
    Regarding
North and South America, the change happened in the middle of the night. A quarter
of the population died and reanimated, largely at home with their families
present. This combination meant there would have been a tremendous number of
attacks, almost immediately. I estimated, meaning guessed, that half the
population was dead or infected before sunrise.
    Infected,
that was still a question. At the time I didn’t know if a bite meant certain
death or not. The men in the pickup had been bitten, died from their injuries,
and came back. But did a bite alone mean the person would get sick, die, and
become a zombie? In all the fictional accounts it did, but that was hardly a
guarantee of what would be the case here. Still, I had to assume the worst
until I had evidence to the contrary.
    So half
of America was taken out within hours, not good. Then how many more woke and
went outside not knowing of the apocalypse? How many stumbled into the chaos
and fell as a result? It had to be significant. Not everyone checked the news
and Internet first thing when waking up. There would be hundreds of thousands,
millions, who left their home thinking it was just an ordinary day.
    With the
power going off there would be even more difficulties. Food and water were the
big ones. A city like New York probably only has enough on hand to feed the
people for a few days, at best. The stores are tiny. Apartments tended to be
small without pantries and having little bitty refrigerators. People shopped
day to day. Even then, without power much of what they did have could not be
stored properly and a lot would go bad. Cars and trucks would still work, but
they wouldn’t be used in a rational, productive manner. No one is going to
think “hey, I need to deliver these canned peaches to the supermarket” when
they’re being chased by flesh eating zombies. Starvation, increased panic, and
rioting would engulf the survivors. There would be more violence and horror.
New York City, any large, dense urban center for that matter, was going to be a
deathtrap. I was definitely heading for a rural area.
    What
about on the other side of the world? It wasn’t relevant to my immediate
concerns, but I’ve never been able to focus exclusively on one thing. I figured
they would have lost nearly as many in the first few hours as the United States.
If a quarter of the population fell and died in a particularly dreadful manner,
the survivors who saw this happening would have tried to help. Only seven
minutes till reanimation meant a lot of zombies were probably being crouched
over or having CPR given to them or