After: The Echo (AFTER post-apocalyptic series, Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

New York—the Carolina foothills giving way to West Virginia coal country, the working-class heart of Pennsylvania, and then into the unbroken urban sprawl of the Northeast. And at every gas station or fast food restaurant, his dad would warn before they got out of the car: “Careful, they’re crazy here.”
    In his dad’s world, everywhere else was crazy except Lake James, North Carolina, where the fish were always biting and the women never were. His dad was named Norman, a normal name for a salt-of-the-earth guy, one whose friends called him “Norm.”
    “When people call me Norman, I know they’re after money,” his dad always said.
    To his shame, Campbell had barely thought of his family in the aftermath of the solar storms. Lake James had only been a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Chapel Hill, but in a world without cars, it might as well have been the far side of the moon.
    When Campbell had left home to attend UNC, his father had packed up the Suburban and ferried his stuff to his dorm room, leaving him with one tidbit of advice: “Careful, they’re crazy here.”
    And now time and circumstance—and an epic hissy fit of the sun—had proven his dad right. He wondered if Norm was still alive, sitting on his bass boat and knocking back Bud Lights while the world raged on around him.
    Somehow, he couldn’t picture it. The idea of his father’s and mother’s deaths didn’t make him sad. Instead, it carved a hollow in his chest.
    Campbell didn’t want to be alone with the Pete-voice anymore. He didn’t care how crazy the people of everywhere else were.
    He raised his head over the hood of the Pathfinder. The three figures were walking along the shoulder of the road, just as Campbell had done. The skinny soldier lit another cigarette, bluish-gray smoke swirling around his head. Their blindfolded captive stumbled along between them, with Crewcut giving him a bruising nudge of encouragement once in a while.
    Campbell looked behind him to make sure they weren’t being followed. As noisy as they’d been, any Zaphead for miles around could have heard them. But the soldiers didn’t seem restrained in the least. Perhaps they’d already dealt with their share of Zapheads and had faith in their weapons.
    Campbell shoved the Glock into a zippered pouch of his backpack and hurried after the threesome, carefully dodging from car to car, working the highway while ducking low. He had to work twice as hard to cover the same amount of ground as the soldiers, but he kept them within sight.
    That’s good hustle , the Pete-voice said.
    “Shut up.”
    Campbell was horrified to realize he’d answered out loud.

 
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Rinse it out, honey,” Rachel said.
    Stephen looked at her with surprise. “There’s a whole box of them right out there,” he said, waving toward the surrounding clearing. Dusk had settled in a lavender cloak that darkened to an electric blue, as if the sun was going off to have a laugh on the far side of the globe, where other survivors might be huddled around greasy campfires.
    “We need to care for what we have. This isn’t a time to be wasteful.”
    DeVontay shook his head in resignation from the pilot’s seat. “Boy’s got all the plates he wants. We can stop in at the next Target and get us some gold-plated china if we want.”
    Rachel wasn’t sure of her motives. She wanted to tell them that if they wanted a civilization, the minimal requirement was that they all act civilized. But perhaps it was simpler than that: focusing on small chores kept the bigger worries at bay.
    And there are plenty of big worries to go around.
    “Until we find your dad, we’re responsible for your behavior,” Rachel said. “And that means doing things you might not like.”
    “My dad would tell me to throw it away.” Stephen looked down at his plastic plate. It wasn’t even that dirty; they’d eaten canned pork and beans and apples, and he’d licked up his tomato sauce. DeVontay