ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

seemed to happen at once. The boy broke to his right to run across
the street. He jumped over the slush pile at the edge of the sidewalk, darted
between two parked cars, took one step into the road, but then he slipped; he
fell flat on his face in the middle of the street.
    He
probably never saw the school bus coming down the road, but as soon as he hit
the ground, the bus driver saw him. She slammed on her brakes. The wheels
locked, and the whole bus started to slide.
    Jeremy
reached the boy just before the bus. He bent down, grabbed him by the back of
the coat, and in one motion he jerked the boy up and threw him back toward the
sidewalk. But then Jeremy was out of time. He dropped to his knee, looked away,
and covered his head with both his hands, ready for the impact. He could hear
Kate start to scream, but then her voice was lost in the dull, sick crunch of
crushing metal. Then silence.
    Jeremy
blinked open his eyes. Inches from his face he saw the front corner of the bus
cutting into the blue driver’s-side door of one of the parked cars, and he
thought for a second that the bus had missed him. At the last possible moment
it must have veered to the right and hit the car and missed him…only it didn’t.
He had felt it. The sudden impact of the bus and then the weight and the
pressure, like someone was trying to push him.
    He
looked to his right. All he could see was the yellow radiator and black bumper
of the bus, the steel bent and warped around his body in a concave shell where
he knelt on the ground. He reached up and touched the metal next to his face.
Then he recoiled his hand.
    Jeremy
staggered up to his feet and reeled back from the accident. He couldn’t catch
his breath. He was hyperventilating, gasping, fighting to take in air. He felt
someone grab his arm. It was Kate. She was saying something. He heard her
voice, but he couldn’t follow the words. Why couldn’t he breathe?
    A
sudden thought; Jeremy looked down at his chest. Maybe he was cut, bleeding. He
saw red, but his coat was red. Was he bleeding? He slapped his hand up to his
chest. It was dry. No blood. Kate jerked on his arm again, and Jeremy turned
back to look at her. He could see her panic.
    “I
can’t breathe,” he said between gasps. “Katie, I can’t breathe.” His vision
suddenly blurred into fuzzy gray, and he could feel his legs give out as he
collapsed back into the street. His ears were ringing. Jeremy squeezed his eyes
shut, and then opened them, forcing himself to focus. He could see Kate
kneeling next to him in the road. Her mouth was moving, and he knew she was
saying something, but all he could hear was the ringing.
    Jeremy
swallowed hard and managed a last whispered word, “Kate,” but then his eyes
blurred again, and it was darkness.

Chapter
2
     
    Major
Stuart Ellison stood at ease near the back wall of the command center, his feet
spaced perfectly shoulder-width apart and his hands clasped tightly behind his
back. It was a posture adopted out of his own choice more than necessity. Years
of service had made the forced position of parade rest like second nature to him,
and now it was the only way Ellison could stand in the room and still feel some
measure of comfort.
     Certainly
no one had ordered Ellison to stand there. He was the most senior ranking
officer in the room, and the executive officer for the battalion. All 3,000 men
currently serving at Fort Blaney were directly under his command, and only one,
Colonel Edward McCann, had the authority to order him to “snap to,” but the
colonel had yet to arrive.
    Like
the other men in the command center, Ellison wore gray camouflage, and like the
other men, he was young and fit. His haircut was standard issue: shaved to the
skin on the sides with a buzz of brown hair left on top. His dark-brown eyes
were unremarkable, and his height was only average. In fact, the only thing setting
Ellison apart from his men was the brown oak leaf sewn to his collar.
    He
scanned the