Darkness Falls (Book 1): Rise of the Fallen Read Online Free Page A

possible. I really wished I had installed some sort of solar or wind source to recharge the generator since fuel would eventually be hard to come by. There was also the fact that we would need as much gas as we could save to get to Ruidoso if we chose to do so. We had a large stockpile of candles to use when necessary with near endless matches (the kind that always strike even if they get wet). Preparing meals was easy enough to do. At first with the small camp stove until it ran out of propane. Then we used the wood burning stove which gave the food a nice flavor. I closed off the doors through the house in an attempt to preserve the heat from the fireplace in the living room where we would now be sleeping.
    With the power out elsewhere in the city using water from the tap became impossible due to possible contamination. One morning while I was cozily sleeping in, Carmen become disgusted with not being able to take a bath. She didn’t want to waste the bottled water so instead took a huge pot outside filling it with snow. She made several trips continuously heating it over the stove to fill the tub in the bathroom closest to the back of the house.
    After filling it she immersed herself in what was now mildly warm water. She cleaned until satisfied then fell asleep while relaxing. I woke up and went in search of her finding her in the tub with her eyes closed. I was at first confused as to where the water came from being slightly groggy and half awake. I simply asked if the power was back on.
    “Sadly no dear. It was quite an exhausting chore, but this wonderful water is snow that I heated over the stove.”
    I shook myself awake and my eyes grew in size from immediate worry. I found the words coming out of my mouth in a rush sounding like gibberish. I had to repeat myself slower to make the words comprehensible.
    “Did you just say that you used the snow? Sweetheart, all those millions of people with the symptoms like pneumonia that lead to Living Death were likely caused by whatever is in that snow!”
    “If it was the snow, shouldn’t boiling it have killed whatever was in it? Isn’t it possible that it could be something in the air brought on by the cold weather that caused all those people to get sick?”
    “If it is in fact the snow, boiling it logically will kill almost any impurifications. However, there are exceptions to every rule. There are strands of viruses for example that will only die off it the temperature reaches a certain height. Even then we know absolutely nothing about this disease and there is always a chance that it can ignore all the rules completely being immune to heat or becoming active once it reaches a certain temperature for example.”
    Carmen jumped out of the tub toweling off. Half way through drying herself she sat down and completely breaking down in tears. A few minutes passed before she regained enough composure to talk again.
    “I feel so stupid. All I could think about was how filthy I was and that I must smell awful. I didn’t want to waste the bottled water. What have I done?”
    “I’m sorry if I have made you overly worried beautiful. I just don’t know what I would do without you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’m sure I am just overthinking everything. There is probably nothing to worry about at all. But just to be safe, let’s not take any more chances. After the snow melts we’ll head for the cabin perhaps? There will be less of a chance of hordes of Fallen or looters finding us out there.”
    Carmen stood up throwing her arms around me, her towel falling to the floor. We began kissing for several minutes which led to other things. We had a nice lunch followed by more kissing.
    As night began to fall I added firewood to the fireplace (I had several trees worth stashed out in one of the adjoining garages as part of the preparations I had previously made). We laid near the fireplace cuddling. We pretended the outside world with all its problems did not