The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) Read Online Free Page A

road.
    They had reached the abandoned gas station almost at dusk. Frank stood for a long moment looking down into the station’s tire pit. Three small piles of rubber glowed in the ruddy sunset. Nella remembered making them a few months prior, burying the abandoned remains of three unknown people who had died while Infected. The store was as empty as it had been the first time they’d seen it, but multiple footprints and campfire rings around it told Nella that it had been used several times by travelers in the past few months. Had they been fleeing the City or trying to enter it? The question unnerved her. How far had this thing spread?
    “We should go somewhere else,” she said. “It looks like there’s been lots of traffic here in the past few days.”
    Frank frowned. “I don’t remember there being any other real shelter between here and the farmhouse, do you? A couple of places that were falling down, but that’s it.”
    “If we go a few miles farther out before we head to the farmhouse there should be some empty neighborhoods—”
    “Then we risk getting lost. Or running into strangers. The people that came by here had to go somewhere. They didn’t get into the City if that’s where they were headed. And if they were escaping, they won’t have gone far.”
    Nella looked nervously into the large empty store. The sun was setting but the City’s soft glow was absent. It would be dark, so dark in an hour or two. Any light, even from the tiny back room where she and Frank had slept before, would be like a neon sign to anyone in the area. Even the woods would be preferable. In the open, they wouldn’t be trapped if something, someone found them. “It’s warm. We’ll find somewhere, not on the road, not where people can find us.”
    Frank shook his head. “We know there are Infected in those woods. One bit you last time.”
    “That was miles farther. And those Infected were almost dead when we found them. And those had to have been kept somewhere. Nobody is left, no Infected could have survived this long on their own.”
    “We don’t know how many new Infected escaped the City, Nella. Here, we’d have a door or two between us and them. We don’t know how many people are just desperate because the City has collapsed. There’s no more trade, there’s no more security, and there’s nobody enforcing peace in the area. Seeing two people on their own, we’d be vulnerable to anyone that wanted to rob us. If we stay quiet, nobody will know we’re here. It’s obvious to anyone looking at this place that it’s been stripped clean a long time. Nobody will come in looking for food or supplies if they don’t know we’re inside.”
    Nella hesitated, but she knew he was right. She followed him into the station and flipped the lock on the glass door.
    “Better not,” said Frank, seeing her hand on the door. “If someone tries it and finds it locked, they’ll think there is something valuable in here and they’ll get curious. If it’s unlocked they’ll pass by.”
    She unlocked the glass door. “All right, but we’re locking the store room. If anyone gets that far, I want some warning.”
    Frank nodded. They closed themselves into the small stock room, the late summer air stifling in the windowless closet.

Four
    Christine thundered through the thick underbrush, scraping herself on the thorns of a wild raspberry patch as she tried to follow Marnie toward the road. She stank from her struggle with the man in the tunnel, her arms and back still covered in drying muck, and she was so exhausted that she stumbled frequently. But she knew something was wrong. Off. Maybe it was the pregnancy. Maybe it was the stress. All Christine knew for sure, was that a few days earlier she would have had no trouble keeping up with or leading the teen. Emergency work had kept her in great shape for years and she’d worked hard during her pregnancy to stay healthy and active. There was no real reason she should be so