The Extinction Series | Book 4 | Spread of Extinction Ellis, Tara (top 10 ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Turning to Eddy, Jason answered by tossing the last shovel onto the ground at his feet. “Then we better get started. It’ll go a lot faster if we all dig.”

Chapter 11

SCOTT

Southern Florida Everglades

Scott went through the practiced motions of tugging on his body armor as he walked down the tree-lined sidewalk outside his parents’ home. It was a nervous habit, and one he often did when speaking to reporting parties while on a call, or anytime he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

At forty, you’d think as a small-town cop of twenty years he’d have more confidence, but that was something that had eluded Scott all his life. From sports in high school, to job performance, and even women. It was likely the main reason he’d never married. When he finally found a woman he thought was the one, they’d been dating for all of four months before he buried her in his backyard, earlier that week.

Scott stopped, his fingers hooked around the vest straps, and looked up at the moss-lined branches of the massive Live Oak Trees. The street might have been pulled right off of a postcard for the famous Everglades of Southern Florida. The sort you see in the background of iconic films. He’d taken it all for granted, growing up, but now he was noticing a lot of things that he’d been blind to in the past.

It was early in the morning, and although the ash had cast a fairly thick blanket across the atmosphere, the sun was still strong enough to break through and create an eerie orange light. If it weren’t for the stink permeating the quaint neighborhood, it might have been a fascinating spectacle to experience. Especially when viewed while looking up through the Spanish Moss hanging over his head.

When his dad succumbed to The Kuru two days before, Scott had considered taking the time to move on to their closest neighbors and bury them, too. It would have made everything seem less…macabre. But after he’d scooped the last pile of dirt onto the fresh grave next to his mom’s tomato plants, he realized what a foolish idea it was. There were too many bodies. It would involve more than a week just to take care of the dead on their side of the street.

Plus, his mom fell ill later that same day. Scott attempted to take her to the local hospital. Unlike his father, she had been willing to go after watching how horribly he died. Unfortunately, the clinic had already turned into a morgue, so after having one of the few remaining nurses start an IV on his mom, he took her back home and did his best to tend to her himself.

It wouldn’t be enough. He knew that. He’d just hung the last bag of fluids after she fell into a coma sometime during the night. Based on the last report the police department got from both the state and federal level, she’d be in the ground next to her husband in another day at best. In fact, most of the population of the town of Modena, and all of the world, would soon follow.

It was The End Times.

Scott was okay with his parents going first. He was relieved to have spared them the pain of burying him. What he wasn’t okay with was being one of the Immune.  When he failed to get sick, day-after-day, and he realized he’d be one of the few left to pick up the pieces, he didn’t rejoice.

Reaching down, his hand brushed over his sidearm—testing himself, and his decision to live and fulfill whatever role had been laid out for him. Whether he wanted it or not.

At some point, he’d started walking again without realizing it, and he’d come to the end the street. Blinking slowly, he moved his hand back to the vest strap and started to whistle as he crossed the empty street and continued on his way.

He’d left his cruiser back at his parents’ house. It was sitting on empty and had been since he left to take his mom to the hospital. Once the gas stations had stopped working, he’d been playing Russian-roulette with the fumes for the last few miles back to the house. Instead of further chancing it, he thought it best to walk the few blocks to the station, where he’d siphon what he needed from the other patrol cars.

He’d stop at Harold’s Market on the way and see if there were any gas cans left after first the panic buying, and then the looting from the week before. He hadn’t done much to try and stop it. There was no point in it, seeing as how most of them would end up dead, anyway.

As far as Scott could tell, there was one other officer left in the area, besides himself. They were part of a county system which employed over forty patrol officers. According to the statistics, he supposed he should count himself lucky that there was anyone else answering the radio. There might be others, further out, but the repeater he needed to transmit anything beyond the local area was probably down, along with all of the other power and electronics.

Scott knew he was a lost soul. A lost soul left to wander the streets alone and afraid. But there was still a part of him that had faith he could make something more from it. That with time, once The Kuru had run its course, those remaining could begin to unite. He saw that as the only option. So, he would go to the station and get the gas, and then he would patrol the city. His city, because that was the oath he’d taken, and what he’d always felt compelled to do, even as a child. He’d protect people, and maybe eventually bring some of