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

“We looking for gas?” he asked, running a hand over his wind-blown hair in a useless attempt to tame it.

“Yup, just about out,” Jason confirmed. “This place is a no-go, so be keeping an eye out for any other prospects.”

Though Devon left without mentioning Hernandez, he didn’t need to say anything. Peta could tell by the way he looked at her, and how he kept glancing back to where he was lying, that there wasn’t much time left. For the same reason he didn’t mention it, neither did she. There wasn’t anything to be done about it, except to stay with him so he wouldn’t be alone when he died.

In another ten minutes they came upon a larger house, and there was a small car parked out front. Jason and Eddy quickly exited the truck as soon as it had stopped, and Peta watched in fascination as Jason led the way to the front door in a fast-moving crouch, weapon at the ready. As soon as his feet hit the ground, she saw a shift come over him as he slipped into soldier mode. She had no idea what kind of a doctor he was, but it didn’t take long to determine that he wasn’t someone you wanted to be on the wrong side of in a fight.

Feeling vulnerable out in the open, she retrieved her own weapon and went to stand by the bed of the truck with Tyler and Devon. They all exchanged furtive glances but refrained from speaking.

They didn’t have long to wait until Jason and Eddy reappeared around the corner of the house, having gone out the backdoor. Jason waved a hand at them, giving the all-clear sign, and Peta was able to take a deep breath again. She wondered if she would ever use up enough adrenaline so that she’d stop getting so anxious every time something stressful came up. She’d have to talk with Jason at some point and learn how he was able to control his response. It was something she’d always envied in some of her colleagues. She might come off as cool and controlled on the outside, but in reality, she was an emotional wreck.

Devon already had their gas can in hand and was jogging toward the car. Eddy met him there, and together they worked on siphoning what amounted to less than two gallons of gas.

Slamming his fist onto the hood of the truck, Jason squinted as he looked out toward the road. “We’re getting too close. This might be enough to get us into Guayana City, but not much more. We’re going to have to stop again.”

Peta trusted his instinct about the dangers the town presented so, as they continued driving and got several miles further without seeing another house, she began questioning their lack of a more solid plan. She knew that realistically, they didn’t have any other options, but that didn’t stop her highly analytical mind from criticizing every decision they’d made along the way that brought them to that point.

“Here we go,” Jason muttered, as two empty sideroads abruptly appeared and ran parallel to them. They passed a street sign, announcing the upcoming city. Unlike how most highways worked in the states, the main road they were on didn’t go around Guayana with exits, but instead went straight through the heart of it.

Just as Jason had feared, the suburbs weren’t accessible from the direction they were approaching, and they were being taken directly into the outskirts of the city. Eddy slowed to a stop as the first intersection came into view. Though they were on the fringes and still far from the city center, the level of destruction was obvious.

A band of dark smoke hung over the sprawling metropolis in the distance, and the sense of desolation grew as Peta saw burned-out vehicles littering the road less than a quarter-mile ahead. The intersection was only a block away, and each corner was occupied by a building of some sort. Most of the windows were broken out, and she could see at least two bodies scattered in the otherwise empty parking lots.

It was hard to know the order in which the various levels of chaos occurred. Garbage was piled on the sidewalks, and masks were mixed in with the refuse blowing across the road. After the power went out and the infrastructure collapsed, there would have been riots and looting in the streets. Soon after, they would have run out of gas and other temporary fixes to their immediate problems. Then, as with the rest of the world, The Kuru hit. In a matter of days, they would have gone from your typical civil unrest to full-blown survival mode. By now, everyone would either be dead, in the last stages of the illness, or one of the Immune or the Cured.

Based on what was happening in the states, and their rough guess of one million for the population of Guayana, there should only be around a thousand survivors. Adding in one percent for the Cured, and then taking other injuries and illnesses into consideration, there’d be less than two thousand people left in the whole city. Even if they doubled that, it would still make it close to a ghost town.

However, if what Jason suspected was true, it wouldn’t take very many of those survivors to band together and cause problems. It would come down to a game of luck, or chance, or maybe fate. Peta wasn’t sure what to call it. All she knew was that in spite of the odds, she didn’t want to play the game.

Chapter 14

TYLER

Guayana City, Venezuela

“Hey, I think this still has some stuff in it!” Tyler shouted to Eddy, who was standing watch outside the gas station’s door. Tyler didn’t think he’d ever get to a point where he