Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

far as she could remember. However, it had been nearly dark when he’d attacked her. Jane knew Roman wanted it to be him, though. He wanted to hold onto even more anger toward Noah.

“And we haven’t seen any of them, either,” Elijah told them.

“That’s good, too,” Jane added of the night crawlers. Just thinking about them made her shiver every time. There was a small amount of peace within their group lately, especially concerning their safety. There just wasn’t peace between herself and Roman, who most days just ignored her.

“Yeah, no tracks, no signs of them,” Elijah said.

With so many of them going north to the city, Maureen was staying at Elijah and Alex’s house with the Miller kids and Abraham, much against her will and many arguments. Tristan and her father made the final decision, though, which left Jane to figure the protest was more against her father than Tristan. There wasn’t peace everywhere, and that situation would probably never change.

After exhausting searches at every small medical practice, even a few ob-gyn practices in the county, they were forced to head north back to the bigger cities in search of anything that would help Avery. Jane didn’t really know what they’d need, but Avery had researched a lot on the internet when it worked and came up with a master list. Jane had gone with Tristan to town to collect quite a pile of books from the library on pregnancy, what to expect, and child-rearing. The list Avery had given them didn’t seem too difficult, but each of them had a copy and a plan to search for the elusive maternity items. On the trip to the city over a month ago, they’d raided that semi on the freeway and found baby items like formula, diapers, and the like, but now they were faced with actually bringing a baby into the world, which was something totally different. At the time, they’d taken the formula, thinking one of the rescued girls could’ve been pregnant. The reality was that it was actually Avery who was. Some anesthesia would’ve been the first on Jane’s list, but that was not a possibility. None of them were doctors, so even if they found something like that, they could cause more harm than good if they found anesthesia meds.

Any and all extra supplies found were also to be transported back home, as well. There were so many of them in their group, even with the absence of the rescued girls and Noah. Supplies were dwindling daily. It was a good thing Roman had shot the deer because they were all eating that meat now. On this trip, they were also to stop at Mr. Rankin’s farm to check on him and his young son and also work out the details of butchering the cow soon and sharing supplies. It had been over six weeks since they’d stopped in to check on them, so Jane hoped they were doing okay.

As they neared Canton, Roman said, “Wow, it’s like a ghost town now.”

“Literally,” Elijah commented as Roman drove through the city streets, avoiding the collapsed freeway.

Much of the more populated areas were burned and destroyed. Homes, buildings, businesses, all just incinerated to ash and black soot. Jane wasn’t sure if the military had done it or something else had happened. They’d shown quite a few times on the television the military burning areas to control the outbreak of the disease, and she suspected the movement of the crawlers. They’d herded them into funneled areas and killed them. She knew that for sure. She’d witnessed it.

“This is crazy,” Wren stated as Alex pulled ahead of them again and led the way. Jane could see Stephanie looking around as if surprised, as well.

“Guess we got out when it was still good to make our move,” Roman observed.

Jane nodded but didn’t reply.

Alex drove to the hospital where Roman’s mother used to work. Roman knew the way around it so much better than any of them, which was why he was on this trip. He was supposed to stay behind and work security in the absence of others, but Tristan decided he was too valuable to the mission to remain home.

Pulling to a stop in the middle of the street, Alex waited for Roman to come along beside him. Stephanie rolled down her window to talk to them.

“You lead,” she instructed Roman. “We’ll follow.”

Alex leaned past her and called to them, “Find us a safe place to park. We don’t want out in the open like this. Someone will steal our vehicles.”

“Got it,” Roman called back.

He drove them to the same area of the hospital where he’d sneaked in with Jane, only this time, instead of parking on the street a few over, Roman pulled around back and parked where the employees took their smoke breaks. It seemed like a good spot and had ample room to turn around with their attached trailers. There was a tall cement wall that was a part of some sort of loading dock on one side and eight-foot privacy fencing on the other. It seemed like a safe place to park, but Jane had seen the results of assuming anything was safe.

Alex pulled in next to them, and they all got out.

“Safe, ya’ think?” he asked Roman.

“Yeah,” Roman replied, looking around. “Hard to believe, but it seems like it really is shut down.”

She definitely agreed with that assessment. Apart from the few abandoned cars, trucks, and a city bus on the street before they’d turned into this lot, the entire area seemed completely deserted. There weren’t employee vehicles in their spaces, nor was the gated parking lot or parking deck across the street occupied by more than one or two cars that seemed abandoned, as well, especially since they were covered in deep snow and the pavement around them untouched by a snow plow’s blade or a single human footprint. Roman’s chosen parking lot was not well-known, nor was it very large. The lot maybe