An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (30 page)

     The Explorer is loaded up and ready to go. The back seat is filled with your glass pickle jars, stuffed full of jerky and trail mix and dried vegetables. Each one is in a black plastic bag, tied shut. They look like bags of garbage. If anyone happens to stumble across one of them hidden in the brush, hopefully they’ll consider it a waste of their time and pass it by.

     I’ve got the stroller in the back along with several bottles of water and lots of provisions. If I have a breakdown I’ll press on by foot. The extra load will slow me down, but not having to stop to hunt and fish will save me some time, so it should even out more or less. I’m hoping for ten to fifteen miles a night.

     As I write this, it’s about three in the morning. I’m going to bed just after sunrise. I need to check the water supply for the rabbits just to make sure it’s not draining too fast, and the seal isn’t leaking. After I’m happy with that, I’ll sleep all day tomorrow so I can set out about midnight tonight.

     I snuck over to Frank and Eva’s last night to say my goodbyes. They wished me well and said they’re looking forward to meeting you guys. And they wouldn’t let me leave until I said a prayer with them and asked God to watch over me on my journey.

     If all goes well and the car doesn’t break down, I’ll be there in a few days.

     I love you with all my heart. Wish me luck.

Thank you for reading

ALONE, Book 2

AN UNKIND WINTER

It was a fun book to write. I hope you enjoyed it.

The next book in this series will be titled

ALONE, Book 3

THE JOURNEY

      In
The Journey
, Dave finally puts his dreadful winter behind him and sets out on an incredible journey, a thousand miles to the north, to retrieve his family and bring them back home.

     The trip is fraught with peril and bad men intent on stopping him.

     But Dave, as we know, is determined. He’s driven by a need to know whether his wife and daughters are alive or dead. And a desire to bring them home if he can find them.

     In
The Journey
, Dave battles not only the elements and those who would keep him from his mission. He must also struggle with perhaps his biggest enemies: his own personal demons and self doubts.

ALONE, Book 3

THE JOURNEY

will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in March, 2015.

**********

Please enjoy this preview of

BREAKOUT.

BREAKOUT

is Book 3 in the “Final Dawn” series, and is available now at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com

     Hannah hadn’t slept in a real bed for a very long time. For six and a half years she and Mark had slept on a four inch mattress in the back of a recreational vehicle, deeply hidden within an abandoned salt mine.

     Oh, the mattress wasn’t that bad. Not really. And considering that most of the world was dying outside the mine while she was able to sleep safely at night, she really had nothing to complain about.

     But now that the group had finally broken out of the mine and ventured out into a brave new world, Hannah was looking forward to a real bed, soft and warm and big enough to stretch out in.

     And now, on their very first night outside the mine and in a nearby walled compound, she was sleeping like a baby.

     Was.

     But not any more.

     Little Markie, almost six and a total mini-me of his father, crawled into bed beside her and poked his finger into her cheek. Three times.

     “Mommy, are you awake?”

     Hannah was now somewhere between slumber and consciousness, in that foggy zone where one isn’t sure whether or not they’re dreaming.

     But she sure hoped she was.

     Then she felt it again. The tapping of the finger. And the accompanying words: “Mommy, are you awake?”

     “No, honey. Mommy is sleeping.”

    
Please be a dream. Please be a dream.

     “Mommy, I’m afraid.”

     Nothing gets a mother’s attention faster than a child who’s afraid. Hannah’s eyes were instantly open, her mind immediately searching for whatever had frightened her dear child.

     She looked at Markie, lying in the bed beside her.

     “Afraid of what, little sailor?”

     “I don’t like this place. I want to go home.”

     Her heart sank.

     She lifted up the covers so little Markie could crawl inside with her and Mark. Then she patted her pillow. “Lay your little head right here and snuggle with Mommy. Tell me why you’re afraid.”

     “I don’t like my new bed. I want to go home.”

     “Honey, we
are
home. We just stayed in the other place while we were waiting for it to get light again outside. And waiting for it to be warm again, so we could come out of the mine. This will be our home from now on. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

     The cramped RV in the back of the mine was the only home Markie had ever known.

     “No. I don’t like it. I’m scared.”

     “Why don’t you like it, honey? What scares you about it?”

     “My bed is way too big. It’s big enough for monsters to live in. I don’t want to wake up and find monsters in my bed. And I can’t see you and Daddy from my new bed. I could see you and Daddy before, except when you closed the door. And then I could see the door. But I can’t even see your door from my new bed. And I’m scared.”

     “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

     She held him close.

     “I know for a fact that no monsters will ever get in your bed. No monsters are allowed in this building. Your daddy put a big sign out in front that says ‘Monsters Go Away.’ So all of the monsters have to go bother somebody else. They can’t even come in here.”

     “Can’t they break in?”

     “Nope. We have monster proof locks. We had to order them special from the Monster Proof Store. And your silly daddy, he hung them upside down the first time. So Uncle Bryan had to come and show him how to do it right.”

     “Daddy
is
pretty silly, huh?”

     “You got that right, little buddy. He’s sillier than all the sand on the beach.”

     “No, Mommy. He’s sillier than all the stars in the sky.”

     “No, little sailor. He’s sillier than all the water in the ocean.”

     Markie’s face grew serious.

     “Mommy?”

     “Yes, sir?”

     “I’ve never seen those things… stars and beaches and oceans. Except in picture books. Will I ever get to see them for real?”

     She brushed aside some hair that had fallen into eyes.

     “Oh, yes. Maybe not the ocean. We’re very far away. And the beaches, well, they’re the oceans’ next door neighbors. We’ll try to take you to see both of them someday. But the stars, the stars live right here with us in our new home.”

     “They do? For the reals?”

     “Yes, sir. For the reals.”

     “When can I see them?”

     “I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow night we’ll ask Daddy how to get up to the roof. And we’ll all go up there, and if it’s not too cloudy, maybe we can see the stars. Oh, and maybe even the moon too.”

     His eyes grew as big as saucers.

     “The moon too?”

     “Yep. If it’s out. Sometimes it hides for a few days.”

     “Oh, I hope it’s not hiding. I want to see it
and
the stars.”

     Hannah turned her head to look at Mark. He was still sleeping like a baby, his mouth open and a long line of drool soaking his pillow. He very softly snored, but not enough to keep anyone else from sleeping.

     That, apparently, was little Markie’s job.

     “Honey, if Mommy lets you snuggle and sleep with her tonight, can we figure out what to do about your bed tomorrow?”

     “Okay, deal. And can we put a ‘Monsters Go Away’ sign on my bedroom door, just in case they accidentally get in?”

     “Okay, deal.”

     He snuggled against Hannah’s bosom and put his arm around her. Or at least as far as it would reach. She held him close.

     But before she drifted back to sleep, her curiosity got the best of her.

     “Markie?”

     “Yes, Mommy?”

     “How come every time you get scared, you always wake me up instead of your daddy?”

     “Because you’re softer.”

**********

Please enjoy this preview of

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON.

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON

is available now at Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com

     Scott Harter wasn’t special by anybody’s standards. He wasn’t a handsome guy at all. He wasn’t dumb, but he’d never win a Nobel Prize either. He had no hidden talents, although he fancied himself a fairly good karaoke singer.

     His friends didn’t necessarily share that opinion, but what did they know?

     No, if those friends were tasked to choose one word to describe Scott Harter, that word might well be “average.”

     If Scott excelled at one thing, it was that he was a very good businessman. And he was also a lot luckier than most.

     And it was that combination – his penchant for making a buck, and being lucky, that led him here on this day to the Guerra Public Library on the west side of San Antonio.

     To research what he believed was the pending collapse of mankind.

     Twenty three years earlier, Scott had done two things that would change his life forever. Even back then, he was just an average Joe. He’d had plans to become a doctor, but his average grades weren’t cutting it. So he dropped out of college halfway through his junior year.

     He’d have loved to have married a beauty queen, but his average looks certainly did nothing to attract any. Neither did his average amount of charm. So instead he started dating Linda Amparano, who was a sweet girl but somewhat average herself. They seemed to make a perfect, if slightly vanilla, couple.

     The second thing Scott did that year was buy a dilapidated self-storage unit on the north side of San Antonio. It was one of those places where people rent lockers to store their things when their garages have run out of space. Or their kids go off to college. Or when they just accumulate so many things that they’ve run out of room to put them all.

     Pat, the guy who sold the property to Scott, was a friendly enough sort, but not a businessman at all. He didn’t understand some of the basic principles of running such an operation.

     Not that Scott was an expert. At least back then he wasn’t.

     But even back then, Scott knew the value of curb appeal, and that a fresh paint job and a few repairs could attract a few more customers. And a few more customers would help supply money for advertising, and special offers, and long-term lease discounts. No brainers, actually.

     So by the end of that year, two things happened. Scott had turned around the business and turned it into a money-making operation. And he married Linda.

     The pair said their vows on December 17th of that year. It was bitterly cold that day. The coldest December 17th on record for that part of Texas.

     If the cold was an omen, though, neither of them saw it. If either of them had, and had gotten cold feet, their lives would be so much different today.

     But they just laughed it off, as young couples in love are wont to do. And they went ahead with their nuptials and started their lives together and never looked back at that cold day in December when they ran headlong into a marriage that shouldn’t have happened.

     The marriage lasted nine years. It produced two great sons, so there was that. And Scott and Linda remained friends. That was something else. So there was a good legacy, of sorts, left behind by their mistake that cold December day.