State of Emergency (Book) (26 page)
Read State of Emergency (Book) Online
Authors: Summer Lane
I hate hiking. I hate climbing, walking, running, crawling, rolling, jumping, bouncing, skipping, and falling. I’ve been walking endlessly for weeks now, and I don’t think it’s ever going to end.
It took us two weeks to get back to Squaw Valley because of the heavy storms, slushy terrain, crappy food supply and possible detection by people trying to sell us out to Omega hacks. Now we’re less than a half a mile away from the Young property, and I can tell by the look on Chris’s face that he’s happier than I am to be home.
And that’s saying something.
It’s not snowing at this elevation, which is fine with me. If I saw one more snowflake I’d end up screaming.
The trees are spindly, what my dad would call “sky roots.”
Poor dad.
Nope, don’t go there
, I think.
Stay focused.
“I’m going to have some serious fried chicken when we get there,” I say, grinning at Chris. “What about you?”
“My dad’s got a stash of beer in the basement,” he replies. “I could use a case or two.”
“Great. Fried chicken and beer. All we need is a pickup and a parking lot and we could be a couple of football fans,” I say. “You
do
watch football, right?”
“Baby, I
played
football in High School,” Chris replies, picking up the pace.
“You went to High School?” I say, puzzled. “I thought you did a charter school like Jeff.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I went all the way through. And I was the star quarterback.”
I roll my eyes.
“Gee, don’t be modest or anything.”
“Our team was called the
Lions
.”
“How fitting.”
He shoots me an annoyed look, but I’m not enough to ruin his male-ego moment of football reminiscing. “You would have been a cute cheerleader, though,” he comments.
“Are you
kidding
?”
We both start laughing. He makes a move to grab me around the waist but I run forward, fueled by a surge of excitement to reach home. Well,
Chris’s
home, anyway. I jog a little bit, rounding the next corner. My footsteps come to an abrupt stop when my gaze lands on a bunch of trees and bushes on the side of the road. It’s not the shrubbery that draws my attention. It’s the
lack
of it. Charred, black, sooty ashes are smeared all over the ground.
Everything is burned.
Chris’s steady footsteps come up behind me. His face is a hard mask that betrays no emotion. I’ve started calling it his “battle-mode look.” He swings his gun into his hands and releases the safety switch.
“Stay behind me,” he says, his voice dangerous.
“But…”
He gives me a look that says, “Don’t argue.”
I nod.
I stay behind his shoulder as we approach the wall of trees and bushes that once hid the almost invisible dirt trail that led up to the Young property. The grass, flowers, trees, shrubs and weed are destroyed.
“My parents wouldn’t have done this,” Chris murmurs.
A lead weight settles in my stomach.
Both of us wired with dread, we start walking faster up the dirt trail. There are lots of tire tracks winding up and down the mud, almost washed away. It takes us about ten minutes to reach the top of the hill.
Chris swears.
I drop to my knees, not wanting to see what I’m seeing.
Everything’s been burned to the ground.
And the Young family is nowhere in sight.
It’s a funny thing. The world, I mean.
When the EMP hit, I kept thinking that it was the end of the world, but seriously…is it really? Didn’t people live without cars and phones and electricity for thousands of years? The only thing that makes this different from the seventeenth century is the fact that nobody knows how to live without technology. Nobody knows how to accept the fact that there are very real bad guys out there trying to take away the things that are most important to us: Each other.
Then again, maybe it’s already happened in the past and we just didn’t realize it until it happened to
us
. Because isn’t that usually the case? People don’t understand how something bad could happen until it happens to
them
.
And so here I am, my boots propped up on an old log with my head in Chris’s lap. He’s fiddling with my hair, but his eyes are focused on something in the distance. The gold chain he gave me is hanging around my neck, the metal cool against my collarbone as we sit silently in the woods. I find comfort in the touch of his fingers on my skin. It reminds me that I still have something,
someone
, to hold onto.
A burnt home, destroyed crops, slaughtered animals and a missing family?
Check that off the list of sucky things that have happened to us in the last two months. With nowhere to go and nothing to eat, what can we do but go ahead with our plan to find out where they’re imprisoning the war criminals?
Chris needs to find his family. I need to find my dad.
We need each other, and for the record, that’s the only thing right about this messed up new world: Us.
We’ll find a way. Chris is smart. He knows how to survive in a world like this. I’m not as awesome as he is when it comes to survival, but I’m learning quickly. I
will
find my father. We
will
find the Young family and Isabel again. And if anybody gets in our way?
I guess I’ll just have to shoot them…
Right between the eyes.
To Be Continued
Acknowledgements
I never thought I’d be writing an acknowledgement page for a book about the end of the world, but here I am, doing exactly that. Writing a book is something that many people set out to do, but actually finishing it, editing it, publishing it and then selling it is a long, arduous process that requires a lot of hot tea, good background music and a support group of people who believe in you. My strongest support group has always been my parents and my brother, who are the best critique partners in the whole world – and without whom I wouldn’t be a writer at all. Thanks for believing in me, and thanks to my best friend/brother for listening to me read all those handwritten science fiction stories when I was 13! I know it was painful.
I also want to thank James P. White, for being a wonderful teacher and an even better friend. You’re such a special person, and I’m so glad I know you. Also, thanks for the support to the wonderful, awesomesauce (Yes, I used that word again!) girls from NA Alley: Victoria Smith, Jaycee DeLorenzo, Juliana Haygert, Bailey Kelsey, L.G., and Carrie Butler. And thank
you
, wonderful readers, for picking up this novel– you rock my world, and I love hearing from all of you! Thanks to the amazing blogging world for all your support and love, as well. You really make it fun to be a writer.
Lastly, I want to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for allowing me to make a career out of doing what I love: Telling stories.
A world without books is chaos!
About the Author
Summer Lane is a New Adult and Young Adult author.
She is a freelance writer, editor and lover of all things feline. Summer is also the author of
Snappy Social Networking
:
How to Dominate the Blogosphere & Everything in Between.
In her spare time, Summer is the creator of the online magazine/blog, Writing Belle, in addition to being a frequent contributor at NA Alley, a website dedicated to all things New Adult.
Summer began writing when she was 13 years old, due to the fact that the long afternoons after school were somewhat boring, and writing stories seemed to make the time pass a little quicker. Since then she has written many books about jungle cats, secret agents, princesses and spaceships. She is also a non-fiction writer, but her debut novel,
State of Emergency,
is her favorite book yet. When she’s not writing, Summer enjoys watching Bollywood movies, reading rather romantic books and dreaming about visiting India so she can become best friends with a Royal Bengal Tiger.
