Paul Antony Jones
Book one: The End
“Wild dark times are rumbling towards us.”
“Who died and made you king of anything?”
Acknowledgments
I’d like to say a very quick thank you to a couple of people who helped make this book a reality. First, I’d like to say an extra big thank you to the members of the Goodreads’ Apocalypse Whenever group (especially Gertie, the group moderator) who were kind enough to tell me what they really wanted in a post-apocalyptic novel. Hopefully, I’ve delivered.
I know she’s heard it a thousand times before, but I really could not have written this book without the help and support of my wife, Karen. You are my inspiration, sweetheart. Thank you for all that you have done.
And, of course, I would also like to thank
Okay, on with the show.
CHAPTER ONE
The waiting room was small and cramped.
Emily hated it. The drab off-white colored walls, lined with cheap folding chairs, only added to her sense of claustrophobia. At the opposite end of the room, a bored-looking receptionist tapped at a keyboard with a single, neatly manicured finger. Her jaw worked a piece of gum; it appeared occasionally between the young woman’s lips as a pink bubble before popping nosily and disappearing again.
A gray haired man and a teenage boy sat waiting for their turn to see the doctor. The kid was absorbed in a cellphone, his thumbs flying over the tiny keyboard, while the man flipped through the pages of a tattered magazine, pausing now and then to raise a hand to his mouth to cover a dry, rasping cough.
Emily glanced at the magazine in the man’s hands: DOG GROOMING MONTHLY the title read.
The receptionist was too engrossed in whatever was going on with her computer to notice Emily as she patiently waited in front of her desk. After a half minute of standing there with not even a glance from the woman, Emily cleared her throat loudly. “Hi! I’m Emily Baxter from the Tribune. I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Doctor Evans,” she announced.
The receptionist, her constant chewing paused momentarily so she could push the gum to one brightly rouged cheek, glanced up from her computer (which Emily could now see had some kind of game running).
“I’m sorry,” said the woman, “what did you say your name was?” The chewing gum put in another brief appearance, flashing a glimpse of pink against the girl’s white teeth.
“Emily… Baxter,” the young reporter repeated slowly, just to make sure the receptionist got it right. “I’m from the
The receptionist made an obvious pretense of checking her computer then picked up the cheap phone sitting on her desk and punched in a pair of numbers.
“Doctor Evans, I have an Amelia Bexter here for you. Yes, she
“Thank you,” said Emily as she moved in the direction the woman had indicated, but the receptionist’s attention had already returned to the pressing issues of her computer game.
“
Forty-five minutes later, Emily allowed the door to the doctor’s office to swing shut behind her. She let out a small sigh of contentment as the sounds and smells of New York City washed over her. Emily loved this city. She’d grown up in Denison, Iowa. A small backwater farm-town that was as unremarkable as the hundreds of other towns surrounding it. Looking back, it seemed like she had spent most of her youth just waiting for the moment when she could get out of town and move somewhere, anywhere, as long as there were people… lots of people.
She had never
Emily had taken to the job in a way she never imagined possible.
She’d been working the Metro Desk at the
Emily never learned to drive, there never seemed to be a need for it. Back in Denison, she could hop on a