Crawlerz
Book 1
“Red Sky in the Morning”
R S Merritt
Text Copyright © 2020 Randall Scott Merritt
All Rights Reserved
This series is dedicated to my beautiful wife and family.
Cover Design By:
Harry Lamb
Table of Contents
Prologue: As Long as you Both Shall Live
Chapter 1: Forever Family
Chapter 2: Denial is a River in Egypt
Chapter 3: Stocking Up
Chapter 4: Preparing for the Worst
Chapter 5: Crisis at the Border
Chapter 6: A Rude Awakening
Chapter 7: Another Day in Paradise
Chapter 8: The Greater Good
Chapter 9: Lessons Learned
Chapter 10: A Looting We Will Go
Chapter 11: Lights Out
Chapter 12: Pancakes to Piracy
Chapter 13: Fort Russel
Chapter 14: The Surge
Chapter 15: The First Night
Chapter 16: Hump Day
Chapter 17: A Time to Panic
Chapter 18: Are We There Yet?
Chapter 19: North
Chapter 20: That New Car Smell
Chapter 21: Death by the Dashboard Lights
Chapter 22: Ghetto Tank
Chapter 23: Don’t be a Hero
Chapter 24: Go Gators!
Chapter 25: The Hell Out of Florida
Chapter 26: Orphaned Again
Chapter 27: A Dark Cloud
Chapter 28: A New Day
Chapter 29: Cut Bait
Chapter 30: Saying Goodbye
Chapter 31: All for One
Chapter 32: Step Right Up
Chapter 33: Story Time
Chapter 34: Canaries
Chapter 35: The Man in the Suit
Chapter 36: The Gift Horse was a Trojan
Authors Note:
Other Books by RS Merritt
Prologue: As Long as You Both Shall Live
“Hurry up or we’re going to miss our ride!” John yelled into the steam filled bathroom of an executive suite in the Cairo Marriott. The tour company had emphasized that if they didn’t get to the pyramids on time, they could end up missing out on getting to go inside.
“I’m hurrying!” Desiree said tersely emerging out of the steam wearing one of the fancy hotel robes with a towel wrapped around her head. She made a beeline for the balcony to crack open the door and get rid of the steam from the shower. Opening the curtain covering the glass door to the balcony revealed a gorgeous view of the old city. You could also see a small patch of the Nile. Just enough for the hotel to justify calling it a river view upgrade. She plopped down in the chair at the desk and pulled up a mirror to start working on her make-up. To keep himself from saying anything he may regret John walked out on the balcony to take in the view for the umpteenth time.
The hotel had drained the last of the Marriott Reward points he’d accumulated over the past year of business travel. Between the hotel rewards, rental car points and the sky miles the honeymoon was already over halfway paid for. Which was a good thing since they were planning on house hunting as soon as they got back home. Neither of them could pinpoint the exact time they’d started watching HGTV excessively but they’d both formed some pretty strong opinions on what they wanted in a home. That happens after a few months of falling asleep with terms like ‘city living’ and ‘open floorplan’ serving as your lullaby.
Tempers were a little frayed since the flight hadn’t been the best experience ever. They’d been able to bump up to business class using points, but first class had been ridiculously expensive. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal until they actually had to spend fifteen hours stuck on a plane together. Halfway through the flight the extra fifteen grand for those extra inches of legroom began to seem much more reasonable. Having to wake up at three in the morning to get to the airport in time for the flight had also seemed like a good idea when they were planning it.
In retrospect they should’ve given themselves more time to relax when they arrived. The jet lag might not kill them, but it may cause them to kill each other. He would’ve just rescheduled the pyramid tour but only a certain number of visitors were allowed in per day. If you didn’t get in one day it wasn’t like they gave you front of the line privileges the next day. He supposed with enough money anything was possible but despite the fact they were staying in a gorgeous hotel on an exotic international honeymoon they weren’t exactly flush with cash. Weddings weren’t cheap.
John and Desiree both wanted to travel before settling down. They’d gone on some pretty awesome vacations while they were dating and continued the practice into their engagement. When they were coming up with honeymoon ideas John had thrown out Egypt as an option. On their first date they’d ridden the Mummy ride at Universal Studios. The ride had broken down halfway through leaving them sitting awkwardly in the small seat with their legs touching. John had leaned over to whisper a joke in her ear at the same time as she’d turned to tell him something. The result had been a painful head butt that’d led to an embarrassingly passionate first kiss. They would’ve toned it down if they’d noticed the car right behind them was full of little kids riding with their grandma.
Desiree loved the idea of going to Egypt for their honeymoon. She was confident as she did her makeup that once they’d both slept for around twelve hours the vacation would become much more enjoyable. She was excited to go check out the pyramids. She just wished she could nap for a day or so first. It didn’t help that she felt a pounding headache coming on thanks to the arid climate and lack of sleep.
She slapped her makeup on ignoring the obvious signals to hurry up she was getting from
