Survive the Destruction
A Post Apocalyptic Survival Thriller - End of the World Series book 3
Clyde McDonald
Contents
1. Aby
2. Jake
3. Aby
4. Megan
5. Aby
6. Jake
7. Aby
8. Jake
9. Aby
10. Megan
11. Aby
12. Jake
13. Aby
14. Jake
15. Aby
16. Megan
17. Aby
18. Jake
19. Aby
20. Megan
21. Aby
22. Jake
23. Aby
24. Megan
25. Getting Out by Ryan Westfield Preview
Copyright © 2020 by Clyde McDonald
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
One
Aby
Aby tried to sit up, but her head was swirling. She felt nauseous as the dizziness she was experiencing caused her to crash straight back to the ground. She lay there for a moment, forcing herself to remain very still and try to make sense of her surroundings. She could feel the slightly damp ground against her face and the wind rushing through her hair. So she was outside...but how had she got there?
With her head throbbing, she tried her best to remember where she’d been before she blacked out. She thought that information should be automatic access for her, but it was like she’d been drunk and completely forgotten the events leading up to then.
“Jake…” Aby croaked, but she barely managed the sound. She couldn’t understand how he would leave her alone outside, lying in the dirt. How did she end up there? She lived in the middle of a city, for goodness sake…
Except she didn’t anymore. That realization dawned on her slowly as her memories began to claw their way back to the forefront of her mind. She didn’t live in the city anymore. In fact, she didn’t live anywhere. She was on the road all day every day. She was always running from something. The EMP had changed everything. It had destroyed the life they’d once known in a single second as it swept the nation, maybe even the world. Aby had no idea how it had happened or if things would ever work again. But she knew one thing. Wherever she was, she wasn’t safe.
And if she couldn’t hear Jake, then it was likely he wasn’t safe either. She remembered that they’d been traveling with others too...Derron...Abigail...John...Perry. Derron was dead, she knew that much...but the rest, she couldn’t be sure. But not one of them was there to fill the silence in the air. Their neighbor, Megan, seemed to be gone too.
Aby was alone.
She willed her eyes to open, but they didn’t seem ready. She wondered how long she’d been out cold. Logically, she assumed she had to have been out for quite some time if she was having this much trouble remembering where she was and what had happened. She felt tears squeezing out of her eyes involuntarily. The fact that her memories seemed locked away from her terrified her. What if something had happened to her friends that she couldn’t remember? What if she had been left somewhere to die deliberately? Her body was aching, her head throbbing. She raised a shaky hand to her head and felt for blood. She winced as her fingertips touched something sore and they came away wet. She must be bleeding…
The Jake she knew would never leave her if he was alive. He’d be there at her side, making sure she was okay. Either he was dead, kidnapped, or injured...or he wasn’t the man she thought he was. Perhaps the new world that they’d been left in had changed the man she promised to marry when he got down on one knee in front of her. But she doubted that. If he could be there, he would be. If he was in as much trouble as she was, then she needed to get back on her feet and find him. Maybe he was usually her hero, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t be his too.
She waited a few more minutes before attempting to sit up. Her body groaned in protest. Everything seemed to hurt. She must’ve been in a pretty bad accident to feel as awful as she did. Her head was the worst, though. She was prone to headaches, but this was like nothing she’d ever experienced. The throbbing in her head seemed to match her heartbeat, and the nausea that came with it made her keep up and throw up the empty contents of her stomach. With bile dripping from her cracked lips and her throat on fire from the acidic liquid, she knew she’d never felt more awful.
But she didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself. She needed to get out of there. She had to make sure Jake was okay. She tried to force herself to be patient with her broken body, but fear and anxiety drove her to try standing up once again. She was terrified that the longer she waited, the more likely it was that Jake was going to end up dead. Or maybe she would too, given that she was out in the middle of nowhere alone in a strange new world. Standing shakily on her own two feet for the first time since the blackout, she looked around her.
There wasn’t a single other person in sight. All she could see was forest for miles and miles, but it was hard to tell how reliable her vision was with her pounding head. Plus, the sky was dark, making it even harder for her to see.
Her heart sank. How had she managed to get so deep into the woods by herself? Unless someone dumped her here and was hoping she wouldn’t survive her injuries...when she looked down at her clothes, they were soaked with blood. It was hard to tell how much of it might be hers, but given her head injury, it was quite possible she had lost a lot of blood.
