Read The Survivors (Book 1): Summer for Free Online Page B

soon.
    'Have a drink!' the bottle encouraged, with its happy little cartoon mascot dancing for my amusement.
    "Don't mind if I do", I said to myself, and swigged from the bottle as I meandered through my little flat, to close up the windows that I'd opened earlier to let in the afternoon breeze.  It was getting cooler, I realised as I studied the setting sun.  Clouds were rolling in from the west, obscuring the sunset.  It had been fine all day, but it looked like this evening there would be rain.
    Not that I minded.  I was safe and sound, inside an elevated building well away from the risks of city life.  It could rain all it liked.  I didn’t mind at all.
    ***
    I discovered that the bathroom fixtures still worked, but hot water was a lost cause until I had time to look at the tank.  A cold shower was better than no shower though, so I stripped down hastily and stepped beneath the icy flow, determined to get clean before the sun slipped away completely.  With the aid of a bar of soap I found under the sink, I sloughed away the day's grime from my skin, and enjoyed the feeling of relief that cleanliness brought.
    A few minutes later, I stepped out and dried myself on a towel liberated from the faithful linen cupboard, feeling like a whole new woman.  Right up until I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and realised that new woman looked like a crazy woman.
    My hair was a mess, unbrushed for days and yanked back into a messy braid.  I still wore it long in memory of my mother, but apparently I didn't groom it nearly as much as I should.  I usually didn’t have time for that kind of thing, but for some reason, today I felt the need.
    I dug around in one of the medicine cabinets until I found a comb and set about taming my bird's nest as I wandered out of the room with the towel wrapped around my naked body.
    Boy did it hurt to get all those knots out, but it felt good regardless.  Who did I think I was going to impress, anyway?  Just me and the magpies, I guess.  But it didn’t matter – this was for me, not anyone else.
    Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, I paused my grooming to close the curtains, making sure that the thick fabric joined perfectly in the middle to block the light.  There were no windows in my bedroom or in my bathroom, but the light might still shine through to the living room if I wasn't careful.
    I decided to err on the side of caution once more, so I closed myself into my new bedroom with only a single small lamp above the bed to give me light.  That was enough for me to finish combing my hair, then have a basic meal of cold baked beans straight from the tin.  I wasn’t going to need the light for very long.
    As soon as I finished eating, I set the tin aside and snuggled down beneath the relatively clean sheets, enjoying the softness of the mattress beneath me.  It felt so good after months of sleeping on cold concrete padded with dirty, scavenged rags in a pathetic attempt at bedding.
    I was exhausted, and fell fast asleep a moment after my head hit the pillow.

Chapter Six
    I awoke to the sound of heavy rain on the tin roof above my head, a familiar and pleasant sound.  I blinked, then squeezed my eyes closed again, focusing on that sweet noise.  It brought back images of summers spent on the beach and winters with family close by.  It rained all year round in New Zealand, and the end of human civilization did not change our climate at all.
    I often wondered if it had in other countries.  We were lucky, down here in little Aotearoa.  We possessed no nuclear reactors, no major military installations.  Nothing that could break down and poison what was left of our tiny little island nation beyond all repair.  Our power stations were either fossil fuel, hydroelectric or thermal, all relatively clean energy sources compared to nuclear.
    I wondered what it was like in Europe and America.  Had their nuclear reactors failed and spewed toxic poisons into their skies, now