Read Earth's Survivors Apocalypse for Free Online Page A

to the streets below. Gunshots punctuated the silences in between the screams, yelling.
    Billy Jingo found himself rolling across the alley and nearly slamming into the opposite wall. He held himself steady, fingertips outstretched, until the shaking stopped: Unsure where he was or why he was there.
    As his mind began to awake he remembered Jon punching him earlier. Nothing specific besides that, but it was enough to draw some conclusions as to where he was. It didn't explain the shaking that had awakened him. He looked off down the alley where a bum, or maybe a hype was resting against the wall, slumped over. Maybe, Billy thought, the bum had tried to awaken him. He made his feet and staggered past the bum to the mouth of the alley, looking out at the street. The bum was still sleeping when he looked back. The more he looked at the bum the more he thought he might be a crack head, maybe even a heroin addict. Those fuckers could crash out anywhere, oblivious to their surroundings, he reminded himself. He stepped onto the sidewalk, and then glanced back once more, wondering if he should repay the favor and wake up the now sleeping bum, hype, whatever he was.
    No, he decided. He focused his eyes, stretched his arms and legs, flexed his fingers and decided he was pretty much okay. As he started back down the street, he suddenly found himself thrown to the sidewalk as the earth began to shake and heave violently once more.
    Behind him the street began to shake harder, cracks appeared in the alleyway where Jessie's body lay and threaded their way out into the street. Far off in the distance the earthquake shook harder at the epicenter, small booms coming over the sound of destruction as the time wore on. Nearby a building succumbed to the vibration and toppled over into the street clogging it from side to side. Cars rocked on their tires shifting violently from side to side, sometimes bouncing off in one direction or another, or slamming into a nearby car or building.
    This time when the silence came the sounds that it carried were different. Weeping from the piled remains in the street. The zap and crackle of power lines as they danced in the street like charmed snakes without their handlers.
    A harder jolt hit and the cracks opened wider, some swallowing whole sections of rubble as they did. Jessie's body slumped over and then tumbled into a chasm that had opened next to him. Almost as quickly the chasm closed as though it had never really been there at all. The shaking slowed and then stopped and the silence fell once more.
    Billy managed to get to his feet, staggering at first, pulling deep lungfuls of air, but getting his feet under him. Blood ran into his eye from a cut on his forehead, but he was otherwise okay. He waited for his panic to abate, his breathing to slow, and then he moved off at a fast run along the Avenue: Heading for home.
    New York: Harlem 9:00 pm
    Tosh made her way down the sidewalk. It was icy, and so she was careful where she stepped. Adam walked beside her. He seemed to have no trouble walking on the sidewalk, ice or not. He had lessened his stride to stay beside her as they walked.
    “Okay?” he asked now.
    Tosh laughed. “Damn slippery,” she said.  Almost as soon as she said it she felt her right foot take off on some black ice ridged up against a subway vent. Almost as quick as that happened Adam had her elbow, holding her safely.
    “Tosh,” Adam told her. “You got to be careful... The baby.” He sounded reverent.
    “I know about the baby, Baby,” She laughed. “And I am being careful. This damn sidewalk is not cooperating. Why doesn't Harlem have heated sidewalks like some of those places over off Park?”
    “Ha,” Adam told her. “We ain't getting no heated sidewalks ever. Are you kidding?”
    “Hey,” Tosh told him. “We got Bill Clinton over here.”
    “Uh huh. And he can fall and crack his white ass too, cause he ain't got no heated sidewalks either.” He shook his head and