Read Eaters (Book 2): The Resistance for Free Online Page B

them to feel heavier and heavier, she pondered Jane's line, " We do not suffer by accident ".
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 4
     
    "They're coming!"
    Cheryl bolted upright, heart pounding. Complete blackness surrounded her, and for a second, she didn't know where she was. She heard heavy breathing next to her. Recognizing the deep timber of the shout, she reached out her hand.
    "Mark?" She found him next to her with his sweaty hand clenched into a fist.
    Every time he had an outburst like that during a nightmare, it scared the crap out of her. She never knew if he was dreaming about bombs and snipers from his tours in Afghanistan, or about Eaters. Whatever the cause, she wondered how long he'd continue to suffer from this stress disorder that was interfering with his sleep… and hers . Of course, it was a chronic issue for many people now. Didn't they all have some form of PTSD these days? There were no meds, no counseling available for those suffering—there were just too many people in the same mental boat, bailing out what little they could as more holes were fired in their fragile hulls.
    "You okay?" she asked, squeezing his hand.
    Instead of answering, he threw off the covers and got out of bed, muttering something indiscernible under his breath. A second later, a soft blue light from the computer monitor filled the room. She could see the silhouette of his head and shoulders as he sat in the metal folding chair and hear his fingers begin to click across the keyboard.
    There was no chance either of them was going back to sleep now, so she propped her head up on her hand and watched him work. He'd saved up credits for two months to get his hands on that used computer and buy a black market, wireless access code that allowed him get online. A buddy had helped him hack through the filter that prevented the rest of the compound from getting unfettered access to the Internet.
    "More research?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
    "Yeah. Trying anyway."
    "Not getting online?"
    "I'm online alright, but there are still a lot of servers down. So I keep getting fucking Page Not Found on a lot of the sites I click on. And that's not including the sites that are obviously blocked."
    "What are you looking for? The mosquito thing again?"
    "No. That's DOA. Even though the epidemic started in the summer, it couldn't have begun in Afghanistan and jumped halfway across the world so quickly."
    "But with air travel—"
    "Not likely. It took five years for West Nile Virus to spread from New York to the rest of North America, and that's including the fact that birds are vectors of transmission, because they are reservoir hosts of the disease."
    "But we both got bitten last July on our camping trip before this started here, and you…"
    "I'm sure I was already carrying it when I came back to the States."
    "If it hadn't been for the second dose of vaccine—"
    "You don't have to remind me what a lucky bastard I am. I remember every time I look at my scars…every time I wake up and take a breath in the morning."
    And she hadn't forgotten what a miracle it was to find him here at the fort long after she thought he was dead.
    "You know it started with the dogs back at the base. I keep going back to that. My buddy, Rick, was a handler. He'd worked with dozens of German Shepherds and Labs over the years, and before the dogs and the villagers started attacking us, he told me the dogs he usually got were trained by a contractor for up to six months before they were sent over. They were obedient, reliable, and almost one hundred percent accurate in detecting underground mines and IED's. But his last batch was different. Rick said the shepherds acted a little strange from the very beginning. They were skittish and started rooting around in trash cans instead of eating the dog food."
    "Then, they started biting people…"
    "Yeah. Especially when we were in a village. They'd really go nuts whenever they saw people without uniforms. I guess