Read Eve of Man (The Harvest Book 2) for Free Online

Damn if you don’t have to snap at me about
it. Have a good trip.” The door slammed on her last word.
    Like a hot air balloon losing all of its heat, Austin
crumbled to the ground. He buried his face in his hands. The sound of his heart
pounding inside his chest echoed in his head and in the room, bouncing from
wall to wall. A gift Eve had called this maddening state. A gift that was
turning him into something less than human. Each day he’d felt an invisible
force taking over his body, while a second more crucial battle ensued for his
mind. The power to stop the transformation did not reside within him, if it
resided within anyone at all. Primal instincts fought against logic and Austin
wasn’t confident in the outcome. He could no longer pretend this wasn’t a
problem.  He could no longer fight this on his own.
    Picking himself up from the floor, Austin took a deep
breath and held it for several seconds. He closed his eyes, focusing his
thoughts, clearing all images from his mind save one, that of his son Caleb. 
At what point in time he chosen this name and began to think of his son by such
was unclear. That it was Roxanne’s idea to name him this only mattered if he
allowed himself to ponder over the why, which he didn’t. She was gone, never to
have existed he reminded himself for the number of times beyond counting. Feeling
as if the beast within was subdued for the time being, Austin opened his eyes. Standing
at his feet, German waited and watched.
    “What’s wrong with me?” He squatted down, rubbing the
dog’s ears. German responded with a few wags of his tail and a short bark.
“Yeah. I don’t know either,” Austin replied.

5 Hulk
    The sun rising and setting. Garbage day. Dogs barking.
Kids riding bikes. Everyday common occurrence, taken for granted and now gone.
Replaced by others, those once thought unusual, now accepted as the norm. Over
the past months the events, even those once perceived as phenomenal, had become
routine. Three suns rising, no moon, no stars, no life. Each morning arrived
without circumstance. Each day held a static appearance and had become routine
for the few people left to care or notice such things.
    Zack sat in one of the leather recliners facing the
wall sized screen in the command center. As his mind churned, speculating,
pondering, and analyzing their situation, the three suns materialized in the
sky. The winds subsided and the black sky lightened to a dismal gray. One
cataclysmic event had changed their world forever, creating a perpetual hell
where nothing changed. The view of the exterior materialized, appearing as a
still painting of a vast frozen waste land. Other than a few scraggly pines
hanging on, the trees were barren. The fields were empty, having been covered
in snow ever since the aliens arrived, ever since all signs of life vanished
into thin air.
    Except for the bodies.
    Those who were dropped from the sky, emptied of
anything remotely human. Those who were left behind, barely recognizable after
being torn, shredded and drained of all life. Annihilated by the sharp talons
of the alien predator, the elusive Sundogs, the monsters seen only by the
select few remaining. The gruesome image of the truck driver he and Colin found
flashed before him. He wouldn’t exactly classify a corpse as a sign of life. So,
aside from the departed, there had been zip. No birds, no cats, no wild beasts roaming
the land, not even an ant. For all of his knowledge, Zack couldn’t fathom how
the Sundogs had wiped out every existing species known to man. Well almost
every one, German had survived, and that they’d found him alive constituted a
major miracle in Zack’s mind, but to what avail? If no other canines were
found, he would be the last of his kind. Thousands of species vanished from the
Earth every day before the Sundogs invited themselves to the party, but Zack
never witnessed those lives being extinguished or gave them any thought. If German
had good health, he