Read Gray (Book 1) for Free Online Page A

tire tracks showed...if cars could even drive on the fallen ash, which she doubted. The ash in the air would surely clog up something in a car’s mechanical system, wouldn’t it?
     
    Finally, she crested the hill. She sat and allowed herself a quick drink. The warm moisture felt so good on her dry throat, she wanted to gulp and gulp. Forcing herself to stop took a powerful act of will. She capped the bottle and sat, her head hanging with weariness.
    Coral jerked awake. She had almost nodded off. The water bottle was still in her hand. She gripped it harder, her stomach lurching at the thought she might have dropped it or let it roll off. It was her salvation.
    A thin layer of ash had coated her arms below her sleeves and had turned to a gray mud as she walked and sweated. As she rested, the mud dried to a thin layer of mortar; this cracked as she stretched and stood. It itched, and she rubbed her arms against her sides to ease the irritation.
    The downhill walk was easier. The air was still hot, the pack was still heavy, and she was still weak from hunger and thirst, but at least she wasn’t fighting gravity, too. Still, her breath came harder than it should have and she felt as if she wasn’t getting enough air. She wondered if her lungs were filling with fine ash, and if she could suffocate from it.
    Probably. Another thing to avoid thinking about. She had to do what she could, which was put one foot in front of the other, to keep going. Finally, she reached the bottom of the hill.
    She stopped for another rest, taking another sip of precious water. Her water bottle was half empty and it couldn’t yet be noon. She simply could not hike at this level of effort and keep to her rationing plan.
    She had to find a water source, and today. If she didn’t, she’d die out here, alone in the dim, gray world.
    What to do? She was at the bottom of another hill. Somewhere in these hills, there should be a stream or a trickle of water, snowmelt. Even if the heat had evaporated some standing water, it would have melted snow and glacier at higher elevations, too, and sent water downhill. She didn’t know if she could make it up another long grade. This was her best chance, to commit right now to finding a stream by following the cleft in the hills.
    Turning right, she kept her back to the road, making her way to lower and lower ground. Before the fire, this route would have been impassible, with undergrowth tearing at her, and thick brush blocking her path. Little of that growth remained, only the occasional charred skeleton of a fire-resistant bush. She stumbled over rocks made slick by the carpet of ash. Once she slipped and fell, landing hard on her butt. For an instant, she considered lying there for about a week or so, but after a few shaky breaths, she forced herself up again. To stop now was to choose death.
    When the land began to rise again, she backed up a few feet and sought the lowest course instead. Keeping to the deepest part of the valley, she hiked on. Every once in awhile, she stopped to listen for the sound of water, holding her breath to listen better, but she heard nothing but the hard beating of her own heart.
    Mid-afternoon, as she reckoned it, Coral had to stop and rest. She was about to fall asleep on her feet She hunted for a flat space for her sleeping bag, finally settling on laying it out in the V of the path she was walking. Sleep came over her.
    Thirst woke her an hour or so later. It nattered and poked at her as she rolled up her bag and stowed it. She couldn’t guess the time—still daylight, still hot. Irrationally, she felt like screaming at the heat to back off. She took only a tiny sip of liquid and set off again.
    She could die out here. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live, to know what had happened, to get to a phone. She wanted to see a town again, a store, a damned drinking fountain. She wanted to hear her brothers’ voices, and her grandmother’s. She stopped and closed her