Read The Living Dead (Book 1): Contagion for Free Online Page B

praying they posted after 4:25 this morning. That would show he was still alive after the “sterilization.” Scrolling quickly, she found the times; all were sent last night before ten o’clock. Ok, she told herself, that still doesn’t mean anything. He might never have been at the hospital at all.
     

 
     
    Chapter 5
     
     
     
     
     
    All their predictions ran upon a most dreadful plague, which should lay the whole city, and even the kingdom, waste, and should destroy almost all the nation, both man and beast.
    -Journal of the Plague Year
     
     
     
     
     
                She found her shoes, grabbed her coat and purse and headed for the car. Like a lot of people, she had considered stockpiling food and supplies in the event of some sort of national emergency but never gotten around to it. When H1N1 was making headlines even the Mayo Clinic website recommended keeping a two-week supply of food, water, and medicine and she began to save some water then but lost interest. She pulled out of the driveway too quickly and the car slid sideways on the snow for a few seconds before she was able to correct for the icy conditions.  Repeatedly dialing her in-laws’ number she only got an out of area message. The mountains played havoc with cell phone reception at times. To her relief the roads were passable and not crowded. She pulled into the supermarket parking lot where the vendor trucks were still unloading their early morning deliveries. Grabbing a shopping cart from one of the outside carrels, she approached the Crystal Springs deliveryman. Stinging pellets of ice blew against her cheeks.
                “Hey there! Could you go ahead and load four of those bottles here in my cart? I’ll pay for it in the store. Thanks!”
                Inside she grabbed another cart and filled it up with soups, canned vegetables, dried fruit, powdered milk and soup, and, why not, all the Little Debbie goodies that she usually kept out of the house. Quick energy can be good and these things have enough preservatives to last five years, she thought. Praying her credit card wasn’t over the limit, she made her way back to the front of the store picking up a couple of packages of diapers on the way. She met a wave of shoppers just entering; many with disheveled hair and appearing hastily dressed. The cashiers (there were only two on duty this early) watched open mouthed as people continued to stream into the store and begin frantically loading their carts. Just as she reached the checkout a man approached and tried to remove one of the bottles of water from her cart. Moving quickly, Virginia positioned herself in front of the cart and scowled, “Back off or I’m calling the police. There are plenty of bottles in the back of the store and more are still being delivered.” The man gave her an anguished uncertain look but stepped away. She made it back to her car without further incident.
                 The streets were still in good shape until she reached the corner of Stuyvesant and Meeting; she found the road completely blocked by an overturned jeep and a delivery truck. She made a u-turn, backtracked to Loblolly Point where she cut through the subdivision, and went home past the golf course.
                Arriving home, she pulled the car into the garage and lowered the door. She left some of the ready to eat food in the car and unloaded everything else. What looked like so much food in the store didn‘t even completely fill her cabinet shelves and she wished she had gotten more. She called her mother but got the “all circuits are busy” message. It was snowing even harder and the clouds still looked heavy and dark. Hoping to find information on road closings, she tuned to the local news on Channel 6 and saw a female reporter broadcasting from the entrance of a hospital emergency room, showing a chaotic and noisy crowd of people waiting in a ragged