Read This Would Be Paradise (Book 1) for Free Online

on our long walk to the school. The streets were not as busy as the previous day, but the destruction and chaos were still evident. Stores were broken into and windows were smashed. Cars were all over the place, some just sitting in the middle of the road with their doors wide open but no one inside. It truly looked like a mass evacuation had gone on because no one would just leave their car sitting in the middle of the road abandoned. I had a rusty 2001 Honda Civic back home, and although it was a hunk of junk, I still wouldn’t have just left it.
    People were still scurrying around; smoke was rising from some of the buildings on the east side of the city. Luckily, the school we were trying to get to was south and a good distance away from the billowing smoke. Downside to that was that it was a fair walking distance from where we stood.
    “We could not look more like tourists right now,” Zoe sighed, as she rolled her suitcase behind her.
    I chuckled, “Might as well have a ‘Please Rob Me’ sign plastered on our foreheads.”
    Our joking cut off abruptly as we spotted a body lying in the street, next to one of the abandoned vehicles. There was bloody stain all around the unmoving corpse, and I could smell the rotting stench from the sidewalk. A flash of color in my peripheral caught my attention and I turned to witness a crazed man chasing a woman around the corner. At that, we started to walk faster.
    After a few minutes of hiking, we noticed a crowd of people standing around on the sidewalk. When we got closer I saw the bus stop sign sticking up over the crowd.
    “Aren’t the buses canceled?” I stopped and asked one of the people waiting.
    “There was an emergency broadcast sayin’ that the buses are in use only for transportation to the shelters,” one lady answered, looking about her nervously.
    Zoe and I shared a look then parked ourselves, and our bags, in the queue line to wait for the bus. All the people in line seemed to be in a daze, one child was quietly sobbing into her mother’s jacket, while others were whipping their heads around for any signs of sick people. Just as I was starting to get antsy, the bus roared around the corner, and everyone started to grab their bags in anticipation. Through the windows I could tell the bus was not completely full, which was good since there were at least a dozen of us.
    “I don’t have any change,” I said to the driver as we boarded the bus.
    “We’re not charging anyone since this is to go to the emergency shelters,” he replied, looking at me like I was retarded. I thought it was a valid thing to say.
    There was no sitting room, so Zoe and I had to stand which, admittedly, was still better than walking all that way through the chaos. The bus driver announced that we would be going to the high school located on the south side of the city, and that if we wished to go to the Superdome, then we would have to wait until the next batch of people were picked up.
    “God, I hate buses,” Zoe muttered as she looked around in disdain.
    “Why, Francis? Why must you hate everything?” I joked and she cracked a smile.
    Ironically, it was usually the other way around; I was the one hating everything. Zoe still calls me Daria as a joke every once and a while. The bus took a sharp corner, and I was thrown into the person behind me, my elbow connecting with their nose.
    “Oh god! I’m so sorry!” I quickly apologized as I scrambled to get off the person’s lap.
    I got a nasally response, “It’s all right; at least your giant suitcase didn’t come with you.”
    The person I happened to smash into turned out to be a decent-looking guy with blond, shaggy hair and a grin plastered on his face, despite the fact that he was now holding his injured nose. His broad shoulders were framed nicely in his dark brown leather jacket. I found myself grinning back in return as I sat back up.
    “Yeah, it probably would have done even more damage,” I said