Mass Extinction Event (Book 2): Days 9-16 by Amy Cross Page A

Henry more or less the same thing, only to be proved wrong when Bob opened fire.
    "You don't think the government's out there, working on something?" she asks, taking a cigarette packet from her shirt pocket and removing a single cigarette. "This is my last one," she continues, turning the little paper tube around and around between her fingers. "Fuck, I'm gonna miss it when it's gone. It's the one damn thing Toad hasn't been bothering to grow himself. No tobacco. It's gonna be a problem when I've finally smoked this one, but I'm saving it for a special occasion." She pauses, and it's clear that she's genuinely struggling to refrain from lighting up. "I just hope there's a special occasion before..." Her voice trails off, before she slips the cigarette back into the packet and puts the whole thing back in her shirt pocket.
    "I think Erikson might have some cigarettes," I say after a moment.
    She shakes her head. "He smoked his last one earlier. Don't think I don't know he's got his eye on mine, either. There's no way he's getting it, though." She pauses. "So, Elizabeth, I guess we should start training you up on one of the rifles. There's no point sitting around wasting time." She turns and looks out at the horizon. "We don't know when another of those things might turn up around here, but it could come at any moment, and I figure it's better to hit them while they're still fairly far out." Getting to her feet, she turns to me and smiles. "Come on. It's not that scary, really. Once you know how to use a gun properly, you'll feel a hell of a lot safer."
    Before I can say anything, there's a distant rumbling sound and the whole world seems to shake for a moment, rattling the house before the tremor subsides.
    "Not the first time," Patricia says, staring at me with a look of fear in her eyes. "You felt that before too, right?"
    I nod.
    She pauses. "Whatever it is," she continues eventually, "I don't like it. It doesn't feel natural."

Chapter Six
     
    Missouri
     
    "Faster!" the guy shouts, standing at the top of the hill and watching as I struggle with the barrel of water I'm supposed to be dragging to the house. "We haven't got all day!" he continues. "I want this done before it gets dark! There's still a few more jobs I need doing!"
    "It'd be easier if my legs weren't chained together," I mutter.
    "What was that?" he calls out.
    "Nothing!" I shout, giving the barrel another heave as I finally get it onto the level ground that surrounds the house. It's taken me almost half an hour to get the damn thing up a slope that seemed at times to be running at a forty or fifty per cent incline. Given that the barrel is completely full of rain water, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I almost collapsed several times. "Why do you keep this thing down by the road, anyway?" I ask, out of breath and generally feeling as if I might black out at any moment. I swear to God, with the late afternoon sun beating down on me, I'm sweating like a pig, and there's no sign of any let-up.
    "None of your business," he replies, raising the rifle so that the barrel is once again pointed at me. "You're not done yet. I want this thing over by the door. It's the best clean water source we've got right now. I don't know how long I'll be having you around, boy, but I might as well make use of you while you're here."
    Figuring that there's no point trying to argue, I start rolling the barrel toward the house. There's a part of me that wants to just make a run at the old bastard and try to knock him down. Sure, he might manage to get a shot off and blow my head to pieces, but on the other hand I might just manage to get to him. It's not that I want to kill him, but I sure as hell don't plan to let him keep pushing me around like this. I've already got some kind of plan worked out: I'm going to lull him into a false sense of security, make him think he can trust me a little, and then I'm going to bash his head against a rock.
    "This is what happens to