The Survivors: Book One by Angela White, Kim Fillmore, Lanae Morris Page A

Angela scanned for intruders, but the Witch was silent. She slowly climbed to her hole-up with the same thought she always had: Hate it here! Can’t wait to roll!
    Not reacting fast enough to stop it, the heavy door to the storage area slammed shut behind her, locking automatically. She winced at the noise, even though there was no one left here to tell on her, get her punished.
    Angela moved toward the small, wooden room hidden behind plastic-covered mattresses and box springs, sliding inside the warmth with an unconscious sigh of relief. She locked the door and her feet stepped carefully over the bags and boxes littering the 8’ x 6’ storage room she was calling her den.
    Her legs were trembling as she lit the lantern on the floor in the back corner. She was almost shivering despite the warmth of her blanket-covered area was and it confirmed her decision. It would be at least three more weeks before she could leave. Her body just wasn’t strong enough to make the trip. Angela tightened her grip on her emotions, heart screaming at how long it was taking. Her eyes went to the circled date of 2/12 on her calendar, and she scowled at it in frustration. Twenty-five more days of not even having a picture on the wall - Warren was watching for her men, and she wouldn’t make it easy for him.
    Shivering and hurting, Angela pushed off her muddy shoes and socks, then replaced her wet, dirty clothes with clean ones. She turned on the battery-operated heater at her feet, very glad of the extra propane cylinders she had found with the handy appliance. It, along with a few other useful survivalist items, had come easily enough from the basement room of a Goodwill store, but she was daunted by the size of the list she’d prepared, wasn’t sure she’d be able to find it all.
     “At least I’m not starving,” she muttered, thinking of the first few agonizing days after losing her son, when she’d forced herself to use the power and water while they still worked. She had cooked, dehydrated, and frozen large chunks of ice that had lasted for days in her coolers when the utilities finally went off for good on New Year's Eve, the hour-long blackouts before that, warning her to hurry.
    Cramps exploded in her belly as Angela bent down to pour the boiling water into her mug, and she clenched her teeth. “Suck it up!” Her mind tossed out one of Kenny’s favorite responses to her discomfort…pain. How she hated him!
    Angela settled herself on the stack of knee-high cushions. She had been living down here since burying her baby boy, and had to actually force herself not to clean the plush, two-bedroom apartment above her, knowing it needed to look abandoned to anyone who might wander in.
    The doctor swallowed two pills, grimacing as they went down awkwardly. Gun in her robe pocket, she set the portable radio/TV on the pillows next to her. She sipped and flipped, trying not to be disappointed when there was only static. She hadn’t really expected anything else. It was obvious that normal life was gone. For how long was really the only unknown.
    The last sad voice she’d heard had been on B105 last week, telling of hundreds of millions dead and dying, advising people to go into the caves and mountains. She had a good plan, but Angela also knew the Witch she had been born with, was right about her needing help. She had very little chance of making it all the way on her own, no matter how many delusion spells she could cast. They didn’t work on everyone, and it was a long trip. Over 1200 miles straight through, and with detours, it would be more like 1500 or even 2000, with no outside energy to feed the power.
    Sighing, Angela turned the radio off, switched it to the TV setting. She had hoped to make at least 50 miles a day at first, putting her on base in a month, but after a four hour trip to get to the local store, which had already been cleaned out, she began to understand that making even twenty a day would be hard. It now came