Apocalypse Atlanta by David Rogers Read Free Book Online Page B

only an emptiness that didn’t look like her at all.  And her eyes, normally so alert and alive, looked even more vacant.  They fixed on him immediately, and she stumbled towards him.  Other than the scrape of her slippers on the bare concrete, she was silent.
    Peter stared at her in shock.  In addition to her complete lack of recognition, of him, her husband, she was so incredibly pale.  The skin on her face and neck was so white it was almost translucent.  “Amy, what’s wrong?” Peter asked as her arms came up when she was almost to him, her body wobbling as if she were having trouble staying upright.  He reached for her automatically.  Her hands closed on his work shirt with surprising strength, and she pulled, hard.
    “Sweetheart!” he blurted as he stumbled off balance, colliding with her.  His wife toppled over backwards, still gripping his shirt, and he half bent even as he reached for her arms to stop her fall.  He noticed, almost absently, her hands and forearms did not share the pale color on her face; they were bluish-purple and seemed bloated.  And the flesh beneath his fingers was not only unnaturally . . . squishy . . . but it was cold too.
    She still made no sound, not even a grunt or a gasp as she crashed to the ground, though he grunted as her weight hung from him.  “God, are you alright?” he exclaimed, as a feeling of panic, deeply uncertain panic, started bubbling within him.  Her head came up, and he searched her face looking for some sign, any sign, but her eyes swept across his face almost like he wasn’t even there.  They fixed on his hands, gripping her arms just above the elbows, and she bent forward, up really, abruptly.
    Peter yelled in surprise as he realized she was about to bite him, and released her, snatching his hands away in an instinctive reaction.  He felt, actually felt, her teeth scrape across the skin of his left forearm as he stepped back.  She collapsed to the floor as his hands stopped supporting her, and he stood staring in shock at his wife.  A moment later, she started trying to sit up.  She moved slowly, hesitantly, like her body wasn’t working correctly.
    “Something’s wrong.” he whispered, trying to quell the panic bubbling within him.  His hands were cold, cold from contact with her flesh.  She shouldn’t be cold.  He and Amy had been married for over thirty years, and he’d deployed to active warzones five times during his career.  He’d seen death, he’d seen injury, and he’d killed people.  Not often, not even as often as a Marine who was tasked with front line combat, but he’d done his share.
    None of it had prepared him for this, the feeling of helplessness and fright that gripped him as he watched his wife loll about on the floor in utter silence, without the faintest sign she recognized him or even knew who she was.  Strangely, that complete lack of recognition in her eyes scared him more than any of her other physical . . . symptoms, at the moment.  That she could look at him and not react like the Amy who knew and loved him, even if she did occasionally call him an idiot who should listen more and talk less.
    His training took over.  Unless it was critical, only if there was no other course of action available, the correct procedure was to call for the right personnel to handle a situation.  There was always someone to handle whatever came up, even if it was an officer you merely dumped the responsibility on.  This seemed clear enough though, and he stepped back, to the stairs, as he reached into his pocket and all but ripped his phone out.
    He thumbed the keys without looking away from Amy as she managed to sit upright.  Her head, her empty eyes, remained fixed on him as she struggled to get her feet under herself and rise.  Peter raised the phone to his ear and reached for the banister, stepping backwards up the first few steps.  The phone rang, then rang again, and was picked up.
    “Nine-one-one operator,