August Burning (Book 2): Survival by Tyler Lahey Read Free Book Online

more stirred.
     

Chapter Five
     
    Tessa sized Adira up as she approached. The girl had a dark leather jacket on, and like the rest of them had shin guards and rough gloves on to protect against any bites. There was a knife strapped to her thigh, and she had a rifle slung across her back. The two of them had begun a strong, if mildly awkward, friendship. A younger man, Wilder, hurried along at Adira’s side. His gait was not casual in the slightest, though he aimed for it to be. There was a light dusting of hair growing along his chin-line.
    “Really uppin the douche-factor there, Wilder. With those chin straps, I mean.” Tessa teased, walking across the little bridge towards them.
    Wilder beamed, and aimed to manufacture a cocky manner. “I’d say it’s more prominent than Duke’s, which, is all that matters.”
    Duke shouted from the opposite bank, his chubby form heaving as he loaded another boulder into a wheelbarrow. “I’m standing, literally right here. I can actually hear everything you’re saying, just so you’re aware.”
    Wilder waved his hand, shifting his own rifle to a scarred hand with mottled flesh. The burn marks extended up his arm, and disappeared under his own heavy shirt. Tessa felt a wave of empathy sweep through her chest.
    “The leaves are dying.” Adira said mournfully, eyeing the streaks of reds and browns that surrounded them. Dead leaves crunched beneath their feet. Tessa had sunk into a deep depression of sorts for a few days when she learned Jaxton had been with the dark-eyed girl standing before her, but to her own surprise it had evaporated swiftly. In its place, she felt relief. There was no one to impress. Who fucking cared? And little by little, Tessa began to regret she had ever cared in the first place.
    “C’mon, we’re not doing this today. I found something, and I need all your help to bring it back here,” Tessa beamed.
    The four of them crossed the river on the new footbridge, a series of wooden beams and logs rammed into the riverbed in front of the dam. The river gurgled and bubbled a strong course through the rock dam. Looking over her shoulder, Tessa could spy the old Field House through the foliage. The fishing pond was a short distance from the school itself. She bounded across the footbridge, noting with pleasure the four feet of water that was building up behind their dam. As they leapt over a colonial style fence into an overgrown backyard, Tessa eyed the burn marks again.
    “Wilder, will you tell us about your arm?”
    “That’s a fairly private question,” he said, eyeing the collage of autumn colors around them warily.
    “Have we not all bonded over the last three weeks, day in and day out building that god damn dam?”
    Wilder chuckled lightly, and then indicated his buddy, Duke. “He can tell you.”
    Duke cringed behind them and shrugged elaborately. Tessa liked him, because he never complained, and he never lost his cool. “I certainly can, but it’s not the type of story you want to hear over a meal.” Duke hefted a hatchet in his right hand, something he always had on him.
    “Luckily I don’t see any food.”
    “Very well. As you wish,” he chuckled. He cleared his throat elaborately, as Tessa and Adira hurried him along, impatient.
    “Wilder here and me, well we had just made it across the Bridge.”
    “The GW? Out of New York?”
    “Same one. Before they blew it. You probably saw it on TV. There were thousands of people. I mean, it was beyond anything I had ever seen. Packed like seething animals, for miles in any direction, struggling in the dark. They had abandoned their cars in all directions, and most of them didn’t even work because of that EMP. The Army was sending us south in trucks, so we boarded up, made it to Camden. They had a massive refugee camp set up in these warehouses outside the city, and for a few days everything was dandy.”
    Duke paused to kick a lawn ornament at a house. He raised his arms in triumph as it