Before the Darkness (Refuge Inc.) by Leslie Lee Sanders Read Free Book Online Page A

it. The dog stood,
    sniffed at the granola bar and devoured it.
    "Knew it. He's harmless," Adam said.
    Elliot broke the rest of his bar into bite
    sized pieces and tossed them beside the dog.
    "Let's go."
    They continued walking along the
    isolated path, carefully making their way over
    and through rubble, abandoned vehicles and
    fallen trees guided by the lashlight. Adam
    glanced over his shoulder at the rustling behind
    them. The dog followed them closely. Its head
    hung low and its dark eyes looked up at them
    like a hopeless, begging child in need. It was
    pathetic how much the mutt tugged at his
    heartstrings. He was pathetic to allow it. "The
    damn thing's following us."
    Elliot turned to look behind him and then
    swiveled to look ahead again. "It probably wants
    some more food."
    "Too bad." Adam pivoted, lashing the
    light on the dog and lighting up its dirty brown
    coat of fur. "Get, dog." He stomped his foot. "Get
    the hell outta here." It whined and scurried
    away behind what was left of someone's home.
    They barely had enough food for themselves,
    they had to ration it the best they could. He sure
    didn't have enough granola bars to feed three
    mouths let alone his and Elliot's.
    He sighed at the realization. "We're
    gonna need more food and water."
    Elliot pointed toward the south. "Food
    Plus is that way."
    Adam could only make out the
    silhouettes of buildings far in the distance. They
    were nothing more than dark, odd shaped
    remnants of structures that used to be twice
    their size, and lit up with streetlights and
    glowing signs.
    "Do you remember if there's one that
    way?" He didn't want to stray from the plan,
    walking west. He wasn't sure where he was
    going but it seemed to be the logical thing to do.
    If angry, menacing darkness was approaching
    from the east, escape them by traveling west. It
    made sense.
    "There's a gas station up here." Elliot
    nodded excitedly, and then shook his head. "No
    wait, that's on Roosevelt and Main. Damn it."
    Adam paused, thinking. "If we head to
    Food Plus it'll take us another thirty minutes or
    so to get there."
    "We could do it. Don’t worry about my
    bum leg."
    "It's not your leg I'm worried about. We'd
    have to climb over and through all this junk and
    who knows how long that'll take. It'll take
    forever to get back on track." Adam looked
    around, pointing the light as far as it would go to
    the west.
    "Let's go to Food Plus and stock up on
    food and water. Who knows, maybe we can take
    shelter there too."
    "I wanna stay on track. We walk west
    until we run into…something."
    "Something?" Elliot dipped his brows.
    "You mean someone. You really don't think
    everyone's dead, huh?" The way Elliot looked at
    him, scrutinizing with his eyes, doubting, and
    judging made Adam a bit defensive. An uneasy
    energy surged between them. Elliot was onto
    him, he knew he was playing a role; the role of a
    macho man that everyone, including his iancée
    expected him to be.
    Instead of answering, Adam ignored the
    question. "Let's just keep walking."
    "No, answer me." Elliot tugged his
    shoulder, forcing Adam to turn and stare at him.
    Challenging him to come clean. "You don't really
    believe everyone's dead, do you?"
    "What does it matter what I think?" His
    voice raised an octave, stunning Elliot and
    making him take a step back.
    "I'm using both of our heads to make the
    best decisions. You're the one who saw a news
    report about this stuff. I trusted you. If you think
    there are people still alive maybe we should ind
    them."
    Of course, everyone always counted on
    Adam to know what's best, and when he failed
    they blamed him. " I'm the one using both of our
    heads. You asked me what the plan was and I
    told you. I didn't ask you to trust me. I'm looking
    out for myself and you should do the same."
    Elliot backed down, voice lowering. "I
    thought we were in this together. Two heads are
    better than one."
    "Look, I'm doing the best I can. I told you,
    I'm not the hero you think I