Mass Extinction Event: The Complete Fourth Series (Days 54 to 61) by Amy Cross Read Free Book Online Page B

we sent a patrol out to scour the forest until they found your foot? The fact that we knew your name before you even told us? Don't worry, he'll explain everything when he gets here.”
    “Who?” Starting to panic, I turn to the door as I realize I can hear approaching footsteps outside.
    “You're one very lucky young lady,” Patterson says. “I only wish we'd been in time to save your brother.”
    “My brother?” I turn back to him. “What do you know about Henry?”
    The footsteps get closer and suddenly stop.
    “Hello, Lizzie.”
    I freeze. I know that voice, but I don't dare to turn around. It's as if I'm in a dream, or maybe a nightmare, or maybe both, but as my heart starts pounding in my chest I realize that this whole situation is horribly, achingly real. For a moment, I actually feel as if I might be about to faint.
    “Lizzie,” the male voice continues, “don't you have something to say to me?”
    I pause for a few more seconds, with tears in my eyes, before finally I turn toward the door and I see him.
    “It's okay,” he says. “I can explain everything.”
    It's him.
    It's really him.
    “Dad,” I whisper, as tears start running down my face. “What are you doing here?”

Day 55
    (Mass Extinction Event 4.2)

Thomas
     
    By the time I get back to the campsite, having searched for hours in an attempt to find Quinn, the sun has been down for a few hours and I figure it must be close to midnight, maybe a little over. I scramble down the shallow incline that leads from the ridge and start making my way toward my tent, but at the last moment I realize I can hear someone coughing over by the water's edge.
    Heading past the last of the tents, I see two figures sitting a little further off, and one of them is patting the back of the other in an attempt to help with the coughing.
    “Hey,” I say as I reach them, having already figured out that it's Melissa and her daughter Katie. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine,” Melissa splutters, before collapsing into more coughs.
    “She gets like this sometimes,” Katie says. She's just a kid but, like so many people around here, she's had to grow up fast. I've seen her around over the past few days, carrying buckets for the older women and trying to help any way she can. This is no life for a little girl.
    “It's just asthma,” Melissa tells me, taking a series of deep breaths as she tries to stay calm. “I've had it all my life.”
    “Has it always been this bad?” I ask.
    She doesn't answer; instead, she starts coughing again.
    “Do you know how to make it stop?” Katie asks, turning to me. In the moonlight, I can just about see the worried expression in her eyes.
    “Just keep doing what you're doing,” I reply, glancing back toward the tents for a moment. The truth is, I don't have a clue how to help.
    “Where have you -” Melissa starts to ask, before breaking down and coughing again. She takes some more deep breaths. “Where have you been? You were gone for hours.”
    “I had to go and check on Quinn,” I tell her.
    “What does she want? Is she still hanging around nearby?”
    “I'm not sure,” I mutter, thinking back to the blood I found on the rocks. “I have to go back and look tomorrow, but I couldn't manage much in the darkness. It was too hard to see.”
    “What about earlier?” Melissa asks, clearly struggling to keep from coughing again. “You went off with Mark, didn't you? What's it like beyond the eastern point?”
    “What has he told you?”
    “Just that we must never go there. Something about disease, I think. He wasn't very clear or -” She breaks down, coughing again.
    “It's messed-up,” I mutter, shuddering as I think about those creatures in the pit, and the way they tore Jacqueline's body apart like savage animals.
    “Is it scary?” Kate asks.
    I turn to her, but I don't even know where to begin.
    “I think it's because of the dead people,” Melissa says after a moment, her voice strained from all the coughing.