Surrender the Sun: A Post Apocalyptic Dystopian Thriller by A R Shaw Read Free Book Online Page B

You’ve done your job. Your country is thankful for your service.” He thrust his hand out to Bishop then.
    Bishop looked at it, and just before too much time lapsed into awkwardness, he shook his hand with a firm grip and then swiped his thumb.
    He was going home. The problem was, Bishop had no idea what that meant anymore.
    Unlike Roger Tildon, Bishop had never dated in college and never had a long relationship with a steady girlfriend before he was drafted. His family was destroyed. His father had died of a heart attack shortly after he’d been drafted, and his mother and sister lived somewhere with her new husband in Seattle—a place Bishop had no desire to revisit.
    Roger had two more years to go. And when Bishop told him he was being shipped back, Roger went too, but only for a short time, to visit with his family on leave. He would return for two more years of battle. At least that’s what they thought at the time.
    Both of them flew home into Spokane International Airport. Roger went to his family waiting for him at the baggage claim. He’d twirled around a lovely redhead in his arms and then lifted a boy waiting for him who resembled Roger in miniature right down to the brown eyes. “Bishop!” Roger called as he was leaving through the exit. “I want you to meet my family.”
    Waving, Bishop said, “I’ve got to run. Someone’s waiting. I’ll catch up later.”
    Bishop left and took a cab all the way to Post Falls, Idaho. Once there, he stayed in a hotel for a few days, literally remaining in the hotel room. The trip through the airports and travel was too much. Every loud noise made his pulse race. He found himself reaching for his nonexistent M4 consistently and finding he wasn’t even armed for the first time in eight years. The absence of a weapon, on his person, was unnerving.
    He finally caught up with Roger a few days later in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, just a couple miles from Post Falls. They went fishing in the glistening streams. It was quiet in the woods; only the noise of animals alerted him. He felt peaceful there. “What are you going to do now, Bishop? Now that you’re free ?” Roger said as if he’d served a prison sentence instead of a stint in the military.
    “I, ah, haven’t really thought about it, yet,” Bishop said as they walked through a shallow stream keeping their gear high above their heads and out of the water.
    Roger stopped midstream. His voice, loud over the din of rushing water, “I know you, man. You need to be needed. Why don’t you settle somewhere nearby and keep an eye on my wife and kid? I’m sure you could get on with Idaho State College…maybe teach the weather to some naïve college kids or something.”
    Like yesterday, Bishop remembered the warm sun on Roger’ s face through the trees. He’d only smiled and nodded to Roger’s suggestion. He wasn’t sure about the ‘need to be needed’ part, but he certainly liked the area.
    Later, Roger showed him where he lived.
    Two weeks after that, Roger was gone again, and Bishop found himself camping in the same forest Roger introduced him to. After he opened a storage unit to put his spare belongings in, he never left.

Chapter 7
     
    “Mom!” Ben shouted from her bedroom where he was snuggled up under her thick down comforter to keep warm.
    “Yes, dear?” she replied as she looked through the pantry in the kitchen, searching for something to make for dinner sans the power.
    “When is the electricity going to come back on?”
    “I don’t know, honey. I’m sure they’re working on the lines. There’s a lot of snow on the ground so they have a hard time repairing them; it might take a few days.”
    “It’s getting colder,” he said in protest to her answer.
    Walking back through the house toward the living room, Maeve looked at the smoldering embers in the fireplace and then glanced to her decorative brass firewood rack and said, “Dang it. We’re out already. I wish that wood fairy would come