The Rot (Post Apocalyptic Thriller) by Paul Kane Read Free Book Online Page A

scaring Jane.”
    Now I knew there were at least three of them.
    “She should be bloody well scared,” said the man, but his tone had already softened.
    “If he’s with the military, maybe he knows what’s going on,” the woman said. And then, suddenly, she moved closer to one of the candles. She was slightly younger than the man, her hair shoulder length. It was hard to tell in that light, because everything had an orange glow, but it looked a reddish colour – probably from a bottle. She was holding someone’s hand: a little girl, presumably Jane, who was wearing a school uniform – black jumper and trousers, white shirt, and clutching a backpack. The pig-tails completed the look of innocence.
    I shook my head again. “Sorry lady, but I have to confess that I don’t have the first clue what’s happening – or why.”
    “Carrie,” the woman said then. “My name is Carrie McCall.”
    “Pleased to meet you, Carrie. You too, Jane.” I nodded at the girl, then the man. “Even you, Dennis. I think I have you guys to thank for saving me.”
    “We were looking for more folk like us,” said another voice now, and a young man in his late teens or early twenties with a much darker complexion stepped forward. He was wearing jeans and a hoodie, his hair close-cropped. “Found you instead. I’m Rakesh.”
    “Well, I’m very grateful. And hi Rakesh.” These people were survivors, like me. Maybe the only people in this godforsaken town who were normal – and they’d been doing the same thing that I was trying to do back at the facility, gather together anyone who wasn’t with the affected. Band together to protect each other, to live. To give each other hope.
    “Dennis, will you put that thing down before you hurt someone,” said Carrie, and the man finally lowered the rifle… a little. “It’s obvious Adam’s not like—” She paused, unwilling or unable to say any more.
    “I’m not,” I replied, filling in. “I’m really not. Can I just ask, how long has it been since you dragged me out and brought me here?”
    “A good few hours,” Rakesh told me. “Maybe half a day.” So, definitely night-time out there; maybe even almost dawn.
    “And where exactly is here?”
    “ The White Hart ,” said Dennis, with more than a hint of pride in his voice. “Miccleston. My pub.”
    Didn’t look like any kind of pub I’d ever drank in, or even got drunk in. But then the more my eyes adjusted, the more light was thrown out by those candles and the more of my surroundings I could make out. Barrels, shelving with bottles on them, boxes of crisps. “We’re in a cellar,” I said.
    “Give that man a cigar,” sniped Dennis, pulling up an empty crate and sitting down hard on it; so hard it almost collapsed underneath him.
    Not a bad place to hole up. There were provisions at least – and enough booze to make sure you didn’t care that the end of the world was apparently here. No, I told myself, there’s nothing to say it’s happened anywhere else. Just the two places so far that have torn themselves to pieces.
    “And you all know each other?”
    “We do now,” answered Rakesh.
    “Any of you together?” I was thinking Dennis and Carrie surely – they spoke to each other like an old married couple – but apparently not. They lived on opposite sides of town, complete strangers until… I nodded then at her and Jane, thinking they might be mother and daughter; some kind of blood link between them that might explain the immunity.
    “I’m… I live not far from her school; I know her mum and dad a little.” Carrie turned to Jane, said: “Sweetie, why don’t you go and do some more of that colouring in? Over there, right next to that candle where the light’s better.” The girl looked at her, then nodded, fishing stuff out of her backpack before heading off across the cellar. Carrie lowered her voice. “When it… The kids were just coming out of school when it happened. I can see them from my