The System #2 by Shelbi Wescott Read Free Book Online Page B

to mention that without me you’d have no doctor. No Joey. Who’s been quite helpful…even you can admit that. Your problem, Darla, is you seem to think I’m the bad guy—”
    “Only a bad guy would forget that without Ethan,” she pointed to his unconscious body, “you’d be dead. And for the record, I was against bringing you along. I don’t trust you and I don’t care for you, and I don’t care if you know it. Stay at Pacific Lake.”
    Doctor Krause sighed. She opened her mouth like she had something to say, but then promptly shut it and returned to her chair.
    “What was that Doc? You want to weigh-in?” Spencer asked and he took another sip.  
    Darla scoffed. “You don’t get to move into these homes and take over. Doctor Krause and Ainsley think you’ve made enough decisions for them, thank you very much. We make choices as a group here.”
    “Come on, Doc?” Spencer pushed again and Doctor Krause rolled her head back and looked the ex-principal in the eye, a strand of curly brown hair falling into her face.
    “It’s hardly the time to even start this conversation, since I’m clearly with a patient…Ethan is my entire focus. And I don’t care where anyone lives as long as we work together—”
    Frustrated, Darla shot the doctor a look and then threw her hands up in the air, agitated and defeated.
    “Then it’s settled. Say sayonara to your little self-imposed exile. It’s hard to hide when there are only a handful of us left alive,” Spencer replied swiftly and he turned to walk away. “I’m thinking of a housewarming party in a few days. Save the date,” he added with a smile, and then he walked back down the hallway and out of the house, leaving the doctor and Darla alone with Ethan’s broken, bloodied body.

CHAPTER THREE
    Brixton, Nebraska

    It was late afternoon when Lucy and Grant rolled into Brixton. Lucy’s heart nearly stopped when she saw the green population sign announcing their arrival: Welcome to Brixton. Population 26 .   It appeared that the population used to read twenty-seven, but someone had drawn over the seven with a sharpie—broadcasting the loss in crude, broad stroke marks. Beyond the sign was another half a mile of nothingness, flat plains, knee high grass waving, dancing, and welcoming them into the city like a parade.
    When they reached the first set of buildings, Grant rolled the car to a stop, threw open the door, and then swung his foot out on to the dirt, stretching his arms up to the sky.
    Lucy followed behind him, exiting the car and looking around.
    Brixton was a ghost town.
    From their vantage spot, they could see most of the city: A church, a bar, a fire station, a schoolhouse, a general store, a post-office, and a library—beyond that a cluster of houses and a baseball field, and a red grain silo towered to the sky. The store and the bar stood side-by-side along the narrow Main Street.
    That was it; that was the entire city. All of Brixton could fit inside of one-quarter of Lucy’s local mall back home—a sprawling expanse of department stores, pretzel shops, and makeup kiosks. And the dusty town wouldn’t even take up one quadrant of the area. She’d never visited a city this small; a city practically nonexistent. A city of nothingness.
    Lucy couldn’t help but wonder about the people who chose to live their life in a place like this, so far away from civilization, removed from a decent shoe store or coffee shop. What did the people of Brixton do when they wanted to watch a new movie or go out for pizza? She started to feel sorry for the kids who lived here, but then she shook her head, frustrated with herself. It still took too long to realize that movies and shoe stores and nights eating pizza were relegated to the distant past.
    Unless Brixton had been protected from the virus that killed the world, everyone here was gone.
    “This doesn’t look promising, does it?” Lucy asked and she walked over to Grant and stood by him—they took