Free Apocalypse Crucible by Mel Odom

that he didn’t know so many children had gone missing during the unexplained phenomenon.
    “Tori’s clear?” Megan asked.
    “Yes, ma’am. Private Collins sequestered her in one of the MP vehicles.”
    “Which one?”
    Corporal Kerby tapped the radio mike clipped to his left shoulder, talked briefly, then pointed at a Jeep that flashed its lights on and off twice. The lights dimmed. “There.”
    “I’ll need to talk to her.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Kerby took the lead.
    “Tori’s parents have been notified?” Megan matched his stride.
    “Yes, ma’am. Her dad is over in Turkey with the 75th. Tori’s mother is at the base hospital. She’s on her way over; should be here anytime. Once she found out you were involved, she said to let you talk to her daughter if you wanted to.”
    “I do,” Megan said. “Do you know if Leslie Hollister is still alive?”
    “Yes, ma’am. We’ve got her locked on thermographic display. She’s in her bedroom.”
    Megan knew that thermographic capabilities enabled a soldier to track body heat through solid walls and darkness but didn’t allow a clear view of the environment someone was in. “How do you know it’s Leslie’s room?”
    “The other girl confirmed the location.”
    Megan folded her arms over her chest against the chilly rain sweeping in out of the night. Beyond the perimeter of the lights and the MPs, neighbors stood under eaves, porches, and umbrellas. Few of them talked to each other. Even the curiosity that normally would have filled them was lacking. It was as if the world was still holding its breath after the disappearances, waiting for the next even more horrible thing to happen.
    But it’s already happened, Megan thought. They don’t know it, or don’t want to acknowledge it yet, but God has called His people home, and evil has been given reign over the earth. She shivered again, but not because of the cold rain falling around her.
    “Where did Leslie get the weapon?” Megan forced her mind to the present task. A girl’s life hung in the balance, and she didn’t know if she was physically or emotionally up to the task of trying to talk her down. Her hectic schedule during the days since the disappearances— since Chris’s abduction, and God help me for feeling that way —weighed on her heavily, exhausted her. Almost overcome from worrying about the teen charges still left to her, she felt like a zombie, except for the sharp pain of her youngest son’s absence and the uncertainty about Joey’s whereabouts.
    “She has a government-issued Colt .45 that belongs to her father,” Kerby answered. “Sergeant Hollister registered the weapon with the Provost Marshal’s office.”
    “You haven’t seen the weapon?”
    “Private Collins did, but he didn’t get a good look. The Hollister girl screamed at him to leave or she would shoot him; he left. He thought it was probably the .45.”
    “Did Tori see the weapon?”
    Kerby shook his head. Rain dripped from his helmet brim. “She saw it, but she doesn’t know what it is. No familiarity with firearms. She’s never taken any of the weapons classes offered on base. Not like the Hollister girl.”
    “Leslie Hollister has taken firearms training?”
    “Yes, ma’am. Top of the class.”
    So Leslie knows how to use her father’s pistol. That thought was as ugly and brutish as a hunk of pig iron. She knew just how ugly that was. Megan’s father had blacksmithed as a hobby.
    “Does Private Collins think she’d have shot him if he hadn’t left the house?”
    Kerby hesitated.
    “There’s no foul here, Corporal,” Megan said. “I could ask Private Collins, but that would take time we might not have. I just want to get a feel for things before I proceed. Leslie’s a juvenile. Let’s worry about taking care of her first, then what impact your reports might have on her and her family.”
    The military was all about paperwork, Megan knew. In her job as a family counselor, she stayed enmeshed in