Free The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave by Jonathan Teague Page B

coughing as he took a breath in the hot, steamy air. He jogged across the street to the Hale’s house. “Incredible,” he thought to himself, “Faking sick just to stay home and read. Missing my son’s game is one thing. Worrying her parents when there are fatal diseases making their rounds? No. That’s just wrong. Scott is too easy on her.”
    His inner voice had an unusually harsh quality to it. His hand shook in fury when he reached into the hanging potted plant where Scott kept a spare key. He found himself wanting to teach her a serious lesson, show her how scary the world was. As if he’d regressed to his angry teen years, he raged inside, craving another bloody fight, with anyone.
    He pictured her little oval face blotched with real terror. That image made him feel deeply ashamed. He’d rather break his own arm than cause Emily to be afraid of him. He drew in a deep breath and ordered himself to pull it together.
    He unlocked the front door and called inside, “Emily? It’s Uncle Tommy. I’m coming in.”

CHAPTER 17
    P OSSESSIONS, F RIENDS A ND K IN
    W hen Scott pulled into the driveway, Tom sat on the front step, haloed in the porch light. A smile creased his face, telling them what they needed to know: Emily was fine.
    Relief washed over them and only fatigue remained. Laura made her way into the house, letting Maddy carry the baby. She checked on Emily and got everyone to bed. They were asleep within minutes.
    Scott and Tom stayed on the porch.
    “The rioting at the game was pretty scary. But it’s probably just a glimpse of things to come. We may have passed a tipping point out there. I wonder if it’s gone too far for civilization to restore things to the way they were.”
    Tom didn’t mention his own close call at the stadium. He nodded. “It’s getting bad, all right. We seem untouched here. But it’s only a matter of hours before we’re all sucked up into this mess.”
    “I think we have a little while.”
    “If we’re lucky, we have two days before it gets uncomfortable in our town. Within a couple of weeks, we may be on our own. No food in stores. No fuel at gas stations. The prevailing philosophy will be ‘every man for himself.’ If that happens, it will be far from pretty. I saw the Bosnian civil war.”
    Tom paused for a breath, remembering when he entered the Balkans in 1995 as the youngest of the twenty-two Marines that had first landed on the ground as part of a NATO force. What he’d seen and heard there haunted him. Within a month, roving gangs began their butchery. After three months, people were starving to death. Illness was rampant. Women traded themselves in exchange for a can of food to feed themselves and their children. People who tried go it alone died. People who gathered together as a community lived.
    “We need to get things moving, and I mean yesterday,” Tom said.
    “So, tomorrow we rally our neighbors, raid the grocery stores, and bunker up? Or do the Moses thing and lead our people to the Promised Land?”
    Typical of Scott, he made a lighthearted joke when the situation called for serious discussion. Tom’s temper was on a hair trigger. He felt the anger building again.
    Scott spoke earnestly. “Look, you always say that fear is the killer. Let’s not get everyone panicking until we see how things play out tomorrow. I’ve been on enough treks to know that people, especially those living in cities, will lose resolve very quickly in the face of scarcity. Limited to a trunkful of food and the prospect of sleeping in their cars, I see them heading back to their homes tomorrow. We should hang tight, but keep an eye out in case there is a complete breakdown.”
    Tom looked into the future, imagining society falling apart. People would bleed. Many would die horribly from disease and hunger. Some would suffer worse at the hands of evil men who would comb neighborhoods for people to rape, torture and kill. He imagined it so clearly, he could practically taste