Free The Death Trilogy (Book 1): The Death: Quarantine by John W. Vance Page B

mayhem.”
    “I don’t understand why people would do that. We should be coming together, not tearing each other apart,” he said as he crawled back and sat down.
    “The irony of it all is The Death spared all walks of life, good, bad and indifferent. The problem we have is now the bad don’t have the threat of being arrested. It’s as if The Death brought out the real person lurking inside the souls of people.”
    “Like what, made people bad?”
    “No, the bad person was always there. The Death didn’t make them that way, it gave them a world where they could be themselves.”
    “So what did these guys want?”
    “Do I have to spell it out for you?”
    “I guess not.”
    “They’re just a pack of butchers, and we need to stay clear of them.”
    “I agree, but it sounds like we’ll be running into others just like ’em somewhere else along our way.”
    “Maybe so.”
    “So what’s the plan?”
    “Lay low here, take a nap till it gets dark; then we’ll move under the cover of darkness. Safer that way.”
    “Good, I’m tired.”
    “Not yet, we take turns, and since I’m the lady, I’ll use that to get first dibs at sleeping.”
    Devin smiled and said, “Deal, I do owe you.”
    “That you do. Wake me in three hours or if we have to bug out.”
    “Sleep tight.”
    Tess fell back against her pack and rolled onto her good side and fell almost instantly asleep.
    Devin, not trusting his ears, went back to his covered position near the edge and pulled the binoculars back out and began to continue looking for any movement. So as to not fall asleep, he made a game out of his surveillance. He counted the houses, then cars, then sorted the cars by color, make and model. He took in every detail and committed it to memory. He thought it made sense to truly get to know what was out in front of them, because by nightfall, they’d be heading that way.
     
    Arcadia
    Chance promised the ride to Arcadia from the DIA would be quick, about an hour. All on the team were excited, and when they boarded the MV-22B Osprey, they found the perfect number of windows to view their trip from.
    Lori had never flown in a helicopter before, and the Osprey looked like one until it was airborne; then it transformed itself into an airplane when its propellers tipped horizontally and locked in place. It was the strangest aircraft she and the others had ever seen, but for the crew of Marines onboard, it was just like any other flight for them.
    The first minutes of the flight took them over Denver and the foothills. Twenty minutes into the flight, they were in the Rocky Mountains.
    Lori didn’t stop looking at the ground below; she loved watching the topography change from the flat plains near the airport, to the rolling foothills to the jagged granite Rocky Mountains. The Osprey stayed close to the mountaintops and weaved through a series of long valleys until they crested one last mountain, and there below them was a pristine valley, approximately four miles wide and twelve miles long, with a river that coursed through it like a snake.
    Over her headset Chance said, “That’s it, that’s our blank canvas below.”
    Lori smiled; she felt very important now and loved having purpose.
    As the Osprey drew closer, Lori spotted a camp that looked similar to Camp 13 but had to be ten times larger. Curious what it was, she asked, “Is that a FEMA camp at the north end?”
    “Yes, it is. That’s Camp Sierra,” Chance answered.
    “So it does exist,” she said.
    “Of course it does,” he responded.
    “Earlier you made it sound like it didn’t,” Maggie answered over the headset.
    “Camp Sierra is one of many beta settlements around the world. When we break ground, CS will become the home to the thousands of laborers and personnel like you.”
    Hearing this brought joy to Lori; this sacrifice she was making would lead to her family finally joining her later. Dying to hear a confirmation, she had to ask, “Chance, when we relocate