Free Alone: Book 1: Facing Armageddon by Darrell Maloney Page A

was still intact. And even if he was dead wrong, he’d continue to believe it.
         He had to. Otherwise he might as well just give up. For without the belief that he’d someday reconcile with his wife and daughters, he’d eventually go insane.
         And then he’d realize there was no reason to go on. He’d blow his brains out, like he knew many others around him were doing each and every day.
         He opened the valve on the small bottle of propane and struck a match to the gas. Then he filled his campfire coffee pot with water and a small amount of coffee grounds and put it atop the tiny stove to simmer.
         He tried to remember how far Sarah’s brother and sister in law lived from the airport in Kansas City. He’d only been to their place once, but was impressed by all of the things Tommy had showed him. They’d been prepping too now, for quite some time. Their food stores and supplies at least equaled those that Dave and Sarah had been able to gather.
         By Dave’s best estimate, the ir house was no more than twenty miles from the airport. It was certainly within two days walking distance.
         If his family was able to land safely, and then was able to meet up with Tommy and Susan, there was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t have been able to make it back to Tommy and Susan’s house. And once there, they’d have the water, food and security they needed to survive.
         Dave had a lot to do after he finished his coffee. And he’d do it with a renewed sense of purpose, and a renewed optimism.
         His family was alive.
         They had to be.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -18-
     
           Having convinced himself beyond any doubt that his daughters were still alive made it easier to enter their bedrooms. He’d been dreading it, knowing the memories the rooms would bring back. But now, it didn’t seem to sadden him as much.
         He started in Lindsey’s room first. She was his oldest. He could still vividly remember holding her in the palms of his hands on the day she was born. It was the first time he’d allowed himself to cry in Sarah’s presence. He considered it unmanly. Sarah thought it was sweet.
         He felt his eyes moisten now, but he’d hold the tears back. He had work to do.
         He entered the room and closed the door behind him. Then he took out his frustratio n by punching a hole in the wall.
         It felt good. He chuckled, thinking it was just what he’d needed.
         But his mission wasn’t to destroy the house.
         Once the wall had a hole punched in it, he took a sheetrock saw he’d brought up from the garage. Using the hole he punched as a starting point, he cut a rectangular hole about a foot square between the studs.
         Then he went back to the garage with a laundry basket from Lindsey’s bedroom. He’d dumped her dirty laundry on the floor, but she wasn’t there to call him on it. So he figured it was okay.
         In the garage, he opened one of several large cardboard boxes stacked against the wall on the side of the garage they never used.
         The box was full of dry food, and was way too heavy to lug up the stairs. So he filled the laundry basket and lugged it up instead.
         Back in Lindsey’s bedroom, he dropped the food a package at a time into the hole he’d cut in the wall, until he’d completely filled the cavity, from the floor to the bottom of the hole.
         It worked quite well. He’d been able to hide thirty boxes of spaghetti noodles, several bags of dried beans and soup mix, and several bags of trail mix.
         Then he took an old poster of the Backstreet Boys and hung it over the wall to cover the hole.
         He stood back to admire his work. There was no way a looter would discover his stash, unless he hated the Backstreet Boys so much he took a punch at them.
         And Dave imagined that looters would have more