Free Apocalypse Weird: Genesis (The White Dragon Book 1) by Stefan Bolz

him out. But the sound faded, only to be substituted by another. That one was lower in tone, and through the red fog of pain that clouded his mind he recognized the sound as motorcycles. They approached from his left.
    In the distance, at the other end of the large building, an overhead door opened. He felt the vibrations in his abdomen when the bikes approached. The cacophonous noise of two dozen engines filled the space. He could only see the bikes as shadows within darker shadows that soon surrounded him. One by one, the engines were turned off, but the riders never got off their bikes. He felt them more than he saw them. The ones he did see were dark silhouettes. Rider and bike sat motionless. No sound escaped them. Not even breathing.
    Jack lost himself again — sometimes floating on top of the pain, at other times drowning in it. He didn’t know how much time had gone by when he turned his head and his gaze fell to something beyond the shadows. Where there was darkness before, there was now an opening. A door.
    She stood in its frame, half in the shadows. He saw her silhouette against the light behind it. Kasey. She had come. She had found him.
    This is a trap, he wanted to scream. Get out of here!
    “Jack?” her whispered voice echoed through the space. Never in his life had he heard anything sweeter, anything that he’d cherished more and anything that he’d dreaded so much at the same time.
    “Jack?”
    No. Don’t come any closer!
    She ran toward him and he fell into her embrace.

Saturday, June 22nd, 12:20 p.m to Sunday, June 23rd, 0:42 a.m.
    The combination of complete darkness and the sun burning her face at the same time was utterly strange. Kasey had opened the windows of the Jeep. She turned off the AC as well. She wanted to be able to hear what was going on outside, as disturbing as it might be. The fact that she could see a few shapes here and there was comforting at first but now she realized that it had given her a false sense of security. Somehow, the roofs and hoods of the cars, heated up by the sun, were visible as green, blurry, lines. But this was a residential neighborhood and most of the cars were parked in their driveways or in front of the garages.
    Furthermore, the absence of cars didn’t necessarily mean an intersection. On the other hand, some of the cars were parked in the middle of the road. Some cars still had people in them, waiting for help to come. Kasey could only hope that nobody had collapsed on the street as there was no way for her to see anyone lying on the ground. By the second intersection, Kasey no longer knew where she was. She thought she’d just passed Marlborough Avenue but now she wasn’t sure anymore. She needed to get to Little East Neck Road in order to cross Sunrise Highway.
    Then she had an idea. She stopped the car at what she thought was an intersection, got out and felt her way toward the nearest street corner. Most streets had signs. The first metal pole she came across was a stop sign. The next one, a bit further in, was thicker. She climbed up a few feet and even though the metal from the pole cut into her thighs, she managed to hold on long enough to feel the surface of the sign. The letters were slightly raised. N Railroad. Good. Make a right. Go straight. Next right and you’re on Little East Neck .
    She went back to the Jeep and turned onto North Railroad. Except for the low gurgling sound of the car engine it was eerily quiet. She envisioned mothers and fathers with their children, inside their homes, cowering in corners in utter panic over not being able to see anything. Sudden darkness might be one of the most frightening things to any human.
    The sound came out of her stream of thoughts. She wasn’t aware of it at first. As it became louder, its familiarity sent a cold shiver down her spine. To her right was a row of houses, just like on any of the other roads in the neighborhood. But to her left, there were no houses. To her left was the