Free The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval by Erica Stevens Page B

the pavement changed beneath the trucks tires as the wheels hit solid ground. They rolled forward a few more feet before Carl stopped the tuck. Carl’s breath exploded out of him as his head bent in relief. He worked his hands, clenching and unclenching them as he finally released his death grip on the wheel.
     
    John slid limply out of the truck. Falling to the ground, he bent his head and placed a solid kiss smack dab in the middle of what looked like an old oil, or gas leak spot, and he didn’t care one bit. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to the ground as relief and joy pulsed through him. He jumped but didn’t lift his head as Carl pressed forcefully on the horn for three long seconds, giving the sign that they had made it and the others could follow.
     
    “Hey kid.”
     
    John ignored Carl. He hated being called ‘kid,’ but that wasn’t the reason he didn’t look up at Carl. He simply couldn’t bring his boneless body to move right now. “Hey kid come on, I have to move the truck.”
     
    “Go ahead, I’m fine.”
     
    “Look, not everyone’s going to take the bridge as slowly as we did, now that the coast’s clear. Do you really want to have made it all the way over here to be smushed by some frightened idiot?”
     
    Carl had a point. He braced his hands beneath him and managed to shove himself off of the pavement just as a small Honda crested the bridge and raced toward them. He leapt into the truck, barely escaping the red car that barreled past as it sped down the highway.
     
    To his credit Carl didn’t say ‘I told you so' as he quickly shifted the truck into drive. He released another long beep as he moved about twenty feet away and turned the truck to face the bridge. Carl released a small curse. John leaned forward. His mouth dropped in disbelief as the sun began to disappear into an inky blackness.
     
    He had been so focused on making it to the other side that he hadn’t noticed the increasing darkness seeping across the sky to devour the light. A myriad of rainbow colors radiated from the place where the sun had been, but even they were starting to fade away. It was astounding, beautiful, and utterly terrifying. “It’s the end of the world,” Carl muttered.
     
    John intended to argue with Carl, to tell him not to say something like that, that he was completely wrong, and that he didn’t know anything. John couldn’t find the words though because he didn’t think they were true. It was all just too crazy, just too much at once for Carl to be wrong. This was insanity – complete and total insanity – and they were stuck smack dab in the middle of it.
     
    The Toyota with the young mother stopped beside them, she didn’t speak as she hit her horn and then climbed out of her car with a barked command at her children to stay inside. Carl’s hand was shaking as he leaned over and clicked on the radio. They sat silently, listening to the hideous static, clicking, whistling, and strange, almost guttural noises that erupted from it.
     
    Carl turned through the stations but nothing changed. Clicking the button, he switched the frequency to AM radio, but they were only met with the same eerie sounds. Carl switched it off. Another truck appeared, followed closely by a small Dodge and then a Ford, apparently the “let’s all cross one at a time” thing had gotten old, and smaller groups had elected to go. Either that or they had seen the eerie eclipse and had decided that quick escape was more necessary than consideration and patience.
     
    “I don’t know what to do,” John glanced at the woman beside him as she spoke.
     
    “None of us know what to do,” he told her.
     
    She stared at him with glazed eyes before she began to nod. He was about to ask if she had any family she could go to when he felt a small quiver in the road again. He stared at the pavement as if that would somehow give him the answers he sought. “Aftershocks,” the woman told him. “I studied