Free The Dead Divide Us (Book 1) by Vincent S. Tobia

that Shawn fell asleep, he gave Eddie the order to do the same although the eight year old didn’t seem the least bit tired. To Paul, Eddie seemed concerned, concerned on a level that conveyed great understanding of severity of the situation. Paul carried Shawn up to his room and as he walked down the hallway past Eddie’s room, he found him sitting on his bed and looking out toward the hallway.
    “Lay down son. Try to sleep,” Paul quietly said to his son.
    “Okay, Dad,” Eddie said politely, then swung his legs onto his bed and hit the pillow with his head. But Eddie didn’t close his eyes; he just stared straight up.
    Sighing, Paul continued his walk down the hallway. Light from the streetlamps outside shone in from the large window near the door to Paul’s bedroom. As he entered the bedroom, he saw Ruth sitting cross legged on the bed, still studying her laptop. Paul quietly closed the door before speaking.
    “Anything new?” Paul asked.
    “Not a damn thing. Seriously I can’t even find that twitter account anymore,” Ruth replied rather loudly.
    “It’s like it just disappeared,” she added, sounding defeated.
    Paul exhaled slowly and walked over to his wife. Paul was worried too. He had also seen the two gruesome pictures that Ruth found on the internet. One picture was supposedly of an infected person, the other, an utterly hard-to-believe image of Times Square with the streets piled up with dead people. Paul was having a hard time thinking straight. Was any of that real? There was no way of knowing.
    “Take a break from that computer 'hon,” Paul said to Ruth, as he brushed the back of her hair. Ruth closed the laptop hard, obviously frustrated.
    “Did Robert call you back?” Ruth asked.
    “No. And to be honest, I’m a little worried.”
    Robert had called Paul, but after a few seconds of sounding distraught and out of place, he had told Paul he’d call him back. That was almost a half hour ago.
    “Just call him then,” Ruth said.
    Paul sat down on the bed and wrapped his arms around Ruth. Again he smelled the clean scent coming off of her bathrobe and in breathing in the familiar scent, was momentarily comforted.
    “I’ll wait a little longer. If he’s busy taking care of something he won’t answer anyway,” Paul said, trying to push away the nasty picture of the infected.
    “I don’t like this Paul. Everything feels off,” Ruth confided.
    “I know, I know. I feel the same,” Paul agreed.
    Both Paul and Ruth sat back and laid down on the bed, still holding onto one another.
    “I mean, it’s really strange being here. Knowing something terrible is happening. It seems relatively quiet here. And…Jesus, Paul that picture we saw of Times Square…” Ruth trailed off, upset.
    “Listen honey, we don’t know exactly what we saw there,” Paul said, trying to comfort his wife.
    “I think it looked pretty clear Paul,” Ruth said.
    “No, what I’m saying is that the photo could have been doctored. It could have been a joke. We only saw it for a few seconds,” Paul explained.
    Ruth shifted on the bed and looked Paul straight in the eyes.
    “What if that image was real?” she said.
    Paul didn’t say anything; he didn’t want to say it out loud. If the photo was real then things could get really bad for them in Green Falls, Washington. And by the look and sound of it, it would get bad very soon.
    “Let’s try to sleep. I’ll need to be up in two hours to meet up with Roy,” Paul said.
    Paul had promised his neighbor Roy Benton that he’d be over to his house at 7 am to tag along with him to the Green Falls town meeting. This meeting wasn’t exactly something that Paul was looking forward to. He had gone to a bunch of them in the past -a lot of locals just arguing about zoning laws and building permits. Nothing to get that excited over. But this meeting promised to be different of course. They were to discuss the threat of a supposed disease spreading throughout the