Free The Azrael: Surviving the Outbreak by Jesse Gagnon

clothes from Taliah.  He folded them neatly and placed them in his pack.  “Okay, let’s get moving.”  Mario said and Taliah gave him a big hug.
    “Thank you Mario.”  Taliah kissed him on the cheek.
    They exited the building and continued northeast towards Chicago.  They continued east on West Pershing Road.  They travelled through an industrial district, keeping the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to their right.  This trek of land was just as free of the Azrael as the wooded stretch Mario was accustomed to.  They crossed over South Pulaski Road and found a weak corner in the black gate surrounding an enormous factory.  Once they passed the rear of the building, the area opened up.  Mario peeked around the building and found a herd surrounding a transmission tower holding up power lines.  Were they drawn to the power?  They must be drawn to the hum on the lines, Mario thought.  Bigger cities still had power grids active, the power may be low these days, but most systems ran automatically.  There were several sources of power running these vast cities, the biggest contributor, coal, needed human intervention to keep running.  It looked like this city didn’t get Wind Turbine power set up yet.  The gas and nuclear contributions must be still humming over the lines.  However, if the nuclear plants weren’t kept cool, they too would fail, which would bring a whole new issue into their day to day struggle.  However, he believed a lot of protective measures were installed in America to prevent a full meltdown like Japan had several years ago.
    “If we got a bit of power left, there might be hope for a hot shower for you.”  Mario said, smiling at Taliah.
    “That would be great.”  She said, keeping a watchful eye on the Azrael.  The herd wasn’t sleeping, but seemed calm beneath the transmission tower.  The land opened up too much for them to slip passed unnoticed.  They needed to backtrack and find a new path.  They worked their way back to S. Pulaski Rd and headed north.  They encountered railroad tracks and decided to follow them east.  They passed the herd on their right.  They stayed low and kept a watchful eye on their movements.  It looked like about two hundred of them at least gathered there.  Taliah kept close to Mario grabbing on to his backpack with a tight grip.  There were small houses to the left of them, but none seemed to have power and there were too many on top of each other.  It would be a defensive nightmare.  They passed several storage trailers on their right that could hide Azrael.  They continued down the path and slipped passed a few more small herds that gathered in the trailer graveyard.  Beyond them to the right some light emerged.  They continued down the path where green land and a layout of several large buildings revealed themselves with a few lights glowing around them.
    “Power, those buildings have power.”  Mario said pointing ahead at an ‘L’ shaped building beyond a small parking lot.  They continued towards the source and entered the open area cautiously.  Mario kept Taliah close and tactically moved from car to car and stopped at one of the building’s windows.  He looked inside, no people or Azrael seemed to move about.  It looked clean and maintained.  They circled around the front of the set of buildings to see what it was.  It appeared to be some sort of self-sustaining facility.  They may have their own generators up and running with conjunction to soaking up some of the juice from the power lines.  What a brilliant find this was.  Mario continued to investigate the building’s exterior and noticed that it was Paul Simon Job Corps Center, like some small community college campus.  It offered all types of trade job training programs.  He browsed inside each building looking through the windows.  He didn’t want to be trapped inside if he found something or someone hostile inside.  He found nothing moving.  A gym was