Free Day One (Book 1): Alive by Michael Mcdonald Page A

and circle back. Seemed simple enough, but would it work? Only time would tell.
    The warm sun slowly moved across the cyan colored cloudless sky as the minutes passed away. The painkiller circulated through my body giving me a burst of courage that was untested, but eager. I watched the woods on both side of the interstate for the slightest amounts of movement, watched the long line of abandoned cars, and even made several glances over my shoulder past the Pathfinder.
    After an hour there’d been nothing that came to investigate and I felt certain it was safe to return to the SUV. Once back, we ate some of the junk food and played with a few of toys, but I kept my head and eyes moving from the front to the rear of the vehicle regularly. I would not be surprised a second time. I’d be ready to fight at a moment’s notice… I had to be, there was no margin for error anymore. No room to make mistakes and ask for forgiveness. A mistake now meant we were dead.
    A little after noon, Kember crashed in the back and I went out to take care of a few things. I started by using the spray paint to cover the windows, stopping any of those things or anyone else for that matter, from seeing in at us. During the daytime it would block the warm sun and at night would allow us to have a few of the flashlights on without being spotted. One of the blankets was hung to keep the back of the SUV separate from the front, an added level of security for both day and night.
    After that I popped the hood and took an assessment of the damage to the engine. I had been under the hood several times to change the oil and other minor repairs, which meant that I had grown pretty accustomed to what it looked like in working order and partly knew how things worked. I might not be a mechanic, but my memory should at least point me in the right direction when it came time to put things back together. I stopped a moment and placed my head in my hand, feeling a bit lightheaded. I dismissed it as lack of sleep and real food.
    The radiator had a small hole in it, the front bumper was toast, the windshield had a pole and hole through it and the right headlight was smashed. Other than that, the SUV was repairable and I could do it with a graveyard of cars and trucks in front of me. The only question remained, was how long would it take? We had a limited amount of food and drinks left and when that was gone we would starve unless I was able to either get us moving again or if I went out at night and scrounged up something.
    A gust of wind rushed up and assaulted me. I spun around fully expecting to see one of those things about to attack, yet as I spun I saw that there was nothing there. In the distant though, I could see dark clouds moving in and pushing the cyan colored sky from sight. Another round of storms was moving in.
    “Great, another storm’s moving in, not what we need right now.”
    As I stood to get a better look at the approaching storm clouds and the fervent wind that kicked massive quantities of leaves and blew them across the dead interstate like a tidal wave, I felt another round of dizziness overwhelm me and standing quickly became a chore. There was no pain, obviously blocked by the painkiller I had taken earlier, yet I could feel that something wasn’t right. I immediately looked down at my bandaged arm. The large bandage I had wrapped all the way around it showed signs of blood seeping through.
    “Not good, not good at all,” I said and crawled back into the Pathfinder to find Kember playing with some plastic keys in the rear. The leggings that she wore were sagging in the back and told me that she needed to be changed. I wasn’t sure if he could see straight enough to get into the SUV let alone change her diaper. Still, I couldn’t let her remain in the filth and get a diaper rash. The world at the moment was an off the wall place – I didn’t know who we could trust, if I could trust anyone at all. I wasn’t sure who had survived that