A second quad joined it.
“Mom! It’s them! It’s them!” Kennedy said, jumping up and down and pointing.
She was right. All of them, the dirt bike and two quads, with five kids and what looked like two generators, moseyed on the road. Emotions carried over the wind, and not a single thing was following them.
“They made it,” Maggie breathed.
“I’ll go help them load that shit up here,” Zach said.
“I’ll help,” Britt said.
The two left down the stairs.
“Hey!” Bennett called from the other side of the roof. “Look! That looks like a guy?”
Maggie tore her eyes away from her son and joined Bennett, looking outward. The sun was setting on the second day and she had to blink at the shadow in the west.
A familiar walk told her everything she needed to know.
“DADDY!”
Epilogue
Kevin stood at the monument.
Two years had passed since the crater that was Saskatoon came to be. No one had answers still. They’d ruled out terrorism or an accident.
It was wide knowledge that the city had disappeared.
Conspiracy theorists liked to throw aliens and a geyser into the mix.
But the truth was unknown. And Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, was an event that would now be studied for generations.
He laid his five flowers at the base of the marble stone that walled the hole in the ground.
Two hundred and twenty- six thousand names were engraved in the marble.
All those who lost their lives in the accident.
“You okay?” Juan asked, gently touching his arm and laying his own two flowers for his parents beside Kevin’s flowers.
About twenty people were milling about, all laying flowers at the decorated ode to those that lost their lives.
“Not really. You?”
Juan smiled, “No. But a little better with you, my love.”
Kevin smiled back. “That’s right, a little better with you.”
Juan took his arm and guided him away from his old life and into the new.
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OTHER BOOKS BY K.G.SANDER
PREHISTORIC SURVIVAL
BOOK ONE: Doomed City
SONGBIRD INVESTIGATIONS
BOOK ONE: White Queen
BOOK TWO: Siberian Trap
THE ZOYA CHRONICLES
BOOK ONE: Pulse
BOOK TWO: Force
BOOK THREE: Devour
BOOK FOUR: Void
THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER SERIES
The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Little Red
About the Author
K.G. Sander is a Primary Care Paramedic and lives in her hometown of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. A massive Saskatchewan Roughriders fan, she prides herself on being a geek and loving football. She lives with her wife and kids and has a couple good pups. She absolutely loves to hear from readers, and will get back to anyone who emails her at [email protected]
Check out www.kgsander.com for all your Prehistoric Survival updates.
Keep Reading
Keep reading for a sneak peek of Pulse: Book One of the Zoya Chronicles. Available in stores and on Amazon.
Pulse
Book One of the Zoya Chronicles
Prologue
They were stranded. It was the worst family vacation yet and Lizzy didn’t care who knew it. She didn’t even want to be here, she wanted to be with her friends on their trip to Mexico. Instead of the warm waters of the ocean with her friends, it was a heavy blizzard in the middle of nowhere Manitoba. And they weren’t even here for anything fun, just trying to get to her grandparent’s house for a stupid family Christmas thing.
“Dad, when are we getting out of here?” she whined across the table. Refusing to look at him, her head was buried in her phone. They were in a small truck stop diner on Highway 6. Complete with the classic old puke green paint and a sticky beige table that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years.
“We told you Lizzy, when the highway opens up.” Mark looked at his daughter. Sixteen, full of the attitude teenage girls are famous for and as smart as a whip. At five foot six, she had long wavy brown hair, brown eyes, and a physical awkwardness that she hadn’t been able to shake off as fast as her friends. This led to a sulky, very insecure teenager. Intelligent and kind (when not in one of her moods), but at the age where brains weren’t valued as high as athleticism. He hoped she would realize her importance and capability soon. Smiling as she tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, he knew she had no idea how much she looked like her mother.
“Well when’s that gonna be?”
“Going to be, Lizzy. Use your words. And we told you, we don’t know. Your mother is just off with the boys checking with some truck drivers to see if they know when the highway would open up,” Mark sighed, his patience waning. Secretly he agreed with his daughter. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere at a dirty truck stop, with his three sons under the age of ten and a sixteen year old daughter. This trip was turning out to be a horrible idea. His horrible idea.
“You know, you could probably check the weather on that phone of yours. Put it to good use.”
An eye roll and a glare gave him his answer. “I’m texting Amber. She doesn’t get why I couldn’t go. You didn’t even have to pay!”
“I know Liz, but your mom and I wanted you home for Christmas. Plus you haven’t seen your older brother in two years, you needed to be home to see him.”
Lizzy knew it, and felt a stab of guilt for bringing it up. She was actually super excited to see James. Five years her senior, they had been best friends until he moved away to go to university. Smiling as she remembered her brother’s laugh, she did her best to keep it to herself. It wouldn’t do to have her father know she thought he was at least half right. She missed James. Even when she was twelve and he was seventeen he included her, and she still hadn’t forgiven him for moving.
“I could’ve seen him later.”
Mark was spared from answering, and the inevitable fight it would lead to, by the approach of the rest of his family. His wife and kids looked tired. Which made sense at 10:30 PM.
“Well,” Susan said, “I just talked to a couple of the semi drivers. They said the snow plows are out so we should be able to get moving.”
Mark smiled at his wife. Tired and hungry, maybe, but always beautiful. At forty she had an athletic build, long brown hair, and bright green eyes that only James had inherited. They had a big family because they enjoyed kids. He looked at his ten, nine and six year old sons. The boys were carbon copies of each other. Slim builds, brown eyes, and untidy brown hair chopped the same way (all the rage right now in junior hockey). They had James young, at only nineteen, but they had managed. Then came Elizabeth a few years later. Then in a blink Kenny, John and last of all Billy. His family was busy, but they were happy.
“Great! Get snacks kids, last bathroom breaks. I expect butts in seats in ten minutes!”
Mark moved to the 2006 red Dodge Caravan with his family. One thing about a big family, he mused, was that it sure changed what kind of car you drove. Making sure everyone was buckled in, he slowly joined the procession of vehicles leaving the diner. The blizzard was a bad one, but nothing that they couldn’t deal with. He was born and raised in Can
ada, a little snow didn’t stop him. His wife absent mindedly grabbed his hand and, smiling, Mark slowly entered the highway.
Liz could tell her dad was getting anxious. They had left the diner an hour ago and had only driven about eighty kilometers. At this pace, she calculated, they wouldn’t make Winnipeg until 3:00 AM. She was just glad she wasn’t driving. Amusing herself with her phone, she killed time on this endless trip by watching videos, laughing to herself about the data bill she was running up. That would show her parents for making her stay here.
Sitting in her normal spot in the back of the caravan on the driver’s side, Kenny was snoring loudly beside her. In front of her she saw John’s head slouch forward. He was asleep sitting up. She couldn’t see Billy, he was fast asleep beside John.
Beep. A notification popped up on her phone. Unlocking her screen, the text from Amber materialized. With a pang of jealousy and sadness, she saw it was a picture of her friends on the beach. The van jerked slightly as her dad sped up and pulled out to pass a semi. He was definitely getting frustrated.
“Shit,” he said from the front. Followed by a desperate gasp from her mother.
She looked up, just in time to see a snow plow’s headlights feet away from the windshield. She didn’t scream. There was no time. A sharp intake of breath. The van hit the plow head on. In slow motion the windshield exploded inwards. Her body was launched forward. The seatbelt locked and crushed her to a stop. A terrible screeching noise. Something slammed against her head.
Everything went black.
Part I
“Man is a genius when he is dreaming,” – Akira Kurosawa
“There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.” – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
1
Senka
She was angry.
Although, she thought, she was always angry. Her anger fueled her. It forced her to get up in the morning. Hanging in the air, her feet were folded behind her and she slowly extended her body to the bottom of a pull-up. Forty-one, she thought as she pulled her body up to the bar. Pausing, she looked around at her cell, muscles straining with the hold. Four stone walls, smooth in the corners from past prisoners trying to claw their way out. The cell was ten feet across, ten feet wide, and ten feet tall. A perfect cube. There was a hole in the back right corner for various bodily fluids. A stone bed hewn of rock was raised three feet off the on the left side with no blankets or pillow. A one inch metal bar was hung exactly in the center of the ceiling and was used for binding during torture. The door was steel, expertly inlaid into the stone and perfectly center of the wall. A small hatch in the bottom of the door was used to deliver food once a day. The cell was so well crafted that no light seeped into the room from the hall beyond. Sound, however, was heard clearly. This was to ensure the screams and mutterings of other tortured prisoners could be heard.
Keep the body strong, keep the mind strong, and vengeance will be yours. Forty-two, she thought, performing another pull-up.
The only light was provided by a flickering, blue tinted Pulse light in the center of the room. It trembled on for exactly twelve hours a day, and was turned off for the other twelve. This occurred exactly the same time, for precisely the same length, every day. She figured this out by counting seconds during her first year of incarceration. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Every day. It was a part of the psychological torture she endured within these walls. They wanted her to know how long she had been here. She looked at the left wall above her bed. Five hundred and ninety-seven marks scratched into the wall.
A long scream sounded in the dungeon. It was the unmistakeable sound of someone for whom the pain of torture was new. They would break, she thought. They always did.
She did another slow, strong, pull ups. Sixty-seven… Sixty-eight… Sixty-nine… Seventy. Sweat formed on her upper brow. The scars on her pale white arms popped red with the extra blood flowing to her muscles. No quit. No giving up. No giving in. She lived every day for the chance at vengeance. One hundred.
She jumped off the bar and kneeled on the floor, wrapping the white ragged robe provided to all prisoners around herself. Closing her eyes, she slowed her breathing. In… Out… In… Out… The pulse beat in her neck. Bah-dum, bah-dum, bah-dum. The words of her master flooded through her, “Know yourself, focus on yourself. You cannot know anything until you know yourself.”
She was anger. She was the blade. She would kill her enemies, with no second thought, no hesitation.
She didn’t know how old she was, having no memory of anything before three years ago. Her best guess was between twenty and twenty-five. She had awakened in the country of Langundo in a forest on top of a grassy hill. Weak, alone, afraid and without memories, she wandered the forest. Her master had taken her in, taught her strength.
Breathe in…. breathe out…. Breathe in…. breathe out.
Every muscle in her body was tight. Five foot six, lean and very muscular, she kept her body strong. A weak body was useless, much like a weak soul. She was not weak. Anger made her strong. Her body was scarred from the torture, but her soul was intact. They had shaved her head when she had gotten there. They thought she would care, they thought it would break her. When it didn’t, they allowed her to grow it out. Her brown wavy hair was helpful to cause her physical pain and was kept at shoulder length. She absent mindedly tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
Her brown eyes flashed as she jumped off her knees and jumped to the bar with a fluid motion. She would kill all of them. The elderly, the weak, children, anyone who got in her way. She started doing pull-ups again, slowly.
One… Two… Three… Four.
If she ever got out of here, she would kill them. She would kill them all.
CONTINUE READING
CHECK OUT PULSE TODAY!
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Prehistoric Survival | Book 1 | Doomed City Page 19
