The Survivors: Book One

"Check again. Maybe we'll hear survivors."

Anne did it slowly, but they heard nothing until the last station. John put a gentle hand on his wife's wrist to keep her from changing the channel, almost able to feel something coming. "Wait."

A second later, the radio lit up with heavy static an a man's determined words.

"Safe Haven - Red Cross... Welcome all…survivors follow…clear means closer..."

They lost it, the radio going back to full static, and John looked over, not needing to see the horrors in the bunker to know they were there.

Anne's voice was shaky, but there was confidence in her aged brown eyes - confidence in him. "Whatever you think, Johnnie."

He hesitated, considered. They could at least check them out from a distance. With NORAD gone, there was nowhere else he could think of for them to go. If that complex had fallen, and the pillars of sickly black smoke said it had, then no place was safe.

"All right."

John headed them west, sure they couldn't have heard the transmission if the people were to the south. The mountains wouldn't allow the waves to carry even that well on his cheap radio. He would narrow it down by the clarity of the calls, and they would see if this so-called Safe Haven was aptly named.

John believed leaving their home was the right thing to do. They had started seeing rats the day before, and his last memory of the home they'd shared for so long, was of hanging the Warning! Rodents! sign on the front door.

They would probably have been sick by now, if they'd stayed. He had waited as long as he could, and though he knew the group they ended up with probably wouldn't be what he was hoping for, if his beloved wife would be safe and have a guaranteed place after he was gone, he would offer his services in exchange. If that didn't work, he'd beg.