Book 1: At the Edge of Misery
Cristine Daya Gerrard, a young residency doctor in the apocalypse must mend the pieces with her broken and estranged family, while fighting for her place in a community that doesn't accept her. One man in particular doe...
It's already dark, and the night wind brushed against Cristine's nape. She shivered, and wondered if it was due to the chill, or her own mind. She discarded all her reservations and arrived at the cabin building of her father, Dolores and Hailey, no evidence indicating any sort of welcome. The faint lights seeping through the windows, gave far less illumination than the meanest lightbulb, yet it was all Cristine's eyes could take. By the flickering orange and yellow in the cabin, the shapes of the furniture is discernible.
Cristine felt the lasting unease at the beginning of her trip down here worsen. Rigidly, she lifted her palm to her stomach and pressed against it to soothe her volatile nerves. "It's fine. This is important." Cristine inwardly chanted to herself and rhythmically steadies her breathing. "This isn't for your or daddy's sake, but for everyone here."
Adhering to the restored calmness of her mind, Cristine reopened her eyes, revealing a pair of cool dark orbs. Her body escaped from the imaginary pressure from before she knocked on the less intimidating single door.
"How are you feeling?" The gentle gaze of her father's eyes comforted her and untied the knots inside her stomach.
"Better." Nodding, Cristine smiled before she occupied her hands with the tin cup with water. Her father gave her space, unlike her smothering baby sister, and today she was in the right headspace to talk with him. Not about her, but about the world now, her experiences and an important information that was useless hiding now.
The world wasn't going to get better.
"That's good to hear." Her father's eyes opened wider, keeping the smile. His demeanor calm, questions patient and body relaxed, offering no ongoing conversation of his own. Not until his daughter was ready to share whatever it was that was on her mind. Unlike his youngest daughter, Cristine saw the world through his eyes, and it was a good thing that was the case with the world gone to hell. She saw a world of uncertainty, danger, and the worst in human beings. His chest clenched with a mixture of guilt and pride because those qualities allowed her to live as long as she did and find her family.
She was a fighter, a survivor and the child of his wife; his first love.
A ghost of a smile tugged at James's drumming heart before quickly blinking past the budding pressure in his orbs and scratched his throat.
"Daddy, I need to tell you something." Cristine began, voice clear and crisp. The manner in which she raised her chin so that she peered right back at him, elicited the faintest frown on his wrinkled face. She saw his lips purse and absently rub his cup between his calloused and old palms.
"About where I was before I found you and Hailey. About my job."
Shifting in his seat across from his mature daughter, Cristine appealed in her naturally soft-spoken voice. "There- there isn't a cure for all of this."
A silence. An irrevocable silence.
"You don't know that."
"I do."
"How?"
Scenario's and conspiracies began to twist and form inside James his mind. The dead rising was nothing anyone expected, yes, but most of the people here still had hope a cure would be found. The government wouldn't be as functional as before, no, but it fell. Like Jeremiah, the Founding Fathers said it would. They'd start over with their own rules and rebuild the world.
Without the dead coming back to life.
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