Read Online Human Extinction Level Loss (Book 1): Nicole's Odyssey by Philip A. McClimon - Free Book Online Page A

down the road towards Fair Valley.  Through the back window of the GTO, Sam stared at his store, now burning and exploding. 
    “Something went wrong!  We have to go back!” he cried. 
    Nicole stared down the two-lane in front of her.  “There is no going back, Sam,” she said.  The GTO approached the redline as Fair Valley loomed in the distance.

Eleven
     
    Almost since the dawn of time, humanity has pondered the great question.  Arriving at answers that suit them, many consider the matter resolved.  Others, less than satisfied continue to debate it.  Philosophers and Spiritualists throughout the ages have made ample use of their time catechizing orthodoxy concerning the implications regarding it.  Whole sects have formed, taking one view or another concerning those implications.  Many have died defending their views, while still others have perished advancing them.  The question is sublime in its simplicity, convoluted in its exposition.
     
      Are events that transpire part of a determined plan or are they random? 
     
    Nicole Bennett thought nothing of leaving Pinelli’s and walking across the street to Pete Maxwell’s dealership.  Had she been asked, her response would have indicated nothing more than a choice rooted in free will and aesthetic preference.  Nicole was not a philosopher in the strictest sense.  Pete Maxwell and Alfonse Pinelli ran dealerships in extreme proximity to each other.  This fact did not weigh on Pete Maxwell’s mind in the least.  He was confident that people who bought his cars had no interest whatsoever in the foreign jobs that Alfonse Pinelli sold.  He was equally sure that no one considering an automobile from Pinelli’s was a customer he was going to be able to steal away.  Pete Maxwell, on some level, believed in an ordered plan.  He believed that God in his infinite wisdom had created people in a great diversity.  Some would like his cars, others would not.  Had Pete Maxwell been asked about his views on the great question, he might have indicated that he was a firm believer in treating people the way you wanted to be treated, and kindness pays you back in spades.
    Had Alfonse Pinelli been asked the great question, he would have told you it was meant to be for him to extend his foreign car empire to all land bordering his.  According to Alfonse Pinelli, there was not a great diversity of people brought into existence by a benevolent creator.  There were only those who could appreciate his cars, and more importantly, afford them, and there were those who could not.  These others were country trash, hicks , and riff-raff in his mind.  He saw Pete Maxwell’s dealership as a blight, and an impediment to his expansion.  He viewed both Pete and his customers with disdain that bordered on harassment.  He would harangue Pete from across the street with verbal disparagements as to his lineage.  When new shipments of cars would arrive, Pinelli would park his trucks in such a way as to block access to Maxwell’s lot.  Pinelli had once offered to purchase Maxwell’s dealership, offering an insultingly low amount for it.  Through it all, Pete Maxwell would only smile and let it slide.  Even when urged by his customers and employees alike to go over and give Alfonse Pinelli some two-fisted Southern hospitality, Pete “Petey” Maxwell would only grin and espouse his “live and let live” philosophy.
    When the world turned and the Dead started eating the living, Pete Maxwell and Alfonse Pinelli went to their dealerships.  Both men valued their business and considered it an extension of themselves.  While certainly disturbed about the global turn of events, Alfonse Pinelli’s chief concern was how it all was going to affect his business.  He comforted himself by showing off his merchandise to women of wealth and questionable virtue.  He plied them with expensive wine and, with his formidable salesmanship, found it easy to turn the end of the world into