Read Online ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) by Shawn Chesser - Free Book Online

looked at his watch as the imagined drone of unhappy
geriatrics edged out the equally imagined thrum of nonexistent tire chains. Seventy-two
long hours.
    “Five minutes, dude,” he muttered aloud over the air rushing
through the dusty vent slats. “Time’s up.” He tooted the horn. Watched the second
hand on his watch sweep another thirty seconds into the past.
    Start the meter, or park and go inside and hold the fucker
to his word? he thought to himself.
    Deciding that the wait in the old cop car with its laboring
A/C was not worth the wasted gas, reluctantly, Nate came to a decision. Seeing
the door yawn open and disgorge an older couple, which allowed him another peek
inside the dark and no doubt air-conditioned interior, had helped him make it.
    Choosing the latter, he called in to Dispatch to tell them
he was going off duty, and was taken aback to learn it wasn’t his decision any
longer. Apparently President Odero’s National Security Advisor had decided to
shut down everything. Rail, air, public transit and public livery services. A
little pissed at the dispatcher’s inability to tell him the real reasoning
behind the decision, he racked the transmission into Park and killed the engine.
Then, just in case the guy whose name he couldn’t remember suddenly turned
asshole and decided not to make good on the promised drink, he started the
meter running one last time, set the flashers strobing, and left the taxi parked
in the loading zone.
    Starting to calm down a little, he locked the cab and walked
to the side door where he paused to take a final look at his illegally parked car. Screw it , he thought, hauling the side door open, dude can pay the
ticket.
    The door at Nate’s back hit the bell above it producing a
tinny jangle as it closed. Strangely, it was very quiet inside the air-conditioned
bar.
    Funeral parlor quiet.
    And cold as a morgue.
    He could hear the whoosh of air moving through huge ducts
overhead as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. When he could
finally make out more than just human-shaped blue blobs, he spotted his fare
standing shoulder-to-shoulder with an unusual assortment of people. Charlie! he thought, the name popping into his head the moment he spotted the older man.
To Charlie’s left was a middle-aged man with one arm draped around a red-haired
woman who looked to be a decade younger. To Charlie’s right was a thirty-something
guy with spiked rock-and-roll hair. Sporting a mosaic of tats on both crossed
arms, he reminded Nate of the brash Mötley Crüe frontman. And partially hidden
behind the leather-clad rocker was a petite young blonde woman who couldn’t
have been a day over twenty-two.
    But what really struck Nate of the whole surreal atmosphere
in the bar—and it didn’t really register until he walked his gaze over the drinkers
on stools at the bar and then on to the ragged semicircle of people Charlie was
standing alongside—was that all eyes in the place were glued to the bank of
televisions suspended over the mirrored backbar. The people—young, old and
everything in between—all wore the same expectant look. Conversely, everyone
seemed defeated. The body language, universal. Slumped shoulders. Chins cradled
in palms. Arms crossed on the bar top in fatigued resignation.
    The last time Nate could remember seeing a crowd of people
all reacting this way to something playing out on television was when the
planes took down the towers and hit the Pentagon on 9/11. He supposed, too, that
scenes like this had played out all across America in 1963 when JFK was assassinated.
    Muted visions of men in business suits swan diving off the
South Tower were still playing in Nate’s head when his fare looked away from
the television and established eye contact.
    In the next instant—perhaps sensing Charlie’s head pan in
her side vision—the good-looking fair-haired waitress took her eyes off the
largest television whose screen was now divided into four quadrants,