Read Online Reset: A Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Fantasy (Contaminant Series Book 1) by Eli Frost Duham - Free Book Online Page A

climbed in and a few moments later, door opened.  It took four of them to bring Peter inside and lift him onto the island in the middle of the kitchen. 
    “I’ll see if I can find something we can use.”  Tessa darted off; when she returned, she had a couple first aid kits. 
    James had dug through several cabinets and came up with a bottle of whiskey.
    After scrubbing their hands and drying them on the kitchen towel, Anna and Tessa held their hands out over the sink as James poured on the whiskey.  They went to work, removing the makeshift tourniquet and rags.  The bleeding started up at a trickle, slowly increasing.  Peter’s head was flopping back and forth and Jenna lifted up his eyelids one at a time.
    “He’s gone into shock.”
    Anna grabbed the scalpel and James doused it, “We’ve got to get that bullet out.”  But instead, she stood, for a moment, looking at Peter, “Just hold on…” She whispered.
    Tessa reached for the scalpel and Anna nodded enthusiastically, letting it go easily.  She went to stand over Peter’s head with her hands on his shoulders, ready to hold him down while James stood alert at his feet.
    Tessa steadied her hand over the entry wound and looked Anna in the eye, “One, Two, Three!”
    ***
    Bruce waited on a couch for his turn, rocking himself, holding his hand, and stifling a cry.  Michael looked in on several rooms on the ground level before he came out with an iron.  He placed it on a desk in the left corner of the room and plugged it in.  From the kitchen, they could hear Tessa yell ‘three’ and shortly after that, Peter shrieking.  Michael crept to the doorway to see Peter convulsing from the pain and trying to get up.  Anna redoubled her efforts to hold him down successfully.  Tessa called out, “I’m going after the bullet now!”
    Bruce spit up on his shirt.  Jenna sat with him to keep him calm and keep him company.  Michael checked in a few more areas for anything that they could use.  As he made his rounds, he glanced at pictures hanging on the wall or sitting on shelves.  John Gordman wore a smile in most of the photos.  His eyes twinkled and his smile was more mischievous than anything.  Michael felt strange that they were helping themselves to his home… but not that strange.  The whole world knew where he lived and he had just recently died.  The place should have been ransacked immediately but it wasn’t.  It was the best place for them to be, away from crowds and mobs and soldiers.
    Michael had argued on the helicopter that Gordman had to have a lab of some kind. The pantry even had food, though there were more dehydrated goods than a food bank.  There was, mostly no electricity, but he did find some candles.
    Electricity kept time on the clocks that were built into the walls of the living room, kitchen and each of the bedrooms.  Michael poked around here and there ending up at the basement door.  He opened the door and was greeted with darkness on a string.  Michael grabbed it and pulled out of habit, triggering a light to turn on.  He didn’t exactly understand how the backup electricity was wired, but at least it worked in the basement.
    That was one of two lights that worked and the second light was near the bottom of the stairs which were basically at the bottom of a pit.  If there was going to be a lab somewhere, in the basement surrounded by earth was the way to do it.  Fear was already working its way into Michael’s throat, but he kept looking because old men with a lot of money can afford to be creative.  That’s what John Gordman told him when they met.
    At the bottom of the staircase, a door stood, waiting.  Michael knocked on it.  It appeared to be wood and even sounded like it.  His right hand reached to jiggle the handle but before he touched it, static electricity that he could see jumped out at him.  The shock stung to the bone and throughout his forearm, causing his hand to fly back in his face.  It was