Chapter 3

With a last look back, I climbed into the Ford F-250 four-wheel drive pickup that I had 'liberated' off the dealer's lot and started the drive home.

My name is James Thomas Greer. Thirty-five years old. Six feet tall. One-hundred-and-eighty pounds. The soft life I had been living the last several years had added those extra twenty pounds. I figured I lost about ten of them within the last month. Black hair that I wore cut short, because long hair is a nuisance in the operating room. Pale blue eyes.

I am... was a doctor. A failed doctor, because everyone I treated in the last six months died. While I never got the slightest sniffle. I watched my colleagues sicken with the Indian Flu and was unable to do anything to save them. Only ease their suffering a tiny bit.

If I had the courage I would have blown my brains out with the Glock 9mm that rested in the belt holster. But I was a coward. So I lived with the nightmares and visions.

Now, I turned the pickup truck onto the northbound Natchez Trace Parkway and headed for the only home I really called my own. My great-grandfather's farm on the Tennessee River. A ninety minute trip, that I had made many times ignoring the speed limit and cruising at seventy miles per hour.

This time I was in no hurry and kept the speed down to about fifty letting the hum of the tires on the pavement and the static from the radio sing to me while my mind wondered what awaited me. What would I do now? Were there others alive? Would I meet anyone or were the survivors too separated to get together?

I never considered that I might be the only survivor. Surely there were others lucky enough to have lived.

I saw one survivor for sure in the city as I was loading the pickup with what supplies I thought I would need. He, I could easily tell he was a male even from the distance, was just coming out of a store a couple of blocks from me when I pulled up gun shop.

I yelled out and waved my hands over my head trying to get his attention. He raised the rifle he was carrying and fire three shots in my direction, all aimed high. Then he got into a small SUV and drove off.

I know when I'm not wanted, so I went into the gun shop only to find that it had already been mostly looted.

IF I met others, I only hoped they would be a bit more friendly.

It was late afternoon when I drove down the main street of Iuka, only ten miles from the farm. This had been the county seat, population five thousand. I had to weave among cars and trucks that haphazardly blocked the street. All the store windows had been broken and the stores looked looted. The big chain grocery store was only a smoking ruin.

I pulled into the QuickMark, where I usually got gas when I was in town. Turned of the truck's engine and after making sure the Glock had a round chambered and the short-barreled .357 was stuck in by belt under my jacket, I got out. I could see that the store had already been looted. The large glass front was shattered. Stepping inside the store, the racks of foods, drinks, snacks, and all the other products that the store owner kept neatly arranged were turned over and very little of the original stock was left. The lights were still on, so at least this little town still had electricity.

"Hank!" I called for the owner. He and I had gotten fairly friendly over the years that I had visited my great-grandfather Daniel. "Hank! Anybody here?"

Nobody here.

I searched through what little the looters had left. It wasn't much. And what there was had been opened in the aisles and trashed.

I walked over behind the counter thinking maybe they missed a pack of cigarettes or a couple of cigars. Yeah, yeah, smoking is bad for your health. Maybe it would kill me. I could only hope.

It was then that I saw the body.

Covered in dried blood and bruises. Clothes torn off, only a ripped blouse covered her. Her blond hair now tinted red with dried blood. I had a hard time recognizing her.

It was Susan, Hank's daughter. I thought she was dead, until I notice a slight rise and fall of her chest.

"Susan!" I quickly kneeled beside her in the blood and trash. She had a strong carotid pulse. Prying her eyes open showed that her pupils were equal, so the possibility of brain damage was slight.

I ran my hands over her body checking for other injuries. Yeah, I noticed that she still had a nice figure. I'm a man after all. Susan was only three years older than myself. No broken bones that I could tell.

She was bleeding slowly from her vagina and it did not take a professional to tell that she had been vaginally and anally raped. Probably by more than one guy. Susan had been a strong woman and knew how to take care of herself.