Me And My Good Friend/Author Jack Wallen

The Armand Rosamilia Interview

Armand Rosamilia: Dying Days: Origins 2 Excerpt

Chapter One

 Cheryl jumped at the slamming of the front door, immediately sliding out of bed and gripping the Colt .45 on her end table. David wasn't in bed next to her and she tried not to panic. They'd been over this a hundred times, and it always ended in something stupid like David being too loud or a wandering animal setting off a perimeter alarm.

Someone was coming up the steps. Cheryl got into her shooting stance, dropping next to the bed to give as small a target as possible and ready to shoot.

"Cheryl, I'm walking," she heard David call.

She relaxed. I'm walking was their code for everything being alright. If he'd said I'm coming up she would have killed anyone coming into the room. It was as simple as that.

When he entered the room he wasn't smiling. He wore his Army fatigues and his own Colt .45 was in hand. "It's happening."

 David had the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor already loaded. He tossed their bug out bags in the front seat. "Is everything locked up?"

"Of course." Cheryl slid into the passenger seat. "Your parents are already on the move." She loaded the coordinates on the GPS and turned on the other devices mounted to the dashboard. "I'm tracking them now."

"Your parents?"

Cheryl looked distraught. "They aren't answering their SpecPhone."

David shook his head. "They probably never bothered to keep it charged and change the batteries." He started the Raptor. "Is their car moving?" David had installed a tracking device on their car last Thanksgiving even after they'd told the couple not to. Cheryl's parents didn't buy into the apocalypse prepping and thought David was kind of strange, but he treated their daughter well and that was all they cared about, according to Cheryl.

His Army training (he was an M.P.) had carried with him even after his tours had ended, and a stint as security police in the Air Force finished off his career but not his need to get ready for the end.

"It's really here?" Cheryl said through clenched teeth.

"Yes. I'd been monitoring the police bands this morning while watching SportsCenter. It all happened so quickly, like a tidal wave across Canada and the U.S."

"Canada?"

David glanced at her as he drove through quiet side streets. "We should be safe. I didn't hear anything about Thunder Bay." The couple had built an underground bunker over the border in Canada two years ago, and spent the last two summers prepping and training. They had enough room for them and their parents and enough food and supplies to last for a year. It was a six hour ride in normal conditions, but David knew it would take much longer if the problem had spread even more. "We need to tune into the police and military bands."

Cheryl went to work, trying to find information.

"You didn't even bother asking what was going on," David asked her as she tuned into the Hastings police radio band and heard nothing.

"Something bad," she said with a humorless laugh. "We've trained for this and what's the biggest thing? Not losing your head and keeping calm."

"Zombies."

"No shit?" Cheryl found another band, this one emanating from Canada. "Thank God we learned French."

David's SpecPhone rang and he used the BlueTooth to answer it. "Hey, dad. We're monitoring you and should hookup within the next ten minutes." David frowned. "Already?" He turned to Cheryl. "There are attacks in the area already. This is spreading pretty quickly. My parents aren't able to head north. The roads are already closing." They picked a secondary meeting spot, further west.

"I think we're in trouble, too. According to the Mountie band, all roads into Canada are being shut off. They're trying to contain it and keep it from jumping the border, but it might be too late." Cheryl shook her head.

David gripped the steering wheel and sighed. This is all happening too quickly. All of my projections were wrong. "I somehow thought I'd be ahead of this."

"How could you know?"

David shrugged. "I've been waiting for this my entire adult life. Hell, I thought about this as a kid. We're prepared and it took all of an hour to get mobile and get the truck loaded."

"It would've been quicker if you'd have woken me up earlier," Cheryl said with a hint of annoyance.

"You looked so peaceful," David said and smiled at her. She didn't return it.

"We've planned and planned this."

"I know. But we already had all the cases in the garage ready to go and it would've taken longer to come upstairs, wake you and then get back into the garage. From the time I heard the news until we left it was really forty-nine minutes." David slowed down at an intersection backed up with cars. He stopped and backed up, shooting down a side street. "I had the truck done in less than ten minutes."

"Together we did it in eight." Cheryl looked at the GPS system. "You're heading down a dead end."

"There's a park up ahead. I can cut through and get onto another road." David turned to her again. "Sorry."

Cheryl laughed. "Don't be sorry. Just get us out of the city and hook up with our parents." She took the SpecPhone from her husband and dialed her parents. "No answer," she said after a minute.

David pulled into the parking lot of the small park and jumped the curb. He cruised past the empty swing sets and slide. "I just wanted another excuse to go off-road."

Cheryl held up her cell phone. "No signal already."

The Ford Raptor bounced the curb and they were on a quiet side street. At the next intersection David steered onto the sidewalk and went around stopped traffic.

"The power is out." David didn't want to panic but he was close. By his worst estimate they should've been out of Hastings already. Instead they were still moving street to street. In every scenario they'd gone through getting a jump on traffic and getting out of town and north was the easy part. Now they were heading west, away from their ultimate destination, and into the unknown.

Cheryl looked frantic as she went back to the SpecPhone. "Their car hasn't moved. What does that mean?"

David knew what it probably meant. "Call my parents back and see where they are." He didn't want to waste any more time but knew leaving Minnesota without their four parents wasn't an option. "We'll swing over to your parents and grab them. It's actually almost on the way." It was about twenty miles out of the way but David bit his tongue.

Finally...

State Of Horror Illinois Cover & Blurb

WHAT IS YOUR STATE OF HORROR?  Come take a unique tour of the state of Illinois. Visit a little known pizza place where the deep-dish pizza is to die for. Spend the night in a haunted house or explore an abandoned resort town. What happens when you disturb the sanctity of an ancient deity? Swim with us in a lake where fish are not the only creatures under the water’s surface. Ghosts, mobsters, and zombies all provide thrills as we explore the Land of Lincoln.  The number 13 is often viewed as an unlucky, even evil number. However , here it is only fitting we traverse the horrors of Illinois through 13 tales to make the heart beat just a little faster. Join us if you dare.  Stories by:  Stuart Conover, Eric I. Dean, DJ Tyrer, Della West, Claire C. Riley, Herika R. Raymer, Frank J. Edler, Julianne Snow, A. Lopez, Jr., Armand Rosamilia, Eli Constant, P. David Puffinburger, and Jay Seate

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