Surviving Day By Day (Book 1): So it Begins by Audra Allensworth Page B

was almost gone and Mom had talked over with their Dad on how they needed to take care of Mary. Several times a year Beth would send care packages home along with money orders so that even though she couldn’t be there , Beth would be doing her part to care for the family.
    Dad was retired and Mom had retired years prior to just be able to stay home to take care of Mary. So Beth’s only thoughts after she received Chad’s text was that she needed to get home and get there fast.
    As the miles slipped by, Beth thought back to the beginning and how this all started. Disposing of hazardous waste materials at the CDC is pretty technical and is done without thinking once a person has been trained properly. However ; when the President did his budget cuts there were several jobs that had been cut. The best way to make the so called cuts in the beginning was to trim the fat and the old timers were the way to do it.
    Robert Edgecomb, Lisa Russel and Jimmy Parcels were the first to go. They had been employed for over 30 years and her agency thought that the best way to cut the pay was to offer them a nice severance package and send them on their way. Suffice it to say that was first of several mistakes made. The second one was when they decided to hire these youngsters whom only knew how to text and get to the next level of ‘ Left For Dead ’ by using the cheat codes that they got off the net.
    Instead of starting them out as errand boys, the powers that be put them in charge of handling the most dangerous waste toxins known to man. On several occasions Beth went to her supervisor, Aaron and pleaded for him to get those morons trained properly. Sadly, Beth’s demands fell on deaf ears because Aaron was only doing what his boss was telling him to do and if he didn’t follow through with them , he would end up on the unemployment line. That was the beginning of the end.
    Beth was of a small stature and had shoulder length auburn hair. She didn’t date much and stayed home most of the time ; it was her work that she was basically married to. Her main priority was her job and the responsibility that it involved. However, over the past two years when the President and his “hope for change” began landing on the door step of the CDC Beth knew that change was coming but she had never thought of this kind of change.
    After an hour of fighting traffic Beth turned North on Highway 45. Growing up in Metropolis she knew the back road s and wanted to avoid Interstate 24. With thirty minutes she was entering the city limits of Metropolis. The most obvious question never crossed her mind and that was ‘What was she going to do when she got there?’ Slowly she looked over to the passenger seat and saw her government issue Beretta 380 Cheetah that was fully loaded. She had no idea what was going to take place but with the spots of hysteria that she saw from the highway she felt more comfortable having her sidearm with her.
    Mom , Dad and Mary lived in a suburb of Metropolis and had several elderly neighbors. So Beth figured the quicker she got there the quicker she would be able to assess the situation then she would be able to get her family to more secure place that was out of the way from the rest of the high populated areas. These were some random thoughts had as she crossed into south end of Metropolis.
    Her family was about five minutes from where she was at and she was surprised to see the hysterics of the town. As she drove by supermarkets , people were running out with boxes upon boxes of supplies while others began looting the local Wal-mart and Best Buys for their 52 inch plasma high definition flat screen TVs. Beth only slowed down for a Moment to take this all in when she heard gun fire off in the distance. Quickly she drove her foot into the floor and sped through town until she got to the Hollingsworth Suburb.
    While she drove past a few driveways she saw people throwing suit cases into their cars and trucks then speeding