The Breaking - By Marcus Pelegrimas Page 0,198

put them out were set upon by another pack of ravenous beasts. The firefighters that lived to crawl away only howled in pain as their bodies were twisted into one of those things that set out to hunt for food. Like the rest of his family, the man who now clung to his fiancé to keep from slipping on a patch of ice on I-29 hadn’t wanted to leave Topeka.

His natural instinct was to stay. For the first several weeks of the crisis, people barricaded themselves indoors to fight for survival. They watched their televisions for news about how far the insanity had spread and what was being done to stop it. Before long, people stopped watching the news and just focused on living for another day. Then, as things got worse, the highways became crowded with cars on their way to someplace better. The people behind the wheels may or may not have known where they were headed, but it was time to go.

The man from Topeka stayed until his friends and family were consumed. That’s what people started calling it, since there often wasn’t a way to know if they were truly dead. At least that word was better than the thought of seeing a parent, child or neighbor broken down into a screaming heap to be re-forged into something with fangs and wild, pain-filled eyes. The last possible good he could do was take his fiancé away before her pretty face was twisted into something cruel and hungry. They’d made it as far as KC and he was determined to keep going. When she slipped, he was there to pull her to her feet and urge her onward. They’d passed the minivan which had spun one hundred and eighty degrees before plowing into a drift. The four-door was directly ahead of them, cleared off and waiting for them like a freshly unwrapped present.

“Stay here and I’ll check it out,” he said.

The door was unlocked and the keys were on the dash. After fidgeting with fingers that were almost too numbed to feel the keys, he slipped the right one into the ignition and started the car. “Come on, honey!”

The woman cautiously stuck her feet into the snow. Tracks that were too large and spaced too far apart to be set down by humans surrounded the car. They converged a bit further away from the road near a pile of crimson pulp that had been covered by a fine layer of snow. Heeding Ben’s advice, she turned her eyes away from the mess and fumbled with the handle of the passenger side door. After she’d gotten in, but before she’d gotten a chance to pull the door shut, the car lurched forward.

“Where are we going?” she asked while frantically tugging at her safety belt.

“I’ve got some old friends in Saint Louis. We’ll go there.”

“Can we make it all that way? How far is it?”

Blinking furiously as a Half Breed leapt out from a hole on the side of the road, only to be overtaken by a beaked Mongrel, he sputtered. “I don’t know, but we’re going. We came this far, we won’t stop now.” He looked over to her and saw nothing but determination on her trembling features. She swiped some tears from her eyes, nodded and placed her hand in his.

About the Author

MARCUS PELEGRIMAS graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in Criminal Justice as research to become a maniacal super villain. When too many of his plans were thwarted, he went back to his first love: writing. He is also an active member of the Nevermore Paranormal ghost-hunting group. That one worked out much better than the world domination thing.

Visit Marcus on the web at www.marcuspelegrimas.com.

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By Marcus Pelegrimas

Skinners

BLOOD BLADE

HOWLING LEGION

TEETH OF BEASTS

VAMPIRE UPRISING

THE BREAKING

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE BREAKING. Copyright © 2011 by Marcus Pelegrimas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Cover art by Larry Rostant

FIRST EDITION

EPub Edition JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780062079503

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Extinction Agenda Bonus Chapter

About the Author

By Marcus Pelegrimas

About the Publisher

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Extinction Agenda Bonus Chapter

About the Author

By Marcus Pelegrimas

About the Publisher

The Breaking - By Marcus Pelegrimas Page 0,198

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