The Survivalistas

Ava stayed behind to help her father keep the nuclear power plant running when her mother and brothers fled to the Adirondack community set up by The Rev. Now the plant is melting down and Ava is charged with getting important documents to The Rev. But even the best laid plans can have hiccups. Ava lands miles from the designated point and must find a way to get to her destination. Note this story takes place in the middle of Book 3 Piper and Ava's story will continue in along with Piper and Mica. Download your copy of The Survivalistas- Book 3.5 Ava from Smashwords.

Chapter 9 Piper looked over the road map folded to show the route they’d be taking to Big Moose. As much as she didn’t want to the most direct way was through Adams Center, taking one seventy seven to Lowville, then driving down the number four road directly to Big Moose. The route would also keep them from having to deal with any big cities or towns. Once they reached Lowville they would be out of the contamination zone and she would feel better. Mica skipped into the control room. “You have to see what the guys have done to the bus.” Piper hope it was the modifications she’d discussed with Gavin last night. She given Shanna and April the job of taking stock of the supplies and boxing them for the drive. While the guys had gone up to the barn to modify her dad’s monster bus for zombie fighting. Entering the barn she took in what the guys had been working on. The bus sat on huge off road wheels several feet in the air, just like it always had, and now boasted chicken wire welded over t...

“So what’s the plan fearless leader?” April snarked, her voice full of false bravado as she clung to Topher like a frightened monkey. “For now sit tight. We’re safe down here.” Grabbing a couple whiteboard markers she moved back to the map. “These are the closest nuclear plants to us.” She drew a sloppy circle around them estimating ten miles, then another bigger circle in another color estimating fifty miles. She pointed to the small circle, “If this was a normal meltdown, everyone in this circle would have to be evacuated. The bigger circle shows possible contamination from radiation. Which mean any above ground water or food source could make us sick.” Not looking at the group she sighed. “We only have enough food for probably a month at our current rate, if rationed maybe we can stretch it to three. I had planned on scavenging, the garden and local farms to help supplement. That’s out the window, what we have down here and canned stuffs upstairs are all we have.” “Couldn’t we still...

I'm highly frustrated this morning, as I bit the bullet and downloaded GIMP to DK's computer so I could actually work on the cover's for the next Survivalistas books. I'd been working on the background for book 3.5 and was about three quarters of the way done when the power went out. Lost everything. Forty five minutes of work poof gone in the blink of an eye. GIMP doesn't have an autosave, so I'm going to have to start from scratch. I walked away before I hurt something. Then I tried again this afternoon, and this time GIMP crashed an hour of work down the drain. Ok deep breaths. Headache forming, but I pushed through and started again. This time after I got each section the way I wanted it I saved it and managed to complete book 3.5's cover. Yay! Had to give up after that because my head hurts to bad, and my eyes are going to bother me. So I take the SD card from DK's computer and put it in my Chromebook, can't find the file. I can't figure out...

I got the idea for this after watching the series Life After People , which is an awesome series and you should check it out if you can find it. Did you know there are 104 Nuclear Reactors in the US? Most of those plants sit on the East Coast. Three are located on Lake Ontario. Two practically on top of each other in Scriba NY. This is a picture I took of the cooling tower from a local beach. It's literally just across the lake from us. Now I got thinking, dangerous I know, but how come more zombie books don't have the nuclear plants melting down. I mean who's manning them? The zombies. Ok maybe you'd have a few dedicated people who would man them for awhile, but sooner or later someone is going to make a mistake. Perhaps this is too much, a nuclear disaster on top of an epidemic or biological catastrophe. Or maybe they realize as I have this is to problematic, we now have vasts portions of the US unuseable due to radiation, fire, and all sorts of other problems. Yeah, ...

Piper drummed her fingers on the desk waiting for Lyric to come through. Finally she picked up the mic, “Hey Lyric this is Piper you on?” “Yeah I'm here.” Even though the staticy radio Piper could hear the strain in Lyric’s voice. “You sound like shit. Those other guys giving you a hard time still?” “No we took care of them, well a zombie wave took care of them.” Unsure how sympathetic to be Piper replied, “Sucks to be them.” Lyric recounted how they had gone to the town, the encounter with the undead wave and the rantings of “The Rev”. She told Piper how according to The Rev the Nazis were behind the outbreak and Piper felt her stomach twist. Nazis? She knew of the conspiracy theories saying the heads of the Nazi party had fled to Argentina. How supposedly Hitler himself escaped there after the war. Everyone had heard about how NASA was built on the backs of Nazi scientists brought over after the war. But these were just theories and hear say, nothing concrete ever came up to prov...

Piper jotted down the frequency they’d been using then, turned off the equipment. Lyric had given her a lot to think about. Heading out of the bunker, Piper’s eyes scanned the shelves of the cellar. No matter how much they rationed, the food wouldn't last. The garden would help, if it grew and they canned. Maybe they could find some abandoned farm animals, at the nearby farms. Piper drew in a breath and let it out slowly. The plan just hadn't been for this many people. Twice as many people, meant supplies diminished twice as fast. The sound of motors grabbed Piper’s attention, from upstairs Mica called, “We have company.” Jogging up the stairs, she found everyone in the living room peering out the windows. “It’s some of the local yolkes from Adams.” Gavin said, glancing at her then back out the window. Piper squeezed in next to him, peeking out the window. “They're tearing up the yard. What do they want?” Probably raiding houses looking for supplies.” Topher muttered from ...