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    Frost
    Frost
    Frost
    Ebook108 pages1 hour

    Frost

    By Isabelle Adler

    4.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The end of the world as they knew it had come and gone, and the remnants of mankind struggle to survive in a barren landscape. Twenty-three-year-old Finn sets out on a desperate mission to scavenge for the much-needed medicine to help his sister. He knows better than to trust anyone, but when a total stranger saves him from a vicious gang, the unexpected act of kindness rekindles Finn's lost faith in humanity.

    The tentative friendship with his rescuer, Spencer, gradually turns into something more, and for the first time in years, Finn lets himself yearn for joy and hope in the dead of nuclear winter—right until Spencer goes missing.

    They say love is the greatest power of all, but it seems it would take nothing short of a miracle to overcome the dangers that threaten to destroy Finn's only chance for happiness and the lives of his loved ones.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNineStar Press, LLC
    Release dateMar 4, 2019
    ISBN9781950412143
    Frost
    Author

    Isabelle Adler

    A voracious reader from the age of five, Isabelle Adler has always dreamed of one day putting her own stories into writing. She loves traveling, art, and science, and finds inspiration in all of these. Her favorite genres include sci-fi, fantasy, and historical adventure. She also firmly believes in the unlimited powers of imagination and caffeine.

    Read more from Isabelle Adler

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    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Okay, let’s get this out-of-the-way – this is a novella! And my one complaint about it is that I can’t believe it’s not a novel! Sometimes, I can read an entire book and not feel any great connection with the characters. That is not true of this short work by Isabelle Adler.

      This story is set in a post-apocalyptic type of world, basically a nuclear winter. The reader is introduced to Finn, a young man who is hunting for medication for his sister at an abandoned and run-down hospital. He encounters a gang of scavengers who grab him and if it weren’t for the intervention of a stranger with a shot-gun… Finn would probably be dead.

      Spencer is the name of the bearded man who saved Finn’s life. Finn is surprised by the intervention…then again he’s surprised when he is invited to stay at Spencer’s home to ride out a storm. It’s clear that living in the wasted world has been hard on Finn. He’s almost heartbreakingly desperate to continue his fragile friendship with Spencer while at the same time convinced that it can’t be real.

      The friendship grows into something more…and just as Finn is beginning to think that there may just be a little joy left in his life, Spencer disappears.

      Adler does a fantastic job of fleshing out the feelings of the characters even in the short eighty-two pages of the novella. The state of the world is bleak, but there’s a spark of hope in Finn and he sets out to find Spencer. I believed in Finn!

      No spoilers here! Pick this novella up!

    Book preview

    Frost - Isabelle Adler

    A NineStar Press Publication

    Published by NineStar Press

    P.O. Box 91792,

    Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199 USA.

    www.ninestarpress.com

    Frost

    Copyright © 2019 by Isabelle Adler

    Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2019

    Edited by Elizabetta McKay

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at the physical or web addresses above or at Contact@ninestarpress.com.

    Printed in the USA

    First Edition

    March, 2019

    eBook ISBN: 978-1-950412-14-3

    Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers, and depictions of violence and physical beating.

    Frost

    Isabelle Adler

    Table of Contents

    Chapter One

    Chapter Two

    Chapter Three

    Chapter Four

    Chapter Five

    Chapter Six

    Chapter Seven

    Chapter Eight

    Chapter Nine

    Epilogue

    About the Author

    Chapter One

    THE HOSPITAL WAS huge, which was both a curse and a blessing. It meant Finn had more ground to cover. But it also meant there was a bigger chance of finding anything left after the building had been raided repeatedly for drugs and equipment.

    The emergency generators had long gone dead, of course. The permeating chill made refrigeration redundant, and the fact that none of it worked hardly affected the leftover medications. However, the permanent gloom made the search difficult, and Finn had to waste more batteries for the flashlight, which produced a feeble, creepy glow.

    He walked down the dusty corridor, making sure to read the plaques next to the doors and entryways carefully. There, behind the next nurses’ station, was another storage room with rows upon rows of drawers with faded labels. It had clearly been looted at some point in the past—probably more than once. Most of the drawers were upturned and scattered on the floor, devoid of contents. A thick layer of dust and shattered glass from the cupboard doors covered everything, and gossamer cobwebs spanned the far corners of the room and the bare shelves.

    Finn stepped inside, examining the labels by the light of his flashlight. Two years ago, he’d pilfered a few medical books from a deserted doctor’s office and had studied them religiously, so he had some basic understanding of what he needed. General stuff like analgesics were great too, but those were increasingly hard to find—not to mention the majority of the stuff he managed to score was long expired. As he’d learned from experience, the meds could still be used after their nominal expiration date, if he was careful. What would happen in a few more years was a different question, but the impetus for immediate survival rendered these questions moot. If he couldn’t scavenge what was necessary now, there might not be a future to think about.

    As he’d feared, the storage room was completely ransacked. All he could find were some empty pillboxes and a few rolls of gauze that had fallen behind one of the cupboards. Finn stuffed them in his cross-body messenger bag. These always came in handy, especially the ones that were still in their sterile plastic wrappers.

    As there was nothing else to be salvaged from the room, Finn continued on to the patient ward. The hospital rooms weren’t always as thoroughly searched as places designated for storage, and that meant there were still some things to be found there—personal items, medical supplies, and the occasional blister pack left behind by the bygone patients. Even things like shampoo and tubes of hand cream were useful, but he hoped to come across something more substantial.

    Siobhan had been unwell these past two weeks, and that was the only reason he risked venturing out into the heart of the city where there’d been sightings of feral gangs. Nothing she’d taken so far had had any positive effect. He had to find something to make her better, to take away the awful coughing she’d been suffering from, or at least to alleviate her pain. Their own little stash of supplies had greatly diminished (they were out of Robitussin and down to their last box of ciprofloxacin), and he had to replenish that somehow before she took a turn for the worse.

    The beam from his flashlight picked up upturned beds and smashed monitors. The mattresses were gone, but the utilitarian white nightstands were still there, and Finn rummaged through them, despite the sharp smell of urine and mold that seemed to have seeped into the walls. He stuffed all he could find into his bag—bottles of antiseptics, plastic tubing, boxes of Band-Aids—deciding to sort through his loot later, when he didn’t have to conserve battery life.

    He recoiled as a swarm of cockroaches scampered from a lower drawer he’d opened without thinking. Must have been true what they said about the nasty buggers surviving a nuclear holocaust. The cockroaches and other critters certainly seemed to thrive where mammals were now failing. Finn shook his head ruefully at the thought and continued with his methodical search.

    The window was tightly shuttered, but he could still hear the distant howling of the wind outside. The weather had grown progressively worse ever since he’d left home. He should probably head back before the storm hit or he’d be stranded here for God knew how long. Just a few more rooms, to make sure he hadn’t missed out on anything important.

    As he straightened his bag and left the room, the sound of footsteps echoed somewhere farther down the hall. A few sets of them.

    Finn froze. It was never a good sign. Abandoned hospitals and stores usually attracted marauders and other sorts of people he had no desire to meet with. He turned off his flashlight and edged down the corridor, away from the noise, keeping to the deeper shadows, but the footsteps were fast approaching. He ducked into the closest room, careful not to make any creaking sounds, and peered out cautiously, concealed by the partly closed door.

    Three bulky silhouettes drew nearer. Geared up as they were, carrying large bags and wearing several layers of outerwear, it was hard to make out details since their lights were facing him. After a short muffled conversation, they split, going down the length of the corridor in both directions, entering and checking rooms, apparently with the same idea as Finn regarding potential pickings.

    Finn cursed internally. Judging by the looks of their bags, there probably wouldn’t be anything left after they were done even if he managed to slip out unnoticed and come back again later, and there hadn’t been much to begin with. At any rate, this was definitely his cue to leave. He waited until all the looters were busy searching the rooms and tiptoed down the corridor as quietly and as fast as he could, looking for the emergency exit at the end of it.

    The heavy metal door was there, beneath the smashed EXIT sign, but when he tried the handle, it clicked dryly and didn’t open. Finn cringed at the sound that was far too loud for such an empty hallway. Shit, shit, shit. He only hoped the others were too absorbed in their rummaging and making too much noise themselves to notice it.

    He tried pushing the door open with his shoulder, but it didn’t budge. Maybe there was something obstructing it from the other side. After a few tries, he left the door alone and crept to the window in hopes of finding it open. The snow-covered rails of a fire escape were visible through the patterns of frost on the windowpane—a tantalizing view of a retreat route.

    When he tried the opening mechanism, though, it didn’t even click. It was either frozen solid or corroded into place. Possibly both.

    Oh, fuck. Finn looked around desperately, but there was no other way out that he could see. He couldn’t really hide in one of the

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