Read Online Aftermath (Book 1): Only The Head Will Take Them Down by Duncan McArdle - Free Book Online

hopefully for the familiar sound of an engine starting. Suddenly they were filled with delight by the rugged, grizzly noise of a 3.7 litre monster roaring into life, albeit at the expense of attracting the attention of anything nearby not already making its way over to them.
    The two were elated, neither had been in a moving vehicle for a long while, thus presenting them with a feeling akin to riding a bicycle for the first time, an act that suddenly put your travelling abilities leagues ahead of what they had so recently been. Their happiness though, quickly faded, at the realisation that whilst the car did indeed start, it was in no position to move. Both the hatchback in front and the Prius behind were almost touching bumpers with the truck, as well as the vehicles at their other ends. If the two were to get out of here, one of those cars needed to move, and as John slammed the truck forwards, and tried fruitlessly to budge the seemingly small pile of metal in front, they both realised what needed to be done.
    John turned to Andrew, ready to ask something he wished he’d never have to ask, but it was too late. Andrew had left the truck, and was already clambering into the hatchback in front, twisting its much quieter self into life. It had a small engine, little storage, and only average fuel consumption, and was therefore of little use to the pair. But right now it played an incredibly important role, standing between both men and their ability to escape from the encroaching attackers. Alas, it was in a similar spot, almost bumper to bumper with the car in front, seemingly immovable. Defiantly, the pair both pushed hard, the truck shoving the hatchback and the hatchback pushing the car in front, gaining mere millimetres with every movement, but those millimetres adding up to a bigger distance none-the-less.
    As the loud, engine roar entwined shoving and banging of bumpers went on, the nearest undead began to gain pace, one in particular already coming up behind the truck. Within seconds it was alongside John’s window, gnawing at the glass like a fish trying to escape from a tank. John however was content to ignore it, knowing it was unlikely to break through the glass in any kind of hurry. But it had other ideas, abandoning its quest for the seemingly unattainable man in the truck, in favour of its other prey, Andrew. Watching it make its way over, John knew that he had to act, drawing his Ruger with one hand and opening his door with the other. Still he continued to ram forwards and backwards at the same time, the sound of car alarms being set off serenading his every shove.
    Suddenly the gap finally became big enough, the hatchback having shifted enough for the Prius to force it forwards by a few feet, and giving the truck just enough room to manoeuvre out. Without thinking, Andrew immediately left the Prius, standing out into the open air, ready to get into the truck and be gone, but he hadn’t seen the biter, the ambling corpse of rotten flesh and sharp, piercing bones, that was on a warpath that had him marked as a mid-morning snack. His face dropped as the thing lunged at him, pinning him to the floor and biting at the open air between them, mere millimetres from Andrew’s nose. Within a single second, a hot, white flash filled the space around him, as a .22 calibre round, fired from John’s Ruger, immediately found its target in the form of the rotting, stinking head of the biter pinning Andrew down. All of a sudden the body became limp, dropping its full weight on top of Andrew’s medium sized frame, what little breath he had escaping out as the dead weight landed hard on his stomach.
    Quickly Andrew shoved the weight of the biter off, and got to his feet, keen to get into the truck before the second attacker – who was now ambling towards the pair from just a few metres further away – had a chance to arrive. Andrew climbed into the passenger seat just in time to see the corpse begin gnawing once again at