Read Online Bones: The Complete Apocalypse Saga by Mark Wheaton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mark Wheaton
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asked. Ryan shook his head and shrugged.
Jesse carefully pressed his ear to the door, as if fearing that somebody or some-
thing
might be doing the same on the other side. He paused, listened intently, but then turned back to Ryan, shaking his head.
“I don’t hear him,” he whispered.
Ryan put his hand on the doorknob, worried for Bones, but Jesse raised a hand. Ryan hesitated; Jesse took a deep breath, and then nodded dramatically. Ryan turned the knob and swung the door wide. Bones stood just on the other side of the door, looking up at them expectantly, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted. Jesse rolled his eyes.
“Let’s get that Band-Aid.”
The two boys pushed past Bones, carefully closed and locked the door to the garage, and proceeded to raid the house. They started in the master bathroom with the medicine chest, Jesse pouring an entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide across his two wounds, only to get a surprise when one of the slugs fell out of the wound and bounced onto the floor with a metallic click, having worked its way out of the entry wound as they walked.
“Gross,” was all Ryan could find to say.
They hit the kitchen next and found that a grocery run had probably been made as recently as that morning. They started gorging themselves, having had no idea how hungry they were until the sight of endless food was placed in front of them.
While the boys did this, Bones padded around the small living room and wandered into the master bedroom, hoping to avoid the smell of an ever-present throughout the house vanilla-flavored air freshener. Unfortunately, it was just as bad if not worse in the bedroom, which was decorated in pink with large, garish flowers on the drapes and bedspread with noisy bronze-colored carpeting to go with it, as if designed to clash. There were at least a couple of masculine touches: a nightstand with a dusty digital clock, a plaque announcing some kind of achievement in quarterly sales, and a dark wood chest of drawers, though in its reserve it only served to highlight the near-luminescent white dresser directly across from the foot of the bed covered with pink perfume bottles, jewelry with a similar bent towards the pink, makeup containers (again, in shades of pink), plastic jars for cotton balls and Q-Tips, and then a great number of family photographs, some framed but also a number tucked into the frame of the dresser’s mirror.
Bones sniffed around the dresser, but the scent of the perfumes blending with the smell of the vanilla air fresheners was so overpowering that the shepherd eventually had to leave the room and head for the stairs to try to shake it off.
“Hey, Bones. Do you want some food?” called Ryan, spotting the dog as he walked through the living room. Bones stopped and eyed Ryan, as if considering this, but only for a second before the dog turned and ascended the steps to the second floor.
The stairs led straight into a second-floor hallway with three open doors. Bones glanced in the first one, a bathroom, but then wandered into the second room, a bedroom for a little boy probably around Ryan’s age. The shepherd sniffed around the boy’s desk, closet, and bed and discovered a half-empty jumbo bag of Funyuns and a box of mini-donuts half-hidden under a pile of laundry. Bones dipped his nose into the box of donuts, scarfing up the contents and collecting powdered sugar on his snout in the process, which he greatly preferred to the stinging perfume that had saturated it for the last couple of minutes. He then used his claws to tear apart the Funyuns bag and ate the two dozen or so left of those as well.
The crinkling of the bag mixed with the crunching of the Funyuns in Bones’s teeth meant that it took him a moment before he heard Ryan screaming for his life.
“NO!”
Bones whipped around and galloped out the bedroom door. He barreled down the stairs and into the living room, where he saw Jesse, prone on the floor, being torn apart by the
Jesse carefully pressed his ear to the door, as if fearing that somebody or some-
thing
might be doing the same on the other side. He paused, listened intently, but then turned back to Ryan, shaking his head.
“I don’t hear him,” he whispered.
Ryan put his hand on the doorknob, worried for Bones, but Jesse raised a hand. Ryan hesitated; Jesse took a deep breath, and then nodded dramatically. Ryan turned the knob and swung the door wide. Bones stood just on the other side of the door, looking up at them expectantly, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted. Jesse rolled his eyes.
“Let’s get that Band-Aid.”
The two boys pushed past Bones, carefully closed and locked the door to the garage, and proceeded to raid the house. They started in the master bathroom with the medicine chest, Jesse pouring an entire bottle of hydrogen peroxide across his two wounds, only to get a surprise when one of the slugs fell out of the wound and bounced onto the floor with a metallic click, having worked its way out of the entry wound as they walked.
“Gross,” was all Ryan could find to say.
They hit the kitchen next and found that a grocery run had probably been made as recently as that morning. They started gorging themselves, having had no idea how hungry they were until the sight of endless food was placed in front of them.
While the boys did this, Bones padded around the small living room and wandered into the master bedroom, hoping to avoid the smell of an ever-present throughout the house vanilla-flavored air freshener. Unfortunately, it was just as bad if not worse in the bedroom, which was decorated in pink with large, garish flowers on the drapes and bedspread with noisy bronze-colored carpeting to go with it, as if designed to clash. There were at least a couple of masculine touches: a nightstand with a dusty digital clock, a plaque announcing some kind of achievement in quarterly sales, and a dark wood chest of drawers, though in its reserve it only served to highlight the near-luminescent white dresser directly across from the foot of the bed covered with pink perfume bottles, jewelry with a similar bent towards the pink, makeup containers (again, in shades of pink), plastic jars for cotton balls and Q-Tips, and then a great number of family photographs, some framed but also a number tucked into the frame of the dresser’s mirror.
Bones sniffed around the dresser, but the scent of the perfumes blending with the smell of the vanilla air fresheners was so overpowering that the shepherd eventually had to leave the room and head for the stairs to try to shake it off.
“Hey, Bones. Do you want some food?” called Ryan, spotting the dog as he walked through the living room. Bones stopped and eyed Ryan, as if considering this, but only for a second before the dog turned and ascended the steps to the second floor.
The stairs led straight into a second-floor hallway with three open doors. Bones glanced in the first one, a bathroom, but then wandered into the second room, a bedroom for a little boy probably around Ryan’s age. The shepherd sniffed around the boy’s desk, closet, and bed and discovered a half-empty jumbo bag of Funyuns and a box of mini-donuts half-hidden under a pile of laundry. Bones dipped his nose into the box of donuts, scarfing up the contents and collecting powdered sugar on his snout in the process, which he greatly preferred to the stinging perfume that had saturated it for the last couple of minutes. He then used his claws to tear apart the Funyuns bag and ate the two dozen or so left of those as well.
The crinkling of the bag mixed with the crunching of the Funyuns in Bones’s teeth meant that it took him a moment before he heard Ryan screaming for his life.
“NO!”
Bones whipped around and galloped out the bedroom door. He barreled down the stairs and into the living room, where he saw Jesse, prone on the floor, being torn apart by the
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