Read Online Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 3): Chloe (A New World) by Ryan Casey - Free Book Online Page A

little. Footsteps got louder as more of them sneaked through the trees towards Chloë.
    The thing tried to fight back. But Chloë just kept on swinging that knife at it. Stabbing it in every one of its mouths. Stabbing its belly. Stabbing the places where more of those fleshy bags sprouted up. Stabbing places they hadn’t yet sprouted in just to stop the inevitable.
    She thought about Garth when she stabbed.
    She thought about the gunshots.
    And she kept on going and going and going as the anger built up inside, as it took over her.
    She finally stopped stabbing when the body below her went completely still.
    A bloodstained body. The smell of rust in the air.
    Rain pouring down from above again, diluting it.
    Chloë crouched there, completely still for a while. She stared down at the body. She felt her old self returning. The self she’d had to become to survive back when she was all alone.
    A self she didn’t like. A self no one liked.
    But a self she needed.
    She looked up. Readied herself to take on more of these things.
    The trees were empty.
    Nothing but the sound of rain on the leaves.
    She stood. Kept her eyes on her surroundings. Wiped off the knife. They couldn’t have just disappeared. Couldn’t have just… gone. Like that.
    But they had.
    They really had.
    “Come on,” Chloë mumbled. “We should…”
    When she turned around to the place she’d put Kesha down, her heart sank.
    Kesha was gone.

Fifteen
    C hloë stared at the spot where she’d put Kesha down to rest and felt her stomach sinking even more by the second.
    The sky was getting dark. Soon, it’d be completely pitch black, and she wouldn’t be able to see a thing. She’d be completely alone out here. Completely alone in the darkness.
    And Kesha was gone.
    She took a shaky step towards the spot she’d put Kesha down. She felt sick. She listened for a sound amidst the trees, but nothing other than rain, than the slight breeze rustling the branches together.
    No cries. Nothing.
    She felt her breathing intensifying. Her head started to spin. She searched the spot where she’d put Kesha down. No. She can’t have lost her. She was there, just a few seconds ago. She couldn’t even walk. She was just a baby. A really young baby.
    She had to be here somewhere. She just had to be.
    She crouched on the ground. Searched through the mass of dirt and soil. She wasn’t thinking straight and didn’t really believe that Kesha could’ve buried herself. But what else? How else had she snook away?
    She tried to think back to what’d happened. She’d put Kesha down by the tree while she went to take on the thing that attacked her. Could something else have taken her? Could something else have been watching her all along, just waiting to make its move?
    She didn’t know. She couldn’t think.
    Her heart pounded.
    Her head spun even more.
    She punched the ground where she’d put Kesha down. Gritted her teeth together. And as she crouched there, Chloë wondered why it was hurting her so much. Why she was so lost without Kesha.
    And she knew why. She saw why now.
    With Kesha, there was still somebody there for her. There was still somebody by her side. Somebody to keep her company.
    Without Kesha, Chloë was alone.
    She didn’t care much about Kesha. Not really. She preferred her to the other babies, sure, but she knew caring about people was dangerous and she couldn’t afford to live dangerously anymore.
    But Kesha was company. Kesha was somebody who made her feel responsible. Who didn’t make her feel so alone.
    Kesha was all she had left out here in these woods.
    Kesha was the only thing between the person Chloë had become on the island after leading her people towards it and the life of loneliness before that.
    And now she was gone.
    She searched the ground around some more trees. Her eyes were growing heavy and tired. The light was diminishing. She knew she didn’t have much light to find Kesha. And she knew that by the time morning came