Read Online Dead Living by Glenn Bullion - Free Book Online

much she could do.
    The corpses were fifteen seconds away. Aaron
got an up-close look for the first time. Maggots falling off their
flesh. Rags instead of clothes. Flesh decayed so much that bones
were exposed. They moved with that slow, unsteady gate.
    Aaron grabbed the gun from his father's
hand.
    “Aaron? What are you-”
    He fired at the corpses. The gun felt heavy
in his hand, and his aim was terrible. He fired until the clip was
empty, and didn't kill a single corpse. It wouldn't have mattered
if he did. The store was full of them.
    “Get out of here,” Frank said weakly. Blood
poured from his stomach and formed a pool under them.
    Ten seconds.
    “No,” Denise said. “We're not leaving.”
    Joe grabbed her hand. “Denise,” he begged.
“Please, take Aaron and get out of here.”
    “She said we're staying, Dad,” Aaron
said.
    He felt hopelessness for the first time,
something his father and family had shielded him from his entire
life. The corpses marched for them, and nothing was going to stop
them until they had their warm meal.
    Five seconds.
    “Come on,” Denise said, determined not to
give up. “We'll drag you out of here.”
    She grabbed Joe's arm. He pulled her in
close, so only she could hear.
    “I love you.”
    She smiled, despite death on top of them. “I
love you too.”
    She grabbed one arm while Aaron grabbed the
other. Margie grabbed Frank's wrists. Before they could start
pulling, the undead attacked. They nearly stumbled over Frank, and
two of them took a bite out of his thigh. He screamed in pain and
managed to shoot the closest one in the head, covering himself with
gore and thick blood.
    Their time had run out. Margie tossed herself
at the undead mob, trying to get them off of Frank. They swallowed
her up and pinned her down. Three of them fell on top of Denise,
biting her face as her head slammed to the ground. Aaron jumped on
his father to protect him.
    Aaron cried as he heard his family slowly
dying around him. Their screams all mixed with his own. He felt his
body being shifted around, and realized he was no longer on top of
his father. He curled into a fetal position and covered his face.
He heard Margie's cries of pain slowly die down until there was
nothing. Frank died while cursing at the undead. Joe was next,
screaming his son's name, followed by Denise, who had somehow
managed to grab Joe's hand while dying.
    Aaron didn't know that he was fourteen years
old. His family, his life at the cabin, was all he'd ever known. It
took two minutes to destroy everything.
    He kept quiet, waiting his turn. He felt the
corpses moving and shuffling around him. He heard the sickening
sound of skin being pulled from bone. He felt something on his
face, and realized he was laying in a pool of his family's
blood.
    But there was something he didn't feel.
    Pain.
    He didn't know how long he lied there before
he risked opening an eye. Five, maybe ten minutes.
    There were corpses everywhere. They stumbled
and fell over each other trying to get to the warm flesh. Aaron
looked at the lifeless face of his father, right before a corpse
reached in and pulled out Joe's tongue.
    Tears fell from his eyes. He slowly pulled
himself into a sitting position, not caring that he was sitting in
what was left of his family.
    He couldn't think. He just stared straight
ahead, not quite seeing the corpses shuffle around him anymore.
This was the moment Frank used to tell him could happen at any
time, but deep down, Aaron didn't honestly think he'd see.
    He was alone.
    The fact that he shouldn't be alive finally
crept into his mind. He looked at the corpses around him. They
continued to feast on his family, just a few feet away. Others
wandered around the store, tripping over each other and fallen
shelves.
    Aaron climbed to his feet, almost slipping in
the pool of blood. He tried to piece together what was happening in
his mind, but he just couldn't figure it out. The walking corpses
simply ignored him, as if he wasn't