Read Online Hard Choice by C. A. Hoaks - Free Book Online

 
     
     
     
Hard Choice
     
    Mayhem reigned on the streets of San
Antonio. It was no different on the thoroughfare in front of the
small business center. Far from the Riverwalk and the tourist
attractions of the city, vehicles blocked the building access and
sidewalks in front of the office building. Cars, pickups and even a
city bus had been abandoned amid the chaos of multiple crashes. The
result was half a dozen roadblocks. Some accidents had only been
fender benders while others left bodies barely clinging to life in
the wreckage. That is until the undead found them.
    The two women in the fourth-floor office
watched as the frightened people tried to escape the terror of the
bloodied monsters chasing them. One by one the few remaining
survivors fell prey to the dead. Their screams of pain penetrated
the thin glass of the building’s windows loud and clear.
    “Oh, my God!” The dark-haired woman standing
at the window gasped. Her face mirrored the horror of what she
witnessed. She turned to a bleached blonde sitting at a desk across
the aisle from the window.
    “That man has half his faces gone, and his
intestines are hanging around his knees. It’s like the Internet
said, they have to be dead. Norma, we should have left with the
others?”
    “We have that conference call with corporate
in thirty minutes. We’re going to stay right here and take that
call. The military can clean up this mess, Lynette?” Norma wiped at
her smudged eye makeup. “They caused it and they have to fix
it.”
    “It wasn’t the military. It was a terrorist
attack on the base.”
    “Do you believe everything you read on the
Internet?” She turned back to her computer and began pecking at the
keys with her long acrylic nails. “You’ll need to adjust everyone’s
timesheet in your group, and get it done before you leave for the
day.”
    “We can’t stay,” Lynette argued. “Look
what’s going on!”
    “If you leave, I’ll dock your
timesheet.”
    “Well, I’m not staying. You can sit here
adjusting timesheets or cowering in the closet, I don’t give a
damn!”
    “I’ll fire you!” Norma threatened.
    Lynette forced a humorless chortle. “Fire
me? Really?”
    Norma stood up and walked to the window and
glanced down at the street. She tapped an acrylic nail on the
glass. “Look at those crazy people attacking each other. You can’t
leave any more than I can. Besides, I’m your boss and you can’t
leave until I say you can leave.”
    “My boss?” Lynette shrugged. “That doesn’t
mean squat now. I’m leaving.”
    She sat down at her desk and slipped her
feet out of her heels. Pulling a canvas bag from under her desk,
she retrieved a pair of jogging shoes. She placed the well-worn
Niki’s on the floor and reached inside again for a pair of socks.
She slipped on the socks and then stepped into the running shoes.
She pulled the laces tight, tied the strings, and made a final knot
with the loops.
    “I won’t let you leave me alone.” Norma
declared.
    Lynette emptied the canvas bag of magazines,
hairspray, curling iron and other grooming essentials. She dumped
her handbag on the floor and sorted through the contents. She
picked up her car keys, her wallet, half dozen wet wipes, a bottle
of hand sanitizer, a knife with four-inch-fold-out blade, a handful
of tissues, a sewing kit and a small bottle of Tylenol. She ran her
hand through the pile of clutter one last time and picked up two
safety pins and added them to the bag.
    When she was satisfied she had found
everything of value, she stood up and glanced over her desk into
the cube across the aisle. She spotted what she was hoping to find.
A cane with a metal handle the fellow cube dweller had been given
for his birthday the previous week. She wondered about the owner
since he hadn’t made it into work that morning, but shrugged away
thoughts of him and glanced around his office for anything else she
could use.
    “You can’t take that. It belongs to