Read Online Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary by Eli Nixon - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Eli Nixon
Tags: Zombie Apocalypse
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the future.
Because zombies don't snap out of it when you hit them hard enough. Zombies don't go back to normal when you shoot them full of heroin. Zombies don't carry off their fucking dead.
Rivet was right: It was time to start figuring out what the fuck was happening.
I leaped across the muddy ribbon and started up the far side of the bank, toward the woods. It was starting to get dark, but if I didn't do this now, I doubted I'd get the courage to come back and look another time. The tangled pines and hardwoods loomed over me. At the edge of the woods, I turned back. Across the gorge, now nearly level with me, was River Street and the idling Jeep. The falling sun reflected off the hard surface of the road and turned it into a shining rivulet of gold. The warmth of the day seemed to be sucked into that strip of hot color, pulling the air out of the forest behind me in a cool, chill breeze. I shivered, turned. The shadows under the towering pines beckoned me. A single, bare footprint mocked me from the mat of dead leaves on the edge of the woods' floor. Beyond that, the ground was too dry to hold any more signs of whatever infernal army had passed beyond this threshold.
I stepped out of the sunlight into the hush of the trees.
Chapter 10
THE QUIET sucked the breath from my lungs. Nothing moved in the trees, not even insects. While the wildlife had come back to claim its own on the other side of River Street, this little pocket of woods had been abandoned by life entirely.
I left the comfort of the sun and walked across the carpet of leaves, even my own footfalls eerily silent. Old, musty air seeped up into my nostrils with every step that disturbed the ancient leaf litter. Moldy and dank, it enveloped me in frigid arms, sending chills whispering across my spine. Above me, twisted limbs formed a dark, skeletal canopy, a parasol that blocked out all but the most tenacious rays of sunlight. Bleak clouds tinted orange in the waning light peaked through the canopy at my tiny form, alone on the vast forest floor.
The patch of woods itself wasn't really that large, of course. I'd even explored it a few times as a kid, when every pocket of Earth—a.k.a. Joshuah Hill—uncrowded by other people was a marvelous new world. It was just a narrow belt, about two hundred yards wide, that cut off the houses along River from the wheat fields beyond. This same strip of trees continued until it touched the backyard of our River House, a mile or so to the west.
But at the moment, a precipice marking the edge of the world could have lain along its far edge. It was vast and unknown. Here there be monsters, God dammit.
I was spooking myself. I understood that even as I let it happen. Never could seem to stop it. Only this time, it wasn't just my imagination running wild. The skull was real. The footprints were real. Instinct told me that whatever had left them there was long gone, but knowing it to be true didn't stop the hideous possibilities from wheeling through my head.
My sneakers crushed leaves and twigs with the soggy murmurs of the dead, and I tried in vain to remember when I'd last taken a dose. Three, four hours ago? The thought was a new horror, another corpse tossed upon the stinking pile. I knew I should turn back, but just as the woods had beckoned me into their interior, they now drew me deeper with tangible force. Curiosity killed the cat, but the cat came back. I had no fucking return.
Ahead, a wash of orange light broke through the trees and I knew I'd reached the southern edge of the narrow belt. The air clung to me, a blanket smelling of dead leaves and earth and rotting limbs, the conflicting scents of old
Because zombies don't snap out of it when you hit them hard enough. Zombies don't go back to normal when you shoot them full of heroin. Zombies don't carry off their fucking dead.
Rivet was right: It was time to start figuring out what the fuck was happening.
I leaped across the muddy ribbon and started up the far side of the bank, toward the woods. It was starting to get dark, but if I didn't do this now, I doubted I'd get the courage to come back and look another time. The tangled pines and hardwoods loomed over me. At the edge of the woods, I turned back. Across the gorge, now nearly level with me, was River Street and the idling Jeep. The falling sun reflected off the hard surface of the road and turned it into a shining rivulet of gold. The warmth of the day seemed to be sucked into that strip of hot color, pulling the air out of the forest behind me in a cool, chill breeze. I shivered, turned. The shadows under the towering pines beckoned me. A single, bare footprint mocked me from the mat of dead leaves on the edge of the woods' floor. Beyond that, the ground was too dry to hold any more signs of whatever infernal army had passed beyond this threshold.
I stepped out of the sunlight into the hush of the trees.
Chapter 10
THE QUIET sucked the breath from my lungs. Nothing moved in the trees, not even insects. While the wildlife had come back to claim its own on the other side of River Street, this little pocket of woods had been abandoned by life entirely.
I left the comfort of the sun and walked across the carpet of leaves, even my own footfalls eerily silent. Old, musty air seeped up into my nostrils with every step that disturbed the ancient leaf litter. Moldy and dank, it enveloped me in frigid arms, sending chills whispering across my spine. Above me, twisted limbs formed a dark, skeletal canopy, a parasol that blocked out all but the most tenacious rays of sunlight. Bleak clouds tinted orange in the waning light peaked through the canopy at my tiny form, alone on the vast forest floor.
The patch of woods itself wasn't really that large, of course. I'd even explored it a few times as a kid, when every pocket of Earth—a.k.a. Joshuah Hill—uncrowded by other people was a marvelous new world. It was just a narrow belt, about two hundred yards wide, that cut off the houses along River from the wheat fields beyond. This same strip of trees continued until it touched the backyard of our River House, a mile or so to the west.
But at the moment, a precipice marking the edge of the world could have lain along its far edge. It was vast and unknown. Here there be monsters, God dammit.
I was spooking myself. I understood that even as I let it happen. Never could seem to stop it. Only this time, it wasn't just my imagination running wild. The skull was real. The footprints were real. Instinct told me that whatever had left them there was long gone, but knowing it to be true didn't stop the hideous possibilities from wheeling through my head.
My sneakers crushed leaves and twigs with the soggy murmurs of the dead, and I tried in vain to remember when I'd last taken a dose. Three, four hours ago? The thought was a new horror, another corpse tossed upon the stinking pile. I knew I should turn back, but just as the woods had beckoned me into their interior, they now drew me deeper with tangible force. Curiosity killed the cat, but the cat came back. I had no fucking return.
Ahead, a wash of orange light broke through the trees and I knew I'd reached the southern edge of the narrow belt. The air clung to me, a blanket smelling of dead leaves and earth and rotting limbs, the conflicting scents of old
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