Read Online Heartland Junk (Part II): Sanctuary by Eli Nixon - Free Book Online Page B

growth and my own acrid body odor. Despite the chill, I was perspiring heavily. I stank with fear.
                  The edge of the forest drew closer, a sense of airiness and space sneaking into the stifling placidity under the wide conifers and maples. A breeze rustled the leaves gently above me, and with it came a new scent: putrefaction. No longer the comforting aroma of rotting wood, but the stomach-churning stench of rotting flesh. Somehow, I already knew what I'd find when I breached the trees and stepped out into the open field beyond, even before the smell hit me.
                  Wistfully, I thought of the idling Jeep back on River Street, the freshly cleaned buckets, my trifling little brewing project somewhere far away in another world, untethered to this one and wholly unreachable. By leaving the road, by entering the woods, I'd climbed aboard a starship with no return vector. My feet carried me forward of their own accord, two miniature God damn steam engines constructed without brakes. I couldn't stop them even if I'd wanted to. No, I had to see what was out there. Even if it confirmed everything I'd always feared about these zombies.
                  I paused at the perimeter of the woods, unconsciously hiding in the shadows which had become my allies against the future. Something unimaginable waited ahead of me. I understood at least that much, and the thought terrified me. But I couldn't wait here forever. If I didn't follow through with this and get back to River House, my body would process the last of the drugs in my system and reduce me to...whatever the fuck these things were. In front of me, just past the line of the woods, was a tall swathe of overgrown wheat stalks that the harvester hadn't been able to reach. It had grown wild, possibly for years, forming new hybrids with the seeds from each successive year's crop. The papery gold seed heads grew higher than my head in some places, and I had to push through this strip of wheat to see the field proper.
                  I broke through and stood at the edge of a long field of waist-high wheat, entirely uniform from edge to edge, all the way to where it crested a low hill in the distance and disappeared from sight. Borders of dark trees hemmed the field in on the left and right, forming a natural fence between this field and the onces to either side. The setting sun on my right hovered just over the treeline. It bathed the field in rusty orange and forged long, molten shadows away from the stalks, striping the field into a tiger pattern. A breeze swept through the wheat on the distant hill and carved a path down the hillside, as if some massive, invisible snake was gliding toward me out of the horizon.
                  I don't know how I noticed any of this because, about fifty feet in front of me, stood a line of dark people. My heart gave a stuttering jolt, sending a rush of bile into my throat. There were at least twenty of them. They were unnaturally still, and due to the way the light struck them, I couldn't tell whether they were facing toward me or away from me.
                  Instinctively, I crouched into the wheat, letting the thin stalks brush my face. The people just stood there, unmoving. Staring. Had they seen me? I didn't think they had. In fact, I had a creeping suspicion that they couldn't see anything. This wasn't exactly what I'd expected, but it was close.
                  I lowered myself onto hands and knees and began crawling toward the row of dark shapes. Sunlight struck their left sides at such an extreme angle that the rest of their bodies were obscured in shadow, halfway between silhouette and nightmare.
                  I didn't have a weapon. I could feel my head clearing itself of hydrocodone, feel my limbs getting lighter by the minute. This was foolish. No, it was fucking suicide. I crawled closer. I had to know. For everyone. For