Read Online Last Hope, Book One: Onslaught by Drew Brown - Free Book Online Page B

they would’ve felt as the sole of my boot cast an ominous shadow across their worlds. It wasn’t nice…
     
    Budd looked around at the group of fellow survivors; most were still looking up, silent, transfixed by the amazing, yet frightening, sight. Several of them had taken out mobile phones and were holding them up in the air, trying to make calls. From their expressions, Budd was sure they were having no success.
    Juliette placed her arm on his shoulder and then indicated to the abandoned streets. “What has happened?” she asked, her eyes exploring the roads and pavements, where cars stood idle and the dead rested upon the tarmac. “What has happened to this place?”
    Budd didn’t offer an answer.
    Instead, his eyes focused on one of the mauve-suited door attendants who had fallen out of the hotel and was lying on his front, spread-eagled on the ground. There was a stain of dry, crusted blood on the pavement from where he had landed on his nose. As Budd watched, the attendant’s left arm twitched, moving several inches back and forth.
    A moment later, it did it again.
    Standing next to Budd, Andy also spotted the movement. “Did you see that?” he asked.
    Budd nodded. “Some sort of twitch.”
    The man’s left leg kicked out and banged against the glass door, which made enough sound to grab the attention of the entire group. They all watched the limb spasm again.
    With caution, Andy stepped towards the body. He knelt by the corpse and rolled the body onto its back, overcoming the stiffness that had worked into its joints. Almost instantly, he recoiled in shock. Behind the smashed nose and the mask of blood, the man’s eyes moved from side to side, not uncontrollably like the arms and legs, but seemingly with purpose.
    They were dull and sunken, but they were looking around.
    “He’s alive,” Andy exclaimed, stepping away. “Does anyone know first aid?”
    From the back of the group, a middle-aged man with a plump face and receding hairline raised his hand. The woman next to him tugged at his sleeve, as if pleading with him to reconsider. “It’s my duty, Caroline,” he said to her, and then he moved out of her reach. “I’m a doctor,” he said as wider attention focused on him. “I can take a look.”
    “Thank you,” Andy said, but before the doctor could reach the body, another corpse jerked out. Its arm shot up and down, rapping its knuckles on the pavement. The strange sight sent muffled cries of discomfort across the group; every member was acutely aware of how close the descending sky was to their heads.
    The grey mass was about to engulf them.
    “I think we should head inside,” Budd said, ushering Juliette through the main entrance. He was careful to steer her away from both of the twitching bodies. At the far end of the Tropical Walkway, another body was lashing out on the ground.
    Wordlessly, the entire group followed Budd and Juliette’s lead.
    Moments after they had all got inside, the cloud settled on the ground like a giant curtain. It was so thick that it obscured the view of anything even a few yards beyond the hotel’s front doors.
     
     
19
    Budd pulled up a chair and sat beside Juliette. He was glad to reach the candle-lit bar, safe from the view of the twitching bodies. There had been many more as they’d journeyed along the dark corridors and up the staircase. He took off his Stetson and ran his hand through his hair. “You okay, kiddo?”
    “I believe so.”
    “Stick with me,” he said, half a smile on his lips. “Nothing bad ever happens to me in my nightmares.”
    “You still believe that this is a nightmare?”
    “Most of the world is dead, their bodies are learning to breakdance and we just watched the sky fall to earth. I’m pretty sure that this qualifies as a bad dream, aren’t you?”
    “We should not have left those people out there. What if they are alive?”
    Budd waited a while before he answered, his voice low, almost a whisper. “What if