Read Online Left With the Dead by Stephen Knight - Free Book Online

the zombie horde? Probably not the first weapon of choice, which was why he’d stuffed it under the mattress. No sense leaving it in plain view for it to be stolen by looters, just in case the zeds were defeated before the owner could return to his apartment.
    Gartrell took the gun and left it in the hallway.
    Apartment 6B was locked. He went up the stairs, ignoring the protesting muscles in his thighs and knees. The apartments on the seventh floor were also locked. As he returned to the stairway, a small, slight sound caught his attention. He stopped at the stairwell door, listening. Was it his imagination?
    Then he heard it again. A slight creak from the apartment behind him.
    Gartrell’s right index finger moved to the AA-12’s trigger.
    A kind of rolling sound came from behind the door, and Gartrell watched as something passed through the light beneath the door. Something that didn’t walk, but seemed to glide . Back and forth. Back and forth. And at one point in its transit, a floorboard squeaked. Gartrell moved closer to the door, listening intently. That rolling sound. That squeaking floorboard. As if something on the other side was on wheels…
    A wheelchair . The realization hit him suddenly. Of course, a wheelchair. Whomever—or whatever—was in the apartment was confined to a wheelchair, which probably explained why it was still in the building. Waiting for an ambulette or some other service for the disabled to come and evacuate it. A service which never showed up.
    So the question is…is it a person, or a zed?
    The rolling sound suddenly went from leisurely to outright fast and frantic. Something hit the other side of the metal door with enough force to make the doorbell chime gently, and Gartrell leaped back. The dry moan on the other side of the door told him all he needed to know. There was a zed in the apartment, locked up with no place to go and confined to a wheelchair to boot. It was almost laughable, if not so horrible.
    And even worse, the thing on the other side of the door must have been able to sense his presence, or at least had the impression that a hot meal was very close by. It rammed into the door again.
    Gartrell dropped back to the stairwell door and opened it as silently as he could. He stepped inside the dark stairwell, flipped down his NVGs, and slowly closed the door behind him. He found a rubber doorstop on the landing, and he shoved it under the door, jamming it in place.
    Just in case.
    ###
    “This is all you got?” Jolie asked when Gartrell returned to the apartment.
    “Who lived in apartment seven A?”
    “Uh…an old woman. I didn’t really know her name, we never saw much of her.”
    “Was she in a wheelchair?”
    “Yes…why?”
    “She’s still in it.”
    Jolie looked at him for a long moment. “You mean she wasn’t evacuated?”
    “Guess not.”
    “Jesus…she’s one of them ?”
    Gartrell nodded. “And locked in her apartment, too. I blocked the stairwell door, but I don’t think she’s going to be able to get out. So she was either bitten, or she was infected with the virus and died some other way. Jolie, are you sure there aren’t any zombies in the building?”
    “I don’t think so. But I haven’t been in every apartment.” Jolie looked at him directly, brow furrowed. So…what will we do?”
    Gartrell shrugged. “Nothing?”
    “Nothing? You think it’s a good idea to leave one of those things in the building with us?” Jolie’s voice rose as she spoke, but she caught herself and got under control. She sighed and tried again. “I can’t see how leaving one of those things in the building is a good thing.”
    “I can’t kill it without breaking down the door, and that’ll make a hell of a lot of noise. Right now, it’s contained. We leave it alone until the threat picture changes. It’s not going to be able to hurt us for the time being, I guarantee it.” Gartrell sighed and looked toward the small bedroom in the back. “But I am