Read Online Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory by Daniel Cotton - Free Book Online Page B

before
closing her eyes. Vida is lulled to sleep by the quick breeze
overhead that caresses her scalp as it blows through her
honey-brown hair. The gentle drone of the engine and the secure
feeling she gets from her savior also urge her into slumber.

 
3
     
    “What is it? Some sort of holiday?” Marko
says as he and his friends exit their respective rides.
    The town of Worchester is a large community
with a typically slow pace, but today it is positively dead. They
hadn’t seen any traffic on the way in either. The stillness reminds
Marko of a movie. One where the entire population of the planet is
wiped out save for a handful of people.
    From the parking lot of one of the few gas
stations, they can see no movement inside. A sign indicates the
place is still closed despite the hours of operation posted on the
window. Jessie knocks on the glass and cups his hands to take a
peek. “Someone’s in there.”
    “Knock louder,” Marko says as he approaches a
police car across the street. If anyone knows what’s going on , it’ll be this guy .
    The squad car is stopped at an intersection,
though the light is green.
    “Excuse me, officer,” he politely greets with
a wave.
    The car’s engine isn’t running, and Marko
can’t see clearly inside the window due to the glare of the sun. He
can only make out the officer’s blue uniform as the cop turns
within his seat belt. Marko wonders if the cop somehow got locked
in after the engine died.
    “Oh, are you trapped in there, little
piggy?”
    The policeman lunges at the glass. His hands
grope and claw as he presses his face against the pane. The cop’s
face is twisted and distorted and his movements make his skin swirl
and his nose turn up like a pig’s.
    The sight takes Marko by surprise, having
never seen a policeman act so immature. Saliva smears over the
window from the cop’s protruding tongue.
    “Very nice.” Marko turns away from the
childish antics only to see his friends doing the very same thing
at the shop window. Shaking his head, he joins them at the door.
“What are you assholes doing?”
    “She started it.” Biff points at a woman on
the other side of the glass while Jessie keeps up his retaliatory
face making. The woman inside the store is right up against the
pane. Her and Jessie’s actions gives the illusion they’re kissing
through the thin sheet of glass..
    “I think she likes me,” Jessie says. Before
he can return to his new girlfriend, Marko yanks him away.
    “Get offa there!” Marko scolds, not knowing
if whatever is going on is contagious. “This town is sick with the
stupids and yer dumb enough already.”
    “They look all right.” Jessie points his
meaty finger to draw Marko’s attention down the block. From the
streets, handfuls of people are slowly making their way towards
them.
    Marko can’t help but be unnerved by the
sudden appearance of life in the sleepy town, and finds it odd that
all these citizens are converging on their location at the same
time.
    He looks into the dark store at the woman
near the glass. She is in her mid-thirties, wearing a simple
sleeveless dress, and under one of her thin shoulder straps is a
thick bandage. It is tinged red and held to her skin by a liberal
application of silk tape. Marko glances back across the street at
the cop that is still playing his childish game against his window.
Processing the information, and adding in the amassing horde of
townies, leads him to only one impossible solution. “Get in the
truck!”
    “Which one?” Jessie asks as he and Biff
follow faithfully on Marko’s heels.
    “Mine. It’s bigger.”
    Biff and Jessie run to the passenger side,
but they have trouble lifting their heavy legs high enough to step
into Marko’s full ton pickup. However they manage to squeeze into
the cab. The two slower witted men just sit and watch as the
townsfolk enter the parking lot.
    Dozens of blank faced people surround the
black truck, with more on the way. Most of them are