Read Online Rise of the Dead by Jeremy Dyson - Free Book Online

have him pissed off at me.
    “What did I say, man?” Quentin hisses. He pulls the trigger and drops another corpse near the compressed air pump.
    “What are you talking about?” I wonder what I did to piss him off so bad.
    “Tell me before you decide to do something stupid,” he gripes. “Remember that conversation?”
    “I had to help her,” I insist. “I couldn’t leave her there. For god’s sake, she’s just a kid.”
    “Don’t we got enough problems already?” he growls. “Now we got this damn kid to worry about.” Quentin leans his head to the side, and we both glance at the cruiser again. When I look back at Quentin, his expression has softened. He grabs the handle and pulls open the door of the truck and shoves a two-way radio in my chest. “Next time you get a stupid idea,” he warns.
    “I know, I know,” I interrupt him. “I got it.”
    The bell on the gas station door jingles as Dom and Joey come out again with their arms loaded with jerky, chips and candy bars. They dump it all into the back of the Mercedes.
    “Last trip,” says Dom.
    “Move it,” Quentin urges her. “We ain’t got all day, sweetheart.”
    Dom pauses with her hand on the door handle and starts to open her mouth, but one look at the tall black man with the serious expression is enough to silence her. She whirls and vanishes into the darkness of the store.
    “So where to now, boss?” Quentin asks.
    I’m not sure what to make of his question. Nobody ever called me boss before for one thing. Maybe he’s being sarcastic, or pissed off, or maybe he’s just the kind of person that feels the need to give everyone a nickname to feel comfortable around them. For a long moment, I just look at him. “We should keep going west,” I say. “We have to get farther away from the city. Maybe we can get to the highway.”
    “Less people out that way,” Quentin agrees. He scratches at the goatee on his chin. “Sounds like a solid plan, I guess,” he shrugs. “We’ll follow you, boss.”
    This time, I can tell he isn’t being sarcastic at all. It’s just his way of easing the tension I suppose. But still, anyone calling me boss just makes me cringe. “Do me a favor?” I ask. “Don’t call me that.”
    I turn to go back to the squad car and notice a corpse wearing a bicycle helmet stumbling around the trunk. Danielle is so preoccupied with the girl she doesn’t see it coming.
    I raise the gun and fire off a round that puts a hole in his bright yellow shirt. The corpse wobbles and bumps against the trunk of the car. The girl in the police car lets out a scream and tries to run, but Danielle blocks the door, putting herself between the girl and the dead cyclist. My second shot cracks the bicycle helmet right off his head, but the corpse still stumbles towards Danielle.
    “Stay in the car,” Danielle pleads with the terrified girl. Danielle scrambles to get herself inside the cruiser and slam the rear door closed, but it’s too late. The door strikes the shoulder of the dead man as he lunges toward her. Danielle clings to the door handle and leans back as the thing waves an arm around inside the car.
    I let out a deep breath and pull the trigger again. The bullet punches a hole in the forehead of the corpse. Danielle releases her grip on the door handle, and the body slumps to the ground at her feet. I almost lower the gun, but then I notice the dead waitress ten steps back, and a couple of steps behind her there is a long-haired teenage corpse wearing a black trench coat.
    “We got more coming,” I tell Danielle.
    “Time to go,” Quentin yells as Dom and Joey push through the gas station doors. I glance over to see him reloading the handgun, and then he takes aim at the corpse of a postal carrier and fires.
    Danielle closes the rear door to the police car, apologizing as she locks the screaming girl in the backseat again. I walk around the cruiser to the passenger side, shooting at the dead as I move. Firing the gun