Read Online The Last Outbreak (Book 1): Awakening by Jeff Olah - Free Book Online

There were countless bodies between her and the exit and as she watched her friend surface ten feet away, smoke had begun to fill the space.
     
    Sliding her hands up, Cora unzipped her coveralls and wiggled out of the lower half. With the bright orange fabric now a tangled mess around her cuffs, she held the damp material over her mouth and nose. Short shallow breaths were still easier for her to manage and turning back toward the chaos at the rear of the bus, Cora found her friend.
     
    Among the mismatched arms, legs, and torsos, Trish clawed her way on top of the pile, only feet from the advancing flames. She pulled at the lifeless victims, moving from one perversely misshapen body to the next. Her head down and fighting for every inch, Trish slowed as the bus rocked under its own weight.
     
    With less than fifteen feet separating the pair, and the desperate voices slowly succumbing to their injuries, the bus grew quiet. Sliding to her left and standing high on her toes, Cora filled her lungs and shouted. “Trish.”
     
    What she saw as her friend lifted her head, confused her. As her and the others were rushed from their cells and out into the halls, she’d seen this same look across the few lifeless bodies left out in the open. The thick white haze that covered her friend eyes. The bewildered, almost animal like quality of her stare. And the blood, unevenly obscuring the edges of her mouth, dripped from her chin as she met Cora’s gaze.
     
    “Trish… No. Please. No.”
     
    Had Trish been infected by whatever took the others? Was she simply reacting to the accident? What was this and why had it taken some and not others? Back toward the front of the bus, looking for an exit, Cora winced as the bus shifted once again, threatening to pull away from the SUV and down the graduated slope.
     
    Biting at the dead air and tearing at each new corpse she traversed, Trish was gone. What now occupied her body was no longer the women she trusted with her life. The animal that her friend had become struggled to continue forward through the forty-five-foot graveyard, and peering right through Cora’s eyes, raised her head and growled.
     
    “Someone help. Please someone, anyone.”
     
    Of the thirty-six individuals who had boarded the bus less than an hour before, not one responded. Had all those that were still alive been crushed beneath the dead and were now unable to speak? Were they simply too afraid? Had the women in the back already been overcome by the smoke and flames? We’re they all dead?
     
    It didn’t matter. No one responded and no one was going to help her. Cora would get herself out of this, just like she always did. Just like her father told her she always would. She didn’t need anyone, or anything.
     
    Left with only one option—turning and going through the front windshield, she again, out of morbid curiosity, looked back at Trish. Her friend had been caught by the fire that was quickly spreading, although she still progressed toward her.
     
    Both hands reaching for the seatback to her right, the bus again slipped on the icy road, shifting its grisly contents from left to right. Cora awkwardly slid between two guards, one of which had her throat cut by the jagged metal of the caved in roof. Leaning back, she pulled her legs up and placing her feet along the waist of the dead woman, pushed her away.
     
    Through the darkened cabin, shadows played tricks with her eyes. Cora looked from left to right and back again, scanning the guard’s belt. She knew the exact placement of the keys she’d need to free herself from the cuffs, although with the obvious trauma the body had taken in the accident, the retractable keyset appeared to now rest somewhere behind the guard’s back.
     
    Quickly calculating the time it would take to readjust the guard’s position, turn her around, and then fumble to remove the cuffs, Cora looked back at Trish. She didn’t have nearly that much time.
     
    The rear of the