Read Online The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella by Rob W. Hart - Free Book Online Page A

stumbling into each other. Bodies writhe on the ground. It’s hard to tell who’s dead and who’s alive.
    I hold the bat in my left hand, the SIG in my right, charge into the middle of it. I yell for the people who aren’t dead to head for Castle Williams.
    Steve from the commissary swings a 2x4 at the head of an approaching rotter. The wooden board splits over the creature’s cragged skull. They’re too far away and I can’t reach them before the rotter reaches out and grabs Steve’s face, digging a petrified finger deep into his eye socket, probably right into his brain, considering how quick he stops shrieking.
    The flames are creeping up the side of the building, charring the brick. It’s getting so big it’s distracting the rotters, some of them stopping to stare up at it. I aim for their legs. I don’t have time to make sure each one is dead. I just need to get them on ground, immobilized.
    A woman screams somewhere close to me. I find a freakishly tall rotter wearing a tattered basketball jersey bearing down on Miss Olsen. I swing down, break its kneecap. The thing falls like a tree and as soon as it hits the ground I split its skull. I give Miss Olsen a hand, pull her to her feet.
    She runs off without thanking me, which is not at all surprising.
    At the entrance to the building there’s a rotter holding onto one of my deputies. The adipocere makes it look like a statue come to life, but still able to move at the joints. It can’t unhinge its jaw far enough to bite so it’s jamming its face against the deputy’s neck. Its hands are dug into the skin, the artery in his neck severed, blood pumping out in tune to the beat of his heart. I smash the rotter with the bat and they both fall to the ground, motionless.
    Right inside the lobby is Doc. The contents of his stomach are ripped out and stretched across the dirty tile. The pill bottle is lying on the ground next to his open hand. I reach down, grab the bottle, keep moving.
    The stairs are clear. At the third floor I stop, peek around the edge, listen. I can’t hear anything. Maybe they didn’t get this high. I’ll get to June, give her a couple of pills, get her down and across to the east side of the building. It looked relatively clear. If there’s not too many of them I can carry her. This can still work.
    Something crashes in the general direction of our apartment. I hold the bat out, creep down the hall. I don’t want to call her name, afraid it’ll flush something out.
    When I get right outside our apartment I can hear something rummaging. I glance around the door jam. Nothing. I whisper June’s name. No response. I step in, sweeping back and forth, then swing into the dining room and stop.
    Everything stops.
    There’s a dead rotter on the floor, its head caved in with my favorite cast iron skillet.
    And June is standing over the body, her front covered in blood, staring at me with those milk-white eyes.
    She bares her teeth and launches herself at me, her body having forgotten the sickness that whittled it down to gristle. I don’t even have time to get my arms up. We topple to the floor, her on top of me. I get the bat between us.
    That beautiful face that I used to wake up early for, just to look at it for a few minutes, is grinding and gnashing toward me. The stench coming from its mouth blocks out the air in the room.
    For a moment I consider letting her sink her teeth into my neck. Just to get it over with.
    At very least, we’ll be together.
    Instead I take my SIG, shove it into her mouth, dislodging teeth until it reaches the back of her throat, the barrel right up against her brainstem.
    This is a kindness, I tell myself.
    I pull the trigger, and so much of my life comes to an end.

6. THEN
     
     
     
    There were three of the milk-eyed things wandering the street between the shoreline and the house, eradicating any hope that what I saw in Manhattan was an isolated incident.
    Worse is when I got to the house and the front door