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

was hanging open. I crossed the lawn and put my back against the red brick, found a body lying just inside the door.
    It was a man from the sports bar around the corner. A regular who would sit in the back and drink mint juleps and watch baseball. I didn’t know his name.
    I stuck my head into the living room and a piece of the doorframe exploded. I squeezed my eyes shut against the shards of wood. A quivering voice called from inside, I have a gun.
    That voice. As soon as I heard it, everything in the world was just fine.
    I called in to June, told her it was me, grabbed the dead body by the leg and dragged it onto the walkway, then jumped inside and pushed the door closed behind me.
    She was standing in the middle of the living room, lit from below by a lamp that tumbled to the floor. Her skin smooth and flush in the soft yellow glow. She was wearing a white tank top and black pajama pants, like she always wore to bed. Barefoot, her hair wild, the off-duty gun I kept in the shoebox in the closet dangling from her right hand. She dropped it to the carpet and it landed with a dull thud.
    I crossed the space and picked her clean off her feet, pressed my face against hers until neither of us could breathe. When she pushed away from me enough to see my eyes she asked me why I was crying. I said it was because I was worried.
    It wasn’t exactly a lie.
    I turned on the radio and the television while we were packing, was met by static and dead air. We stood in the living room after making sure the house was locked up, and she asked, Where do we go now?
    Whatever was happening, it was spreading across the city. We’d never make it out. The roads would be jammed for miles. We’d be out in the open and barely protected, sitting in a car that wasn’t moving.
    We settled on the watercraft. I didn’t tell her how I got it, just that it was there. We ran for the water, and within moments we had a dozen rotters following us. We jumped on and pulled out, watched as they scuttled after us, tripped on the rocks, disappeared beneath the waves.
    June said, We should go to Governors Island.
    It was a solid idea. There wouldn’t be anyone there and we’d be surrounded by water. It was a Revolutionary War outpost before it was a U.S. Army base before it was a Coast Guard installation. It had buildings and amenities. Shelter and supplies. And no people. Not a single living or non-living thing. It would be safe.
    The last safe place, June said.

7. NOW
     
     
     
    The rotters that cross my path disappear from my field of vision. I kill them but as soon as they’re gone I don’t remember how I did it. There’s a vacuum in my stomach, like a black hole collapsing on itself, sucking me into someplace dark.
    There’s no other way this could have ended. When I shot that man at the Seaport, the bullet’s trajectory cut a path to this moment. I don’t believe in god but I believe this is proof a higher force couldn’t let what I did go unpunished. I only wish that force had taken me instead.
    Miss Olsen steps out from behind high weeds. Her shoulders jerk like her body is trying to move away from her head. She advances on me. I hold up the SIG but the clip is empty. As she gets closer I consider raising the bat, but instead let it drop to the pavement at my feet.
    I should have let June bite me.
    What else is there?
    Something sharp bursts out of Miss Olsen’s eye. She tumbles to the ground, revealing Sophia, standing with a bow and a quiver of arrows on her back. Another rotter comes at us from the side and Sophia puts an arrow through its gaping mouth.
    She runs to me, checks for wounds as I stand there numb to the feeling of her hands on my body. When she gets to my eyes she sees exactly where I’ve been hurt.
    She reaches down, picks up the bat and puts it in my hand. “I’m so sorry. But we need you, Sarge.” Then she pulls me toward Castle Williams, where we find a hundred people shoving each other, trying to get inside the gate