Read Online Zomb-Pocalypse by Megan Berry - Free Book Online Page A

to stomp my foot like a toddler and shout “But, I don’t wanna!”
     “We need to get comfortable handling these things,” he lectures.
    I want to be mad at Ryan, but he makes perfect sense. Once again, I realize how lucky we were to find him. I shudder to think what would have happened to us.
    I look at the large hunting knife clenched in his fist; Megan has her pistol drawn and held at the ready, just in case.
    “What do you want me to do?” I ask.
    Ryan sends me a small smile like he’s happy I’m on board.
    “I’ll try and knock it back with the door, just be ready in case something happens or there’s more than one of them in there.”
     I hold my golf club at the ready, though I really should find myself a better weapon since it took me about a hundred hits to put down the last zombie.
    The door is the kind that swings back into the room, which gives us a bit of an advantage. Ryan signals to us, and Megan and I back up several steps. Ryan turns the knob and hits the door open as hard as he can. We hear a thump and a groan as the zombie gets knocked backwards. It was probably standing there licking the door knob when Ryan threw it open. Ryan does a quick scan of the room before running in. I follow on his heels and see the zombie scrabbling on its back, trying desperately to get up. The random thought that it reminds me a bit of a turtle flits through my brain before I push the inappropriate thought to the back of my mind.
    Ryan plants his boot in the center of the zed’s chest and raises his knife, getting ready to swing down. He stops suddenly and looks at me. In the dim light that’s filtering in through the open window, I take an unconscious step back. It’s like we are connected through some sort of psychic link, and I already know what he’s going to say.
    “Jane…”
    My name has me lifting my eyes off the struggling corpse.
    “You need the practice. This is the best scenario we can hope for to figure this out.” His attention is on the struggling zombie that he is managing to pin down with his heavy work boots, but he’s holding the enormous blade out to me.
    I take a tentative step forward, then stop. Killing the zombie to save Ryan was one thing; I’m not sure I could do it again.
    “This is life and death, Jane,” Megan chimes in and I turn a glare on her—the traitor.
    It has already been made abundantly clear that Megan has no problem killing anything.
    “He’s already dead,” Megan encourages me.
    Still, I stand there, numb, unable to make a decision.
    “Every minute you waste thinking about this is a chance I could get bit standing here,” Ryan snaps and that spurs me into motion.
    I reach for the blade with trembling fingers.
    “Hold it so it’s comfortable for you,” Ryan instructs me as his warm fingers wrap around my icy ones. “You want to put the whole weight of your body into your swing, and aim for the head…the eye or somewhere that will be easy to hit, like the temple. You don’t have a lot of weight behind you, so you’ll have to go for the easier kills until I can teach you how to shoot.”
    I close my eyes for a minute and swallow down some of my fear.
    “Don’t shut your eyes!” Ryan yells at me, snapping me out of my mental preparations.
    The zombie’s bloodied hands and broken, chipped fingernails make wet scratching noises as he claws helplessly at the linoleum floor. I tell my mind to go blank. Then, with Ryan’s words echoing in my head, I swing hard.
     I’m aiming for his eye, but he moans and my aim gets thrown off. The knife embeds in his cheek, hitting bone as the blade loses its momentum. The zombie’s teeth snap dangerously close to my wrist, and pure adrenaline shoots through my body, giving me the strength to pull the knife from the zed’s tattered face.
    I aim more carefully this time, and the knife hits true. The noise of stabbing a human eyeball is terrible, and my hand is coated in black, sludgy blood. I begin shaking—maybe I