Read Online Zombiekill by Russ Watts - Free Book Online Page A

all. They were the sort of drawings that Rilla used to do before she grew up and got into boys and partying. As Schafer made his way around the room, he tried to shun the feeling of sadness, to summon up his energy and concentrate on finding what he had come here for.
    Next to a bureau full of papers was another open door, and he made his way to it. Sat atop the pine bureau was a square fish tank, the liquid in it a murky dull gray. The parapet of a plastic castle poked above the thick soup-like shallow water, and the tiny skeletons of two fish lay on the crusty surface, reduced to nothing but bones amid dirty sludge. Feeling queasy as he moved through the house, Schafer wanted to hurry. The hallway stretching from the sitting room was dark with no windows to allow in any light, and he almost dropped the bat as his sweaty hands fumbled past a coat stand and onto another door.
    He felt uneasy looking around the family home of dead people and was relieved when he finally found a large kitchen through the next doorway. The curtains were drawn, and the kitchen was clean and tidy, aside from a large brown stain on the floor in the center of the room. Moving swiftly, he started to ransack the cupboards, instantly finding a packet of chips and two unopened bottles of Sprite. He dusted them down and shoved them into the backpack, grateful it hadn’t been a wasted trip. If nothing else, he would be able to go back with a few supplies to tide them over. It also meant he could concentrate on the next part of the plan; the true reason he had left Jeremy’s house.
    Aside from gathering food, he needed to do some more investigation of Peterborough. With the food and water rations all but gone, it was important to replenish them, and in the short-term they needed anything he could lay his hands on. But whatever he found was only going to be a stop-gap. With six mouths to feed, they simply could not all go on living together at Jeremy’s place. There would never be enough to go around. Schafer needed to check out the house on the hill. It was their best chance of making it. Germany was a dream, but the house was attainable. It was barely visible from Jeremy’s, and Schafer had to get closer. He needed to check it out, to see if it really was an option. He wanted to know if it was as secure as they thought, if the walls were still intact, or if it had been overrun with zombies. Rilla was convinced it was safe; sure that if they could all make it there then they could ride out this whole zombie thing. Schafer wasn’t so sure. Jeremy and Lyn had filled Rilla’s head with tales of Attwood and his house. Intending to warn her off the place with stories of how obscenely rich he was, and how the mansion wasn’t suited to the area, they had inadvertently put the idea in his daughter’s head that it was in fact the safest place in the whole area. It was run more like a compound or a military base than a rich man’s sanctuary. Maybe they were one and the same thing. Schafer just knew he couldn’t risk taking his wife and daughter out onto the dangerous streets of Peterborough based on rumors. He had to know what they would be getting themselves into if they left.
    Creeping forward to leave the house of death, Schafer turned back to the hallway. As he made his way back past the coat stand, he heard a noise coming from above his right shoulder. A carpeted staircase had hidden the slow footsteps of the women until she was almost upon him. Hopeful he had found a survivor, Schafer turned to discover the woman with her hands reaching for him, her fingers already brushing his shoulders. A nervous excitement made his skin tingle, and he felt suddenly energized, ebullient for the first time in months.
    The eviscerated woman had been dead for months, and her skin was tight and yellow. The left side of her face had been eaten away exposing her broken jaw, and where her nose should be there was a well of maggots. A knife was stuck between the woman’s