Apocalyptica (Book 3): Ran by Joshua Guess Read Free Book Online

could slip down the ladder and into some protective gear. Getting back outside would be easy. I was certainly well-rested, and I figured I could swing the thing a hundred times before it started to wear me out. The last few days of working outside proved my endurance wasn’t too damaged by my illness.
    The thought appealed to me the more it lingered. I fell into a sort of quasi-catatonia as I imagined the feeling of my gloved hands sliding along the grip, the tension in my wrists traveling up my arms as I flexed to swing. I wanted very much to say fuck it and jump down right then. The visual of wading into the crowd and breaking heads was intoxicating.
    “Ran? Are you okay up there?”
    Even through the hatch I could discern Carla’s voice. The worried tone was clear. I snapped out of my reverie and shook my head to banish the suicidally dangerous thoughts.
    “Yeah, I’m good,” I said, watching the zombies filter through the trees and onto the property. “I’m coming down.”
     
     
     
     
    “What are we going to do?” Maria asked. It was a matter-of-fact question, not at all panicked. The other women had varied reactions, though the only one who looked afraid was Sandy. Given the way she was clutching Connor, I suspected it was more out of fear for his safety than her own.
    “My first instinct is to fight,” I said. “And that’s dumb. We’re safe in here, and even if they somehow got in the house, we could easily just go to the bunker and close it off. There’s no immediate threat.”
    Robert nodded at this. “That makes sense. Shouldn’t we be worried about too many of them building up out there, though? What if they attract more?”
    I shrugged. “If there were a thousand of them, we wouldn’t have many options. Even a few dozen is a lot. I wouldn’t want to fight them with this many people out there on open ground. I suggest we radio Jem and Tony, let them know what’s up, and watch to see what happens. Remember, when they come home, they’ll be driving a loaded truck. Running down zombies will be a piece of cake.”
    “I can do that,” Maria said, glancing at me for approval. Suppressing a smile at the idea of someone needing my permission for anything, I nodded.
    “If you unlocked the guns, we could climb on the roof and kill them all,” Shane said. There was a muted round of reactions at this, making it pretty clear everyone had this thought.
    I tried my best not to look immediately dismissive. “Have you ever fired a gun?” I asked him.
    “A couple times,” Shane said, not at all defensive. “I mean, if we’re shooting from the roof at zombies ten feet away, it’d be pretty hard to miss.”
    “You’d be surprised,” I replied. “People who aren’t used to shooting can be spectacularly inaccurate, even dangerously so, when they first start. It has nothing to do with distance, just reactions. I’ve seen people flinch so badly at the expectation of pulling the trigger they shot twenty feet above a target.”
    Shane didn’t seem convinced by this. Nor, for that matter, did most of the others. Gregory, the mostly quiet redheaded man, cocked his head to one side. “I used to hunt. How about you and I go up there with rifles and pick them off?”
    The way he asked it was loaded, no pun intended. I couldn’t tell if anyone else caught the subtlety, but I decided to answer it outright. Better now than later, when things might grow out of hand.
    “You’re asking me if I trust you with one of my guns,” I said. “Before I answer that, let me point out a few other things. One is that there isn’t an ammunition tree where we can just harvest bullets. We’ll always be on the lookout for more, but we have to think long-term. Which means acting as if what we have is all we’ll have. Another thing to keep in mind is that these things are dead, not deaf. Gunshots carry a long way, and there are also living people out there who might not be as friendly as you.”
    This appeal to logic