36 Hours by Anthony Barnhart Read Free Book Online Page A

had seen them tearing through him. I had seen his body ruptured and broken. I had seen him fall from the truck. I had seen him die. And now he was getting to his feet.
    Swallowed. Perspiration littered my forehead. I felt weak. My arms shook. Knees knocked. And my muscles turned to milky mush, slush like the snow after it fell and became soiled by the exhaust of tractor trailers and snow plows. I always thought that the rubbery sensation was a lie—an exaggeration, a metaphor. A twist on the truth. But, no. I teetered backwards; grabbed a light for support. It crashed against the wall, the bulb shattered. The noise roared. I regained my balance, ears burning.
    Anthony Barnhart
    36 Hours
    35
    The infected in the street stared right at me. Those awful eyes. Alive . The mouth opened. Stained teeth. Blood dripping down the maw. Feral eyes. It knew.
    “Oh no…” I turned and ran for the steps. My feet slipped on the blood and I fell face-first, bashing my forehead over the door-frame. Stars floated in front of my eyes. My feet twisted, losing traction in the blood. I fell backwards, landing hard. Blood trickled from a swelling on my forehead, staining my eyes, burning like acid. I tried to blink it away, saw red. One arm groped at the wall, the other reached for the lip of the bar, to pull myself up. My elbow brushed the rigid dog head; I let out a scream, gut ural and wicked. My feet slipped and tore through the heavy blood. The light from the window blew over me, and it went dark, the shadow of a hunched figure throwing itself against the glass. Shattering. It was in the room. I propelled myself against the back door, lifted myself up. The infected came at me. An old man. Not Mr. Smith, or Mr. Gray. No one I knew. Didn’t care. He was after me.
    He was going to kill me.
    My hands flailed against the doorknob to the back door, and I ripped myself up. The infected loomed. I pressed myself against the door and kicked my legs out, catching him in the chest. The infected flung backwards and tumbled over the couch. My hands tore frantically at the back door behind the bar; it was locked, so I pulled harder. It tore from the moorings and I sprinted onto the deck. Birds flapped away. I ran down the deck. The door came open. The infected was at the door, looking left, then right at me. I slapped bloody hands against the kitchen window. Les appeared in the kitchen. Saw my terrified face, rushed forward and opened it. The infected came at me, snarling, heaving like an ape. I jumped through the open window headfirst, bashed my already-battered hand on the table. I twisted over, pain, cramps. My legs dangled out the window. Les shouted; the infected grabbed my foot, clawed; I fell to the floor, escaping the creature’s grasp. Les stood over me; he swung a pan out and bashed the infected in the face as it tried to come through. It tottered back out on the deck.
    “Shut the window!” I hollered, lying on the floor.
    He tripped over me and fell against the wall. We both tried to stand, but fell back, butting heads.
    My voice sounded hoarse. “The window!”
    “I got it!”
    Anthony Barnhart
    36 Hours
    36
    I threw myself against the kitchen counter and scrambled to my feet, shocked I could now stand without falling over. I drew a knife from the knife holster; a slender iron bar tapering into a point. Les reached for the window; the infected’s arms wrenched in and groped at him. “Les!” I yelled; he flung back, flipping over the dining room table, back tenderly cracking. He rolled over on his side and fell to the floor as I stepped around and drove the tool deep into the infected’s face. Blood surged all over the windowsill. He let out a grunt and fell back, landing hard on the deck, the knife poking from his eye-socket. Tendrils of steaming blood oozed out over the deck, dripping between the cracks between the boards. I remember Les and his brother Chad had helped their grandpa lay out the boards for the deck two summers ago. Les