900 Miles: A Zombie Novel by S. Johnathan Davis Read Free Book Online Page A

actually.  My buddies down in Augusta at Fort Gordon are the closest thing I’ve got to family. I’d like to go join up with them.  If you’re good with it, I figured we could travel together as far as Georgia.  We’ve gotten this far with each other, and besides, I don’t have any place to go. My apartment is under twelve feet of zombie shit by now.”
    I always liked that about Kyle.  He had a way of making you laugh even during the most tense situations.
    I smiled, and said, “I was hoping you wouldn’t make me get down on my hands and knees begging to come with you.  It’s a long trip to make by myself with all this madness.”
    There was a shout from across the deck now. We both turned to look, as a few people were trying to hold the guy in the blue jump suit down.  He tore loose, his jump suit sleeve tearing completely off, as he jerked his car door open.
    In that instant, another guy in a blue jump suit jumped wildly out of the car.  He approached a woman who was sitting in awe watching everything go down, and took a giant chunk out of her shoulder.
    She dropped to the ground, with her blood soaking into the wooden deck of the ship.  She twitched a few times, before she sat right back up, and ran over to the closest person to her.  Before anybody knew it, there were seven of those things running loose on the ship.
    I could see the shore where we were heading.  We must have been less than five minutes from our destination.
    Pulling my hammer from my belt, I glanced at Kyle, and then toward the crowd.  He nodded, and then we both advanced on the zombies.
    Kyle had left his metal weapon in the Hummer; a mistake he would not repeat.  He searched around for a moment, and found a gaff, a metal pole that was clearly for pulling things out of the water.  It looked about five feet long, and had a pointed hook on the end.
    Today, it would serve a slightly different purpose than originally intended.
    A newly turned Paker, dressed in his now blood-soaked black uniform, started right towards me. I could see the gouge on his neck where he’d been bitten, and knew I had to act fast. Drawing my arm back, I paused only slightly at the thought of killing one of the guys who had just earlier saved my life.  My body contracted as I arched up and then down swinging the hammer through its skull, making a deafening crack as it broke through the bone with the ease of a spoon cracking through an egg. It was so deeply embedded, that I had to put my foot on its shoulder to pull the weapon out of his skull. I closed my eyes, and shuttered as it popped out with some brain-like flesh hanging from the metal end.
    I could hear a few bone fragments clang to the wooden floor , as I looked up to see two women and a man sitting in their car with the doors locked.  Three of the creatures were beating the car with their bare, bloody hands before the first window shattered.
    Fear gripped me. I thought of Jenn and our neighbors as they ripped one of the women right out of her seat.  She let out an ear-piercing scream as all three of the creatures began to dig in. The other two passengers fought to escape the vehicle, only to step into their own deathly demise upon exiting the vehicle.
    One heavier set guy not far from me was wearing a life preserver over a brown suit.  The preserver was literally pulled so tight around his waist that you could see fat rolls folding over the straps.  Two of the creatures saw him standing there, cowering in the corner. As they started to move towards him, he crawled up on the side of the boat, and simply rolled over the edge.
    He bobbed up and down in the wake of the ship for a few seconds. I could see him doggy paddling toward the shore, when his whole body submerged below the water. He popped back up, arms waving frantically, screaming, “They are down there!”
    He was pulled under again, and the water turned a dark red right where he was last seen. All I saw, before I turned back to the carnage