August Burning (Book 2): Survival by Tyler Lahey Read Free Book Online Page A

crashed through a window.
    “ Its good ! But anyways then the infected broke through the Guard’s lines in Jersey. There was some huge rout, all along the Delaware. A bunch of refugee camps were overwhelmed because of it, I learned after. Anyways, the army totally panicked. Abandoned the center. Rushed tons of troops back across the Delaware. Left us behind. The first time me and Wilder saw them was crossing the bridges into Philly. The crowd started to swell and press. People got trampled, just a screaming, pushing mass of bodies. Bodies all over the road. We were trampling on them. No one cared. Me and Wilder jumped into the river. Made it to the other side and watched. There were hundreds of them, just a wall of the infected eating their way through the crowd. The people could barely move, so they were eaten to death where they stood. And the ones that survived, well they started to turn too. That’s when we ran. The Air force, I guess, started dropping firebombs.”
    Duke picked a brown apple off the long grass and took a bite. Shrugging, he continued. “Young Wilder’s got the burns all up that one side of his body. We were in a subway station. The flames still came down the manholes.” He nodded his head, pleased with the fruity meal. He jumped atop an abandoned Honda Civic that had crashed against a telephone pole.
    Tessa looked to Adira, who stared in concern, her mouth open in shock.
    “That pretty much cover it, Wilder?” Duke tossed the apple and jumped down.
    “That pretty much covers it, Duke.” Wilder stared at the ground as he walked.
    “Why did you come here, to Pennsylvania?” Adira asked.
    “Had to get west. We saw that signal fire one night. Bennett’s.”
    “Where are your families?”
    Duke shrugged, “laying up on a beach in Cancun, or dead. I spend a little time every day working to forget them.”
    “Admirable.” Tessa said, pausing to rummage through a pile of luggage left on someone’s front lawn, long overdue for a proper mowing.
    Adira shot a glance back to Wilder, who’s juvenile confidence was all gone.
    “They’re just ahead,” Tessa whispered, breaking into a trot across a field lined with maple trees.
    “They?” The others followed, curious.
    A giant barn sat in the midst of the field, tall grass masking it from the road. The paint was peeling off its rusted doors. Duke grinned, “oh boy.”
    When Tessa slid open the door, it screeched in protest. A wave of decay hit them like a wall.
    Among the stalls and open bays, there were massive piles of rotting hay. Five horses lounged about, munching on it and standing in piles of their own excrement. Their coats were shaggy and overgrown, and their eyes were wild. Tessa herded them to the rear of the stables, where there was another door. Nodding, she flung it open and the horses burst out, neighing in a frenzy. The beasts broke into excited gallops, feeling the cool wind kissing their matted hair. When one of them approached the wooden fence enclosing them in the space, it balked and turned, eager to charge across the open ground to the other side. In the distance, one of the ridges surrounding the town rose high, coated in an unbroken collage of fierce reds, proud yellows, and somber browns. Against this background, the horses charged across the field with glee in their hearts such as they had never imagined, extending their proud muscles until they swelled with blood. Duke mounted the wooden fence and whooped crazily, cheering the scene. Tessa smiled, and saw Adira marveling as well. She looked to Wilder, who stood with trembling lips. His proud eyes welled with tears, and he smiled.
     
    ….
     
    “I’m getting a team together, and we’re going. Spare me the chivalry.”
    Jaxton sputtered. “I’m being selfish. Let the other team go. Is it so crazy I don’t want to sit here and wonder if you’re going to be ambushed? The infected are still in the valley. The runners find them on almost every mission. It won’t be