Crusade (Eden Book 2) by Tony Monchinski Read Free Book Online Page A

her physique through the jeans and sweater she wore stirred something within him that he had not felt in a long time, something he’d given up on ever feeling again. Then he noticed the pistol in her left hand down at her side.
     
    “Kevin.”
     
    “Nadjia.”
     
    “Is everything okay?”
     
    “Y-Yes…”
     
    Her eyes scanned the murk of the hallway and stairwell behind him.
     
    “Come on in.”
     
    She stepped aside and let him into the apartment. A kerosene lamp burned in one corner where her sleeping bag was laid out. He noted what looked like a prayer mat rolled up next to the sleeping bag.
     
    “Sit down.” She nodded to the floor. The apartment was bare. It had been stripped of furniture and anything that might burn long ago by people desperate for fuel in the winter. Most of the windows lacked glass and the cool night air whispered in. The sounds of men and women laboring outside on the street were faint.
     
    They sat across from one another—the darkness of a room behind Nadjia, a cold wall against Kevin’s back.
     
    “Is it me,” Kevin hunkered down further into his jacket, “or is it really cold in here?”
     
    “It’s a beautiful fall night. But you’ve got no fat on you. So you’re going to feel the cold more than me.”
     
    “Yeah, no fat on me,” Kevin agreed. “My damn feet hurt when I walk. The fat on the pads is all worn away.
     
    “You are Moslem?” He pointed towards the prayer mat.
     
    “Lapsed, but trying.”
     
    Kevin nodded.
     
    “And him?” He indicated the darkness behind Nadjia, aware of Bear’s presence somewhere in the rooms.
     
    “I think he prays,” she said, “or at least he tries. But I don’t think his god is mine.”
     
    He nodded.
     
    They were quiet for awhile. In the silence his eyes adjusted to the dark enough to discern the immense form of Bear in the room beyond, seated as he was against a wall. It looked like he was cradling something in his arms. Kevin thought he knew what it was. He became aware of the presence of another in the apartment with them and guessed it would be the wild-man, somewhere near Bear, oddly quiet in the presence of the giant.
     
    “What brought you here to us?”
     
    He scoffed in a not-unfriendly way. “I could ask the same of you.”
     
    She did not reply.
     
    “Nadjia” He liked the sound of her name as it left her mouth. “Well, first, thank you . Thank you both. I don’t know how much longer we could have held out.”
     
    “We were too late for too many. I looked around this town earlier. There are several too weak to move. They probably will not survive, even now.”
     
    “When we heard you out there, we thought it was an army at first. We felt hope. I can’t imagine the two of you against, against…”
     
    “This was bad but we’ve faced worse. Philly was a lot worse.”
     
    Kevin realized he was staring into her dark eyes and felt self-conscious about it, so he broke his gaze and looked down.
     
    “You’ll—you’ll have to forgive me,” he stammered. “I’m half-starved and out of my mind. You look like some kind of angel sitting there. You’re so beautiful.”
     
    It was Nadjia’s turn to scoff good naturedly. “Well, thank you. But like you said, you’re half starved and maybe a little out of your mind by this point. Plus I’m probably the first woman you’ve seen in awhile who’s had a bath in the past month and isn’t malnourished.”
     
    He made eye contact again and smiled.
     
    “Listen, I was thinking of a couple of things,” he continued. “You know what you guys need?”
     
    “What would that be?”
     
    “A monster truck. You know, one of those with the huge wheels. You could drive right over all those…” He tried to think of a word to describe the mounds of undead burning outside but couldn’t. “I mean, that road is going to be impassable.”
     
    “I like the idea but we haven’t come across many monster trucks lately. Would you happen to