Deadlocked by A. R. Wise Read Free Book Online Page B

shrimp boat. I called out to him as quietly as I could manage. He heard me after a few calls and waved with an enormous smile.
    I was about to jump down from the hood when I saw the thugs rounding the corner onto the street, right on our trail.
    Laura heard the wrenching screech of their flat tire and she yelled for me to get back in the truck.
    The zombie horde heard them as well. They bolted our way.
    William unlatched the gate and started the arduous task of sliding it open. I grabbed it from my side and pushed as well, doubling the speed. We got it open enough for Laura to get the truck through and I jumped off the hood so that she could hurry. The truck tires struggled to catch hold in the gravel when she gunned it, spitting rocks up behind her as the vehicle inched forward.
    The thugs bore down on us in their smashed truck. I moved back onto the road. I hoped it was me they were set on running down and not my girls. I was right, and they adjusted their trajectory to collide with me in the middle of the street.
    I raised my gun and aimed at the windshield that had been partially kicked out. I could see the chubby fucker driving and he stared me down, daring me to shoot him. He must have learned his lesson about taking his eyes off the road from our last encounter. All the while, the zombie horde charged at my back.
    I watched out of the corner of my eye as Laura got the truck into the salvage yard. As soon as she was in I put the gun down and ran toward the entrance. The thugs turned to the right to hit me, but their flat tire made it hard for the truck to respond, otherwise they would have certainly run me down. Instead, they clipped me as I dove away. The edge of their truck crashed into my hip and spun me in the air before I collided with the gravel driveway.
    Their truck jumped the curb and plummeted into William's fence. The front end broke through a portion of it and left their truck balanced on a cracked post. The zombie horde surged over the truck as the two thugs tried to get out. The screams of the driver were horrific, and the other man, the one Laura shot in the leg, fell out of the truck and looked at me as he crawled my way. I was looking in his eyes when the zombies overtook him. He wailed as they bit into his flesh.
    I aimed the gun at Jay's head and took the shot. I couldn’t Fabou="T watch another person get eaten alive, even if they deserved it. No one should die that way.
     

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT – A FATHER’S RESPONSIBILITY
     
    My gunshot alerted the zombies to my presence and they turned their attention to me. I tried to shoot them, but the gun was out of bullets. I'd made it all this way and was going to die right at the end.
    A zombie ran at me and skid on his knees when he hit the gravel. His arms reached out and his mouth gaped wide in anticipation of my flesh.
    An oar swished through the air above my head and caught the zombie in the face. The monster’s head flipped through the air behind it and I heard Billy scream in triumph.
    “Woo hoo!”
    “Didja see that one, Dave?” asked William. “Told ya he was a natural.”
    That morning, if someone asked me if it was possible to knock a person's head off with an oar, I would've laughed at the thought. By that afternoon I would have been proven wrong as I watched a zombie’s head fly through the blue, cloudless sky and bounce off the top of the thug’s truck. William gathered me up in his arms and pulled me to my feet. “Can you walk?”
    “I think so.”
    Billy closed the gate after knocking down a few more zombies. He was a lot stronger than his father or me and had no trouble sliding the massive gate shut.
    “Billy, come on. Everyone get on the boat," said William.
    Laura and the girls had grabbed as many bags as they could and dragged them down to The Casper. The dock stretched out into the water about thirty feet, which would give us a good place to defend ourselves against the coming horde if we had to.   Kim put on the My Little