Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory by Daniel Cotton Read Free Book Online

says. He’s
seen her come down off of her pills before. It’s actually one of
the rare moments the girl sleeps.
    Vida takes the hand Vicky reaches out with.
She flashes a concerned look at her boyfriend. “Brandon?”
    Vicky tries to ensnare Vida.
    “It’s all right,” he says. “She’s just
getting cuddly from exhaustion. We’ll get her into the van. She’ll
sleep well tonight.”
    “No. Something’s wrong with her.” Vida evades
Vicky’s toothpick arms.
    “We don’t have much time.” Brandon pulls
Vicky away and holds her back to allow Vida room to pass. The dead
are on the stairs, having gotten past Lloyd. “We’ll come back for
her.”
    At the door, Brandon grabs his hoodie from
the coat hooks. Vida follows but is still concerned about Vicky.
She had felt the girl’s pulse before in Health class. Her heart
rate normally races a mile a minute. Just now, when she had touched
her cold skin, it was non-existent.
    “Hey, Vicky!” Lloyd says as he descends the
stairs with the zombies.
    “Take care of her, Lloyd!” Brandon shouts
over his shoulder as he and Vida head for the finish line.
    The couple dashes out the door. They have no
idea if they have run out of time or not, but there’s no way
they’re stopping now. They race to the truck as moans and screams
of anguish cut through the night air. There are only a few corpses
in their way, oddly not wearing the protective masks like the dead
inside the house. These dead also don’t fall when they hit them
with a paintball. The blunt ammo doesn’t even faze them.
    “What’s the deal?” Vida asks as they near the
blue pickup.
    “Probably just some way to make the last
stretch harder,” Brandon says. “Get in the truck.”
    Vida opens the passenger door. She’s about to
leap in and finish the game, but hands find her shoulder. Cold
fingers slip into the collar of her thin shirt. She doesn’t stop,
letting the garment tear away as she dives across the bench seat of
the cab. She stabs the key into the ignition and turns it.
    “That’s my girl!” Brandon says when the
engine turns over. He is still wrestling with a zombie while the
truck grumbles. “C’mon, man, game over.”
    Brandon lets up his resistance on the actor,
proud of their triumph. Having dropped his guard, the zombie bites
him. The dead aren’t giving up on Vida either. Her ankle is still
in the clutches of the one that robbed her of her shirt. She kicks
out and looks behind her to witness Brandon getting mauled by one
of them.
    Brandon shoves the over-zealous actor away.
The players are unyielding though the contest is over. Brandon
doesn’t hesitate to bash the next one to approach him with his
paintball gun. Holding a hand over his bleeding wound, he heads for
the truck where Vida calls for him with concern. She sits in the
cab of the pickup in only her bra despite the crisp night air. He
snatches a t-shirt from the toppled concession stand.
    Even when both of them are inside the
vehicle, the zombies enclose around them, as if unable to come to
grips with someone finally winning. Brandon hands Vida the shirt.
“Here. You deserve this.”
    She accepts the coveted ‘zurvived’ tee with a
smile, then kisses her man and uses the garment as a bandage
against his neck. “I’ll cherish it always. If it’s all over, why
are they still acting like this?”
    Over the hood of the idling truck, they watch
more coming their way from the backyard. Brandon sounds the horn in
hopes it will reiterate the fact that the game is over, but the
encircling dead don’t even flinch.
    “I don’t know,” he says softly.
    He and Vida scan the detailed costumes and
props. Twisted limbs lay on the ground, and they were not there
earlier. The hero character is on the ground, too, his body made to
look as if it’s bent in half while the dead feast on him.
    The vacant eyes that stare at Brandon and
Vida all look away in unison, back toward the house. Lloyd appears,
waving to them with the blonde