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

go
someplace safe.”
    “Please don’t leave me,” she whispers against
his cheek.
    “I have to. Promise me you’ll get to
someplace safe.”
    “I promise.”
    “Find the police, or go home. Your dad has a
gun. I remember he showed it to me the first time I picked you
up.”
    Neither wishes to severe their final embrace,
but Brandon knows he has to if he wants her to live on. He puts his
palm against the sliding back window of the pickup.
    “As soon as I’m out, you need to shut this
then get down.”
    They repeat those three words again that mean
so much, that hold magic and power, yet not enough to keep them
together. “I love you.”
    While the vehicle rocks from the insistent
battering, Brandon quickly squeezes out through the narrow window
that leads into the truck’s bed. The zombies are after him the
moment he reveals himself. He has to move fast to get onto the
roof.
    As promised, Vida closes the window,
stranding her boyfriend outside and muffling the eager moans of the
ghouls that reach for the brave man above her. She slides down in
the seat, looking up at the ceiling that is indented from Brandon’s
weight pressing down. The dead have forgotten about her in favor of
the meal that teases them in the cold air.
    Brandon waits for his chance, a break in
their ranks he can dart through. The hobbling figures remind him of
his love of the genre and the fact that he always thought, if faced
with a real-life scenario, he’d fare just fine. He can’t believe he
got infected before he even knew what was going on. He can’t dwell
on feeling cheated, though. He has to move. From the way the truck
is now positioned, there is a gap at the tailgate between him and
the dead.
    A thump sounds as Brandon hops off the roof
and bounds down into the bed. Vida catches only a glimpse of him in
the rearview, but it’s enough to break her heart. She must resist
the urge to peek out and watch his sacrifice as he leads the dead
around to the back of the house. Instead she stays down with the
hood of his sweatshirt concealing her as she cries.
    The shuffling zombies have left the immediate
area, so it’s time to move. Vida slowly exits the truck, and even
with the thin hoodie the air outside is bracing. A slight breeze
has picked up that slices right through her, though she can’t be
sure the chill she feels is entirely environmental. She feels as if
she’s in a large body of water, stranded in the middle in a life
vest, her legs dangling in an icy void of the unknown. She quickens
her pace, tip toeing faster to the panel van they had arrived
in.
    Encased by steel once more, Vida breathes a
little easier. She lays her head on the steering wheel, staring at
the decal Brandon stuck to its center when he bought it. Their
band’s emblem to christen it as their new tour bus. The words bring
up a wave of sorrow and thoughts of how she will never see the
other three again. They’ll never stay up all night making music,
never fulfill their dreams of fame, or even make it to their gig up
north.
    Vida turns the ignition and pulls out of the
parking spot. She steers the van onto the main road heading for
Waterloo. The cars of would be contestants still line the street.
She thinks of her promise to Brandon, that she’ll get someplace
safe, and the safest place she can think of is home. It’ll all be all right if I can just get there , she thinks. It can’t be worse than this .

 
14
     
    Vida follows a pair of thick tire tracks left
by another driver who had vacated the parking lot in a hurry.
Though she uses more caution than the phantom car, whose parallel
marks indicate that it lost control after taking the first turn too
quickly. It had careened between both lanes, striking the parked
vehicles along the road, leaving dents and scratches and tearing
side mirrors off these cars in its reckless escape.
    Switching her headlights to high, she sees
that the driver’s efforts were for not, for an obstruction blocks
her path. She is