Live (NOLA Zombie Book 3) by Gillian Zane Read Free Book Online Page A

The last time I had been out here was during high school when we volunteered to clean up the New Orleans Nature Center area for service hours. The center was now overgrown and looked like a forest in the middle of the city.   The grass was burnt from the winter, but the weeds were almost as high as a house.  

    The Z activity had picked up and now packs could be seen milling about and some started chasing after the car. Ugly Number Two had to swerve to avoid a large pack and luckily the street was wide enough that he managed this. If it would have had stalled cars clogging it, we would have been screwed.

    New Orleans East hadn’t fully come back from Katrina when Z hit. The area had been devastated like most of New Orleans, but before the storm it was a depressed and crime-ridden area so people were slow to return. Before Z hit, there were still many neighborhoods that had three to four abandoned houses and overgrown lots to each occupied house.  

    This was good for the dead population, fewer people, less Z’s, but there was still a large amount of people in the area when the shit hit. Most of the residents were poor, without transportation and unable to evacuate.   They had probably holed up and died by the hand of their neighbor or loved ones. As we drove by, the dead pushed at windows, locked inside of their houses forever.  

    When we turned down Haynes Boulevard and passed up Millionaire’s Airport, entering the main New Orleans area, I knew it would only get harder for us from here on out. We were now in the denser populated areas with more houses, more habitation, more zombies. Shit could get nasty.

    It was strange to think my life was now dependent on these men.   With my hands cuffed and my only clothes this stupid spandex dress, I wouldn’t make it far if we were overtaken. I would freeze to death or be eaten. I didn’t know what was worse, probably being eaten.   That would hurt like a bitch.  

    Sure enough, the Z population exploded the moment we passed the airport and crossed the bridge that led into the neighborhood of Gentilly. We were near the University of New Orleans in a highly populated area. A bunch of undergrad zombies were about to ruin my fucking day.  

    But then, what the hell did I have to live for? Why was I in so much of a hurry to get to the next point? What did I have to look forward to, a biker gang that wanted me as a sex slave? Maybe I should be wishing for a little zombie intervention, to take us out, to take me out . Hopefully, they would get the two Uglies first, maybe Clara. I wasn’t looking forward to forced prostitution. But was death a better choice?  

    Lani had thought so. There was no coming back from death though, no big comeback. That was the big finale. If I lived, if I made it to Lakeview, even if I did have to put up with some heinous shit, I would still be alive.   There still might be an opportunity to escape. I had to hang onto that hope. There was always a chance for escape if you were alive. There was always a chance for better. No matter what shit I had to go through, I was still alive.

    And I wanted to live. No matter what, the choice was to live.  

Thirteen | Neighborly
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    We went up and down 90 a few times, looking for any signs of life and finding none. It was long and tedious and we switched places a few times, just in case one of us might have missed something. By the third pass, I was done with this bit of drama. It was my idea, but it wasn’t proving successful. I was a big boy, I could admit when I was wrong. Not out loud though.  

    When we passed Venetian Isles for the second time, I remembered the family that was holed up in there. They were our closest neighbors; they kept to themselves and probably kept a watchful eye on the area. We had said we should talk to them, now was as good a time as any. I hoped they were still around. If they had been wiped out or moved on, we would have no way of knowing.  

    I pulled over to the