Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) by Joshua Guess Read Free Book Online Page A

Shelbyville in ruins. It was a very secure
building, and the ladies locked it up tight before they left. The New
Breed still managed to get in and utterly destroy it.

The one
weak point was the ladder on the back. It's one of those slide-down
deals that has to be snagged with a long hook to pull it down. The
New Breed must have piled up to reach it. And though the emergency
access on the roof was still padlocked when our scouts found it, the
skylight was another story. The cap of plywood was shredded, covered
in claw marks and streaks of blood and flesh. God only knows how many
New Breed are walking around with useless fingers now.

Once
they were inside it was basically game over. It wasn't hard for the
zombies to figure out how to remove the bar from the main door and
open it up for their buddies to come in. The whole thing is a
frightening display of problem solving skills.

Our scouts
decided to do a more thorough check of the surrounding areas. You
know, since the New Breed had ravaged a safe place and weren't
anywhere to be found. Zombies, even smart ones, aren't inclined to do
things that indicate emotion. There was no gain for them in
destroying the home of our allies. There was no food there. Our team
thought that was strange, and so the the rest of us.

Because
it looks like an act of rage. Zombies are dangerous for a lot of
reasons, but being pissed off has never been one of them.

The
team didn't come home empty-handed. They found a large mass of New
Breed to the south of the ruined stronghold. Our people watched from
a distance as groups returned to the main horde hauling or leading
groups of old school zombies with them. I say hauling because the
scouts report that many of the old school undead appeared  afraid  of
the New Breed. As if they knew something bad was going to happen to
them.

Some of them were eaten straight away, while others were
simply surrounded and kept from running away. My guess is that the
old school zombies who became happy meals were those who hadn't begun
the change into New Breed for whatever reason. Maybe an immunity.
Maybe lack of exposure. The scouts didn't stay long enough to see any
change take place in the sequestered undead, but I'd bet my last
dollar (which is meaningless as we use paper money for tinder now)
that the New Breed will have a few new members shortly. Might already
have made the change.

I'm planning a few quick tests with
Gabby and Evans today to see if we can figure out exactly how the New
Breed can tell zombies apart. Almost definitely something to do with
smell, but I'd like to know if we can isolate what that is. If we
can, then I have a few ideas...

All the signs point to this
large group heading this way. I can't believe that the New Breed in
Shelby county took the time and effort to destroy an abandoned human
settlement and are recruiting more numbers without a reason. We're
the largest group nearby, and I doubt they even know about the
smaller and newer communities that have cropped up. Those folks are a
long way off as the zombie walks. It's got to be us these undead are
coming for. It's gonna be a long, long day.

Sunday,
March 18, 2012
Empty
Cages
    Posted
by  Josh
Guess My
post yesterday acted as a call for help, apparently. We have allies
in decent numbers not far away, but I don't talk about them a lot.
One, because while geographically we're near each other, in real
terms the survivors in Louisville and New Haven aren't that close.
Two, they don't like to be talked about. I had to ask permission to
write this post. After
I posted yesterday, some of the Louisville crowd contacted us. They
aren't a cohesive group toughing it out in one place like so many
people do. In the city that's pretty hard. Instead small clusters of
them secure locations, spreading out their numbers into dozens of
places. They gather during the days to work together, and break apart
again at night. It works well for them, and with the large number of
undead wandering the city