OUTNUMBERED volume 4: A Zombie Apocalypse Series by Robert Schobernd Read Free Book Online Page A

slouched in the truck seats, but no one complained. At dawn, we drove each street until we were positive we couldn't have missed seeing our friends. The small town previously had a population of slightly more than twenty thousand. Zombies were thick, and we ran over the ones we could and shot at least thirty others. We could have hunted down more, but all three groups concentrated on finding the missing people.
    Out of Columbus, we took route 81 North to Norfolk. A sign at the south edge of town gave the previous human population at 22,981. Ten minutes passed before Shane called on the radio. They had found the truck beside the three bodies. We followed the directions he gave and pulled into the parking lot of a local brand ranch and home supplies store. As the truck stopped, I closed my eyes to the horror laid out before us and shook my head at the extreme violence. We exited the SUV quickly and practically staggered to the death scene.
    Blood soaked Josh's clothing and had turned an ugly dried shade of brown. He'd been shot in both knees and in the chest. Looking at the women was even more horrific. Both were naked and had been sexually assaulted before or while they were beaten. Their throats had been ripped apart by knives to hasten and ensure their deaths. We all stood in stunned silence; no small talk was appropriate against the severity of what lay before us. Sadly, we needed to get a move on. "Okay everybody, we have the bodies of three dead friends to transport. Anthony, Grace and Vince, please get plastic from the back of my truck and wrap the corpses. Secure them on the trailer so we can take them home. The rest of us will spread out and look for any evidence that will give a clue as to who committed this abomination. Morgan, can you do this, or do you need to set it out?
    "You gotta be shitten me Tom. Sit it out? Frances was my daughter and Josh was a good friend. I want those bastards who did this more than anyone here. Let's get to it."
    Fifteen minutes later we'd recovered four 7.62 NATO shell casings but nothing else. All of the firearms the three victims had carried were gone. Morgan and his daughter, Barb, had opened the doors of the Ford pickup to search it. She held up a winter coat and pulled a digital camera from it. After a minute she said, "Dad, this camera has pictures of the men who did this."
    We rushed to gather round. Tears ran down Morgan's face, but his expression was hard as granite. Barb cried profusely as she finally let her emotions loose.
    I leaned over her shoulder. "What do you have Barb?" She flipped through six images of four rough looking men. A dark blue Dodge pickup was parked in front of our truck. Marilyn had been in the back seat and had snapped pictures of the four men standing with guns pointed at Josh and Frances.
    We needed to preserve any evidence we had. "Barb, please turn the camera off to save the batteries. When we get back to Deliverance we can blow the images up on the big screen monitor and look for details too small to be seen on that mini screen. Protect that because it's the only lead we have to those rotten bastards." I found Vince and Grace. "If you'll drive the pickup we'll follow you. Let's try to get back to Deliverance quickly. Ignore all the zombies we can, and only stop if we must."
     
    We called the watchtowers as we approached the gate at Deliverance an hour before dusk. Vince parked the pickup and trailer at door nine and the rest of us drove past to the north end of the building. On the radio, I called for the leadership committee to assemble at the office conference room.
    In fifteen minutes Shane had a computer moved in, set up and running. Elsie brought in the thirty-four inch monitor from her computer. She plugged the camera in and brought the six pictures to the screen. For the next thirty minutes we reviewed the pictures over and over. Each one was enlarged as big as clarity would allow. Bullet holes were clearly visible in the tailgate and on the