Positive by David Wellington Read Free Book Online

look to me like either of those cuts had happened during a car crash. Somebody had killed the driver, intentionally.
    Whoever had done this might still be nearby. If they’d been willing to kill a government official, they would have no trouble killing me.
    I ran away.

 
    CHAPTER 10
    I t hadn’t been zombies. I was sure of that. Whoever had killed the driver and searched the car had been human. Zombies are violent and wild and vicious, but they don’t use knives—­they didn’t slit that man’s throat. They certainly don’t tear open car trunks looking for supplies.
    I knew there were ­people out here, living in the zombie-­haunted wastelands between the cities. The government just called them “looters,” and we would hear all the time on the radio how the army had killed six or ten of them in some distant, all-­but-­unimaginable place like Kansas or Florida. I had no idea what they were like, though, or what they were capable of.
    I ran back the way I came, I guess thinking I might run all the way to New York. Except if I tried to get back into Manhattan, the ­people back there—­my ­people—­would just shoot me on sight.
    I was panicking, though, and I don’t know how well I’d thought anything through. Eventually I must have come to my senses, because before I knew it I had jumped over the berm, moving off the turnpike and into a vacant lot on the other side. The fence there was full of holes. I struggled through one and then threw myself under an old dead car on the far side.
    For a long time I just lay there, while old stale oil dripped from the bottom of the car, pooling in the small of my back. I didn’t dare shift to the side to get away from it. My whole body tensed, waiting for what came next.
    Except—­nothing happened. Nothing moved. I didn’t hear gunshots, or ­people shouting, or any of the things I’d expected.
    Maybe twenty minutes passed. Maybe it was only five, or one. I had no way of knowing. The light didn’t change. I started to think I’d been foolish. That whoever had killed the government driver was already long gone. I started thinking about my next move, about crawling out from under the car and what I would do then.
    Then I heard glass pop, as if someone nearby had stepped on a glass bottle and shattered it. Someone else—­the sound came from a different direction—­hissed angrily. And then nothing.
    I held my breath. I tried not even to blink. Very slowly I moved my eyes from side to side, trying to see something. Anything. From my vantage point under the car, I couldn’t see a whole lot.
    Except—­there. A pair of shoes, off to my left. I thought they’d just been abandoned, left over from the mass exodus from the city twenty years ago. They looked old and decrepit enough for that. But then one of them moved, shifting position just a few inches.
    I was absolutely certain that whoever those shoes belonged to would hear my heart jumping in my chest. That any second now the person would come over and do to me what he or she had done to the government driver.
    â€œAnything?” someone said in a whisper. The voice was way closer than I would have expected. They must have been right on top of me.
    â€œNo,” someone said back, louder. “My guess? He started running and he won’t stop till he hits Pennsylvania.”
    â€œWhat the fuck was this fed doing out here, anyway?”
    There was no answer.
    The car I was hidden under sagged a few inches, as if someone had climbed up on its trunk. Maybe they were trying to get a better view.
    â€œFuck him. Just fuck him—­scrawny little bastard. No use to anybody. We need to get back before dark.” This came from the owner of the shoes, I thought.
    Again there was no reply. But eventually the car bounced on its creaking shock absorbers again, as if someone had jumped off it. And then the