Psychosis (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 3) by K.R. Griffiths Read Free Book Online Page A

floor, and then killing in the next, upward motion. It was breath-taking.
    Who is this guy?
    There had been six of them, reduced to one in seconds. The last one, launching itself toward Jason from his blind side.
    Jason cried out in shock when John deflected the thing ’s jump with a shoulder charge, and it crashed harmlessly past the big man, the snapping teeth and grasping hands missing their mark.
    It hit the floor with a snarl, and then popped back up, coming for him again. Jason caught its neck in one massive paw, and lifted it off its feet.
    Michael watched, stunned, as Jason carried the thing to the cliff’s edge and held it there, for several long seconds, peering at it intently, observing every desperate snap of its jaw.
    “For god’s sake, Jason! ” Rachel said sharply in a tone like crushed glass; Jason opened his hand, and the creature fell to its death.
    It frantically grasped upward toward them the whole way down.
    “What the hell was that ?” Michael snapped.
    “I know,” Rachel said flippantly, turning away from the cliff’s edge. “How come you can fight like that John?”
    Michael stared at her, eyes narrowed. She returned the look steadfastly.
    “Uh…I don’t really know.” John said. “I wasn’t really thinking. Autopilot, right?”
    Michael continued to meet Rachel’s eyes. He could read something there, he knew it. She was uncomfortable. She had felt it too, watching Jason. Felt the detached cruelty of it. Still, he thought he understood her look: I’ll handle it. He nodded slightly. “I’d say that’s apt,” he said, turning his gaze to John. “You’re military, have to be. That was so,” he paused, searching for the right word, “efficient.”
    John shrugged, and Michael thought he could tell from the gesture that John was speaking the truth: the man really didn’t know. Michael wasn’t sure whether that knowledge made him feel more or less secure: on the one hand John’s presence, much like Jason’s, was reassuring: he could handle himself. On the other hand, how was it possible to totally trust someone that didn’t even know themselves whether or not they could be trusted?
    A familiar anxiety nagged at him, the uncertainty, that inability to make a decision. He pushed it back. Trusting John might get him killed, but he had a feeling that in the new world, indecision would get him killed quicker. He remembered the odd sense of liberation he’d felt upon the discovery that his legs no longer worked, as if he had touched the bottom and the only way left was up. He tried to cling to the notion.
    “So…” John said, “Never mind me, can someone fill me in on them ?”
    He waved his bloodied knife at the corpses littering the ground.
    He doesn’t know. Doesn’t remember .
    Michael searched for the words, for some way to explain the events of the past few days without sounding like a lunatic.
    “Infected.” Rachel said flatly. “Now you know about as much as we do.”
    John stared at her, perplexed.
    “It started a few days ago,” she explained. “We don’t know why or how. Just suddenly everyone started killing everyone else. It spreads through their bite we think, anyone I’ve seen get bitten jumps up straight away and joins the party.”
    John stared, clearly stunned.
    “They tear their eyes out first,” Michael said softly, his eyes far away in some memory.
    “Yeah, that too,” Rachel agreed. “They tear out their own eyes. It’s a nice touch . Extra terrifying. And then they start…hunting us. They can hear like dogs, probably smell like them too. And they’re utterly insane, blood-crazed.”
    She shrugged as if there wasn’t anything else to say.
    “Christ.”
    Rachel nodded.
    “Yeah, his help would be nice, but it looks like we’re on our own. And it won’t just be them we have to worry about. You said so yourself Michael,” Rachel said, planting her hands on her hips and fixing her eyes on him.
    Michael nodded , remembering their discussion