Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 by Adrienne Lecter Read Free Book Online

constant buzzing, but unnerving me every time it reappeared. I checked my forehead, but while there was residual clamminess from the less than cool night air making me sweat all over, my temperature had dropped to its usual point. Of course this could all be in my imagination… only that I didn’t buy it.
    A whiff of something tickled my nose, making my sluggish thoughts grind to a sudden halt. I was wide awake within moments—not just awake, but my pulse was racing, adrenaline leaking into my blood. Inhaling deeply, I tried to discern what had caused my heart to trip into overdrive, but deep down I already knew what it had to be. Nowadays there were few things out there that my instincts responded to quite like that. True enough, on the third inhale I could pinpoint it: the lingering scent of decay, like an animal rotting away underneath the floorboards of an old house.
    Leaning over, I clamped one hand over Nate’s mouth, the contact enough to immediately startle him awake. He didn’t make a sound, and after a moment of staring at me with wide eyes he reached up to lightly tap my arm, the sure signal that he knew to stay quiet.  
    “They’re out there,” I said, my voice as low a whisper as I could pitch it.
    In the dim light I saw him frown, but not with disbelief.
    “You sure?”
    “I can smell them,” I replied. Not just that, but now was not the time to share that new tidbit.
    Nate gave a curt nod as he rolled out of the bed and onto silent feet. The carpet muffled any sound he might have made as he snuck over to the window to glance out beside the boards covering the others. I followed him, compressing my lips as I bit back a groan. Yeah, a few more days to heal would have been great.
    From the way he tensed I could tell that he’d seen something out there. Pushing myself against him so I could glance outside, I quickly cast around. It only took me a couple of seconds to pinpoint the exact location that buzzing feeling was coming from—from across the road, maybe half a mile out. The zombie was too far away to really see it, but I could tell that it was moving at the center of a small crowd of them that was, slowly but surely, coming our way. And they weren’t alone. Craning my neck, I tried to get a better look all around, but there was simply not enough room. Even so I counted easily fifty of the undead shamblers, trudging all over the road and surrounding fields. A few had made it into the parking lot, but only one seemed interested in the car parked by the stairs, if only cursorily so.  
    “Shit,” Nate muttered, low enough that I barely caught it.
    “You think?” I replied, unable not to share his sentiment. He glanced my way, then stepped back into the room to get his night vision scope. I didn’t really feel like laughing at the grim look that took over his face as he scanned the lot once more.
    “Guess that answers your question from earlier,” he whispered.
    It was definitely time to go.

Chapter 5

    Theoretically, we could have chanced staying, but neither of us brought up that possibility. With maybe ten or twenty zombies, it would have been a gamble. With more than three times that—and who knew how many more following—it wasn’t an option. Sooner or later they would start tearing apart the car, and if I could smell what we’d left behind in the other rooms, so could they. From what we’d seen in the past, they could be investigative little fuckers, and tonight was not the time to test if they’d stop two doors down from finding something that might have been interesting to them.
    That, of course, left only one option: flight. After my glorious descent of the stairs earlier, I really wasn’t looking forward to this.
    Packing our things was the easy part. There was nothing in the room that couldn’t be left behind, and Nate had never bothered unpacking what little provisions we still had. Two bottles of water and a handful of cans didn’t even weigh down his pack. It only took