The Book of a Few by Austen Rodgers Read Free Book Online Page A

feeling a sense of danger, I stayed close to Branden. All along the furthest wall of the cage, the heavy gear is hung up neatly. When we were but five feet from it, Branden stopped for a moment and turned his head to the side.
     
    I curiously watched Branden from behind. He appeared to be looking and listening about the room for something. Yelling came from behind the rows of freezer bibs and jackets, followed by a haunting face. An infected man emerged and reached out toward Branden, who was the closest to him. The savagery of the surprise caused me to startle.
     
    Branden jumped as I did when the danger presented itself. An arm wrapped completely around Branden before I realized what was happening. With Branden barely able to keep the zombie’s mouth off his skin, I took action. With a burst of strength, I lifted up the butt of my gun to meet the ghoul’s head. It didn’t do much to him other than cause the zombie to lose his grip for a moment so Branden could take a step back.
     
    Branden cursed and bashed the creature’s knee with the butt of his own gun. It fell to its stomach, and Branden repeatedly hit it with no sign of ever tiring. But with no need to further explain and the morbid creature taken care of, we dragged its body from the cage because no one would want to sleep next to it.
     
    Branden, in his oddity, thought it would be best to go get a forklift to pin the body to the ground rather than taking the time to try to burn it. I was baffled by this, but didn’t waste my breath objecting. We made an agreement to be sure to burn it tomorrow. He said something about the possibility of the body re-animating, and how he wanted to see if it would come back to life. But wouldn’t that make it some sort of re-zombie or super-zombie?
     
    Anyways, that brings us to now. There has been so much excitement today, and I don’t know whether I hate it or enjoy it. With all the years of secretly hoping for the world to end, and now that it’s here, I can’t decide if this is good or bad. What I really wanted was the simplicity of the life in a zombie apocalypse. I thought I could get used to the day-in, day-out cycle of kill, steal, eat, and sleep. Life without the family complications, bills, social status, and long-term goal setting would be easy. You take your life one day at a time, and the only goal you have is to survive.
     
    While it is rough for me, I still think I might be able to work through it.
     

Day Three

    Getting shot sucks. If anyone reading this has any idea what being shot is and has never experienced being shot, keep it that way. Why am I even bothering with this? I could be trying to talk with savage cavemen who don’t know English. They could use this notebook as kindling for a fire, or toilet paper, for all I know or care. Never mind, I take that back. I do care. If there is any hope that someone someday finds this, I want them to know this little tiny insignificant life is what I went through. I just don’t want my suffering to be for nothing.
     
    Branden and I made our way through the rest of the Warehouse this morning and ended up finding something we weren’t expecting. Past the refrigerated area is the frozen section. Ice cream, skillet meals, pizza, and the like are stored behind insulated doors. Inside the freezer part of the building, while Branden and I were making a quick pass through, we heard some grunting noises from down below.
     
    There are three levels to the warehousing part of the building. The second and third floors are where the product is stored, and then later it is sorted onto a pallet that fulfills each retail store’s order. Now, it’s all quite automated, but workers are needed to manually move different products to these order pallets. Both the refrigerated and frozen section of the Warehouse has seven aisles.
     
    When standing between these aisles on either the second or third floor, one could look down to the main floor. Also in between the aisles are