The Coalition: Part 1 The State of Extinction (Zombie Series) by Robert Mathis Kurtz Read Free Book Online Page A

some of the local citizens in what he had begun to think of as his turf. One of them, a bit of a smart ass, had started referring to Cutter as The Mayor. Others had picked up on the nickname and there were any number of the living , who eked out an existence in this part of downtown Charlotte , who called Ron by that term. He let it ride. A part of him liked it. Despite his general demeanor of his loner existence, he had gotten to a point where he cared about most of the folk who—like him—were trying to survive what was going on.
    At some point, it would come to an end, right? It would run its course and the ones who were left would pick up the pieces and move on. That’s what they all seemed to be hoping for. The main thing was just to live through it.
    Coming to the intersection, Cutter hunkered down low to the pavement and looked around. Off to his right there was any number of deads milling around. To his left , the streets were completely clear of any obvious sign , except for a few stragglers who weren’t doing much but stumbling around near the walls of the old Union Tower . Once upon a time, that place had been one of the biggest banking centers on the planet. Now, it was just a place where some of the living held out and the dead wandered around, raving for someone to kill and eat.
    He knelt down very low, ducking his head until the scruffy weeds and shrubs that had grown out of the pavement and sidewalk in the intervening months broke up the lines of his body. What he needed were some small canisters of propane. He knew where some were stored in a small trucking firm about four blocks away. However, to get there he was going to have to make a move, and the clot of shamblers to his right was probably going to see him. They were going to get agitated and make some noise, that would get a lot more of them in a state, and they would zero in on him. He would be left to make a series of dashes to get to where he needed to be, but that was just something he’d have to do. Already the heat and humidity were getting to him. Sweat was tracing down his face, down his neck, down his back. It was going to be a long day, he knew.
    In addition, he wanted to check on Old Lady Hartwell and the kid who lived two blocks west. How either of them had survived, he didn’t know. In the case of the old woman, it had to be either pure blind luck, or maybe there really was a God and he was watching over her. Some of the things he had seen her get away with just didn’t make any sense at all. She didn’t have a gun, she couldn’t fight, and she couldn’t even walk fast. In fact, she didn’t quite seem to know what was going on, but somehow there she was every time Ron encountered her ; still alive.
    However, someone else was out there that Ron wanted to see first, so he stood and began to move quickly off to his left as fast as he could without actually running. The crepe soles of his combat boots made hardly a sound at all. Glancing back, he saw that the scores of dead folk had yet to spot him at all and there was a possibility , he’d get down to the next corner without them seeing him.
    Then , suddenly of course, there was the appearance of a shambler from out of the broken front of a jewelry store directly in front of him. The thing had been a big man in life and it was now quite the sight. He was a big ol’ boy , standing roughly six and a half feet tall in his bare, bloodied feet. What clothes remaining on him were in tarry tatters black with rotting gore from a hundred different feasts. However, none of that living flesh had satisfied it so far and as soon as it zeroed in on Ron, it gave out with a hoarse moan and set into a kind of stumbling trot.
    The deads seemed relatively harmless when you looked at them from a distance, but the thing was that they could move at a decent pace when they wanted to get you, and they never got tired. He didn’t understand why dead flesh could even move, and he certainly would never