The King of Clayfield - 01 by Shane Gregory Read Free Book Online Page B

leave right then, and I almost did, but I'd promised her I'd come. Just inside, there was an opening to the right, which led into a small dining room, and behind that, the kitchen. There was a laptop on the dining room table, open. Next to it was a coffee cup with the string of a tea bag hanging out of it. One of the   chairs was overturned, and there was a pile of human excrement on the floor next to it.
    I entered the living room,   and tried the switch by the door. No power there either. I went around the foldout bed to the other doorway. There was a bathroom in front of me and a bedroom on either side. All of the doors were open, and there was no one inside.
    Both of the bedrooms were a mess, but the one on the left was worse.   The dresser was turned over and leaning against the bed.   The floor was littered with clothes and cash. I stepped in and looked around. I saw a stain on the wall that I presumed to be blood. I hadn't got there in time to help.
    I went over to the dresser and righted it against the wall. The top drawer hung open,   and women's underwear   spilled   over the side. I started pushing them back into the drawer,   when I heard movement in the closet.
    I held my stick up.
    "Hello?" I said.
    No response.
    I stepped closer.
    "Jen?"
    Silence.
    Then the   bottom of the closet door exploded outward, and the lamp on the nightstand by the bed shattered. I peed myself   a little.
    "Jesus!" I said, falling backward over the corner of the bed.
    "Get back!" said a woman's voice from the closet.
    "Jen?" I said. "I've come to get you."
    The long barrel of a shotgun eased out of the bottom half   of the   splintered closet door   followed by Jen's face. Her eyes were red, her hair was tangled, and she was shivering.
    I pulled down   the dish towel from my face, so she could see who it was.
    "You came," she whispered. Then she lifted her gun at me. "Are you sick?"
    "No," I said.
    She disappeared back inside, and then the door opened. She stepped out with a shotgun in one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other.
    Her brow furrowed, "Whatcha doing with those?"
    I looked down to see what she was talking about. I was holding a pair of her panties.

 
    CHAPTER 7
     
    I dropped the   underwear and looked up at her. She was still staring at me like she was expecting an answer.
    "We've got to go," I said, stepping past her to the bedroom window. "That   gunshot will probably attract them."
    She just stood there swaying;   her gaze had shifted to a million miles away.
    "It's been hell," she said in a hoarse whisper.
    I could see three men at the corner of the street,   two houses away.
    "They're coming," I said. I grabbed her arm to lead her out, but she wouldn't move.
    "I'm so drunk," she said, continuing to stare.
    "Have you been infected?" I said.
    She shrugged.
    I took her shotgun and bottle. She didn't resist. I stepped back to the window. The trio   was still at the corner, but they would notice   the noise of the Blazer's engine.
    When I turned back, she was sitting on the bed.
    "I'm so damn drunk," she said again. This time she put her head in her hands and started bawling.
    "We can talk about that in the car," I said. "Let's get some clothes for you."
    "Zach...oh God...He just lost it," she said through the sobs.
    I propped the shotgun against the wall, and set the tequila beside it. There was a   duffle bag by the closet. I put it on the bed   and started filling it with the clothes from the floor. There were three or four hundred dollars in tens and twenties scattered on the floor, too. I   grabbed as   many as I could.
    "I was trying to pack some stuff after I   read your message," she said. "Zach got sick, that asshole.   God, he was such an asshole..."
    I   looked out the window again. They were headed in our direction.
    "They're really coming now, Jen, we have to go."  
    She just kept sitting there.
    "...as soon as he said he had a headache, and I mean the   very second he said he