The Living Dead Series (Book 2): World Without End by L.I. Albemont Read Free Book Online Page B

room during the day and on weekends. No opportunity had ever arisen to meet him or her and their name remained a question mark.
    Today, thought Bea, I finally meet the neighbors. Brian said he saw the driver return yesterday afternoon with a few bags of groceries but hadn’t seen him since.
    “Do you want to come with me?” Bea asked while pulling on her oldest, most comfortable hiking boots. “I shouldn’t be gone that long and they might not even let me in.”
    “No, I’ll stay here. You should take one of the revolvers though.”
    She opened her mouth to say that was ridiculous then stopped. He was right.
    “Good idea. Lock up behind me and if I don’t come back, though I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t, call Evan. Promise?” She reluctantly put a revolver in her pocket.
    The air outside smelled like smoke and she saw what looked like gray feathers on the snow. She knew parts of the city were on fire but hadn’t expected smoke and ash to drift this far. The wind still blew and clouds, heavy with snow, were beginning to bank in the western sky. She crunched across the yard and went around the side of the house to the front door and rang the doorbell.
    No one answered. She looked through the window but only saw a staircase and part of a wool rug on a polished wooden floor. An umbrella stand had been overturned and umbrellas and canes lay scattered. Maybe everyone was in the back. She rang again and heard the sound echo inside.
    The setting sun pierced through the gathering clouds and briefly illuminated the windows along the west side of the house. The gutters back here were sagging and probably full of ice. The lovely, old, Greek-key frieze had cracked and pulled away from the house and the paint on the eaves was peeling. A glass-paned door to the back porch was ajar but no one was in the room. She called out hesitantly.
    “Hello? Is anyone here?” She stepped inside and felt immediately warmer just getting out of the wind. No one answered her call. She walked through a pair of French doors and into what must be a family room. The rugs and curtains in here were moth-eaten and the room smelled faintly of mold but it was uncluttered and welcoming with wood laid for a fire in the small fireplace.
    Next came a kitchen that looked like nothing in it had been changed since the nineteen-fifties. The cupboards were metal as were the countertops, the sink white porcelain. Again everything was clean but behind the glass cleaner she smelled something else and heard a whirring, bumping sound, as if something mechanical were winding up and then stopping, over and over again. Cautiously she inched toward the sound and walked through partially closed double doors into what looked like the dining room.
    An empty motorized wheelchair bumped and reversed repeatedly against a polished mahogany table that held a place setting for one. Red sauce covered the plate and had spilled onto the table. Bea looked down.
    The driver and nurse knelt on the rug, holding chunks of meat and entrails in their hands as they chewed hungrily. That wasn’t red sauce on the table after all. Their employer, what was left of her (Bea spotted an ivory leather shoe lying next to the curtain) was scattered across the table, wheelchair and floor. A rib cage and spinal column, mostly stripped of flesh, were pushed against the wall.
    Shocked and unable to take in what she was seeing she must have made some sort of sound because they both looked up. Their chewing slowed and they dropped the bloody lumps they held and got to their feet. Bea backed toward the doorway.
    They followed. The driver hissed as he limped toward her, making uncoordinated grabbing motions with both arms. The nurse, her throat torn out and one arm hanging by mere shreds of flesh was slower but just as eager. Bea did what every stupid co-ed in horror movies did. Unable to take her eyes off her pursuers, she stumbled and fell.
    Turning around she scrambled to her feet but the driver