The Rising Dead by Devan Sagliani Read Free Book Online Page B

Border hellhole as he'd ever seen. It was perfect for what he was looking for. He'd picked his apartment complex very carefully, with several criteria in mind. It was a run down flop house filled with burnouts and rowdy college students who partied day and night. The rent was dirt cheap. If something broke you either fixed it yourself or learned to live with it. The landlord looked like the cousin of one of the guys he'd spent the last few years hunting down and killing. He spoke almost no English and refused to live on site. The kids had nicknamed it the Thunderdome. Cops didn't even bother responding to calls unless there were shots fired and sometimes not even then. Gunner fit right in. Most of the tenants were scared shitless of him and left him well alone.
    His unit was directly above an unused storage area with a steel door. Gunner promptly walled it up then rigged it with explosives for good measure. Next he paid a bunch of day laborers to tear out a hole in his bedroom floor and tunnel down to it. He let them keep what they found down there, which mostly amounted to valuable scrap. He sealed up the passage with a set of padlocked steel door. He kept the key around his neck at all times. He slid his bed back over it. No one ever asked him what he was building. No one asked him anything.
    He'd managed to stash all sorts of freeze dried and canned food, protein bars, weapons, water, medical supplies, guns and ammo -everything he could ever want or need, right under his ratty ass apartment. So while everyone else was scrambling around looking for gas or water, stuck on the road in traffic, or fighting in parking lots over the last pack of Twinkies on the planet, Gunner would be safe and sound with his backup generator humming. He had enough resources to keep up to ten people alive for the duration of an extended emergency. He'd installed a few cameras as well, so he could see what was happening, who was coming for him. Most of them were on the inside of his apartment but a couple were strategically placed around Thunderdome hallways. It was hard to disguise them and the idiot kids who partied there would likely destroy them in a drunker stupor for sport if they noticed them. He mocked up one as a broken fire alarm and another as a sprinkler set into the ceiling.
    He'd had nightmares about being forced down into the command center by nuclear war. It was one of the few things that scared him anymore. Once or twice a week he'd dream about seeing a blast of light and a mushroom cloud off in the distance towards California, heading his way. Over time the nightmares had come to be a relief of sorts, since usually when he closed his eyes all he saw was his last day of combat.
    I should have died there in Iraq , he thought. My ghost should be wandering in that desert, not this one.
    They said his memory would come back in time, but they didn't warn him about the vivid dreams that would come along with it. He'd been woken up by nightmares for years: him chained to a bed while doctors injected things into him, then running in the desert, his buddies being gunned down all around him while leaking rockets blazed past him in the night--covering his skin with a slick oil that left him burning and itching all over, nearly paralyzing him.
    The dreams always ended the same way with the air rushing past him as the first wave of rockets hit the ground about a mile beyond--and then exploding, lighting up everything and turning night into day. Every single time, without exception, he woke up drenched in sweat, screaming, clutching the gun he kept under his pillow tightly in his right hand. After the third “new” girlfriend in a row left, he'd stopped dating altogether. It was probably for the best. One less person to look out for also meant one less person to bear the loss of when the shit eventually hit the fan.
    The biggest part of him died back there in the desert. Gunner knew that all along. The person he was now--walking, talking,