The Week of the Dead by Viktor Longfellow Read Free Book Online

“Devin!”
    “Well, how’s your day going, Son?” Stephen asked Devin as he bolted the door shut with all his might.
    “What are you doing here, Uncle?” Devin asked as he checked his ammunition.
    “I came here to check on your mom. What are you two doing here?”
    “Same thing, where are they?” Devin asked inquisitively.
    “I don’t know. I figured she was here. Where would she be? Who is this young lady?” Stephen said as he eyed Erica in her demin jumpsuit.
    Erica returned the stare at the midfifties’s man standing against the door in his Tennessee Volunteers Polo shirt. “Uncle Stephen, this is…,” Devin paused. He couldn’t find the right word for Erica.
    “My name is Erica. We used to work together at the junkyard.” Erica finished Devin’s sentence as she stepped forward.
    “Well, aren’t you just a cutie?” Stephen commented as he tried to get Erica’s dimensions from outside her baggy denim jumpsuit.
    “You gotta watch out, Erica. My uncle is a bit of a hound dog,” Devin said as he grabbed Stephen’s shoulder and shared a hug with the old man in orange.
    “Well, this isn’t my house, so you’re more than welcome to stay,” Stephen said.
    “Do we still have power?” Devin asked.
    “Yeah, but I haven’t turned on any lights ’cause I figured those fuckers would see us. What do you think?”
    “I don’t know. We came for supplies. I didn’t know where else to go. I got a strange message from a friend’s cell phone. It gave me directions to this place in Kentucky. It said he was safe and that we should bring friends,” Devin explained to Stephen.
    “Yeah, you’re willing to truck across a couple of states to go hang out with some weirdo who used text messaging during a crisis? Yeah, that sounds like a fine plan!” Stephen said sarcastically.
    “Well, it was the first offer. Got any other ideas?”
    “Yeah, stay here, and make sure none of these fuckers eat me or take my beer,” Stephen said as he sat on the couch on the opposite side of the room.
    “I was taught that if I was ever in a situation where I needed to stay long, it should be easily defensible. This house isn’t defensible. There are no fences, no barbed wire, and no food. Did you open the gun safe yet?”
    “Hell no, this isn’t my house. What’s in there?”
    “Well, I’m hoping the guns are still there.” All three of them walked over to the stand-up gun safe that the small television rested upon. With a spin of the numerical dial and an unlocking of the mechanism, Devin let the door naturally swing open. Inside were two handguns, a .270 lever action with a scope, and an automatic 12 gauge shotgun and a note attached to the rifle. Erica was the first to notice it. She turned to Devin and Stephen. “What does it say?” Stephen asked.
    “It says she took HR to the hospital,” Erica said as she handed the note to Devin.
    Devin read it furiously. As his eyes scanned the page, he became flushed, and his eyes began to water. “She knew I would come here,” Devin said as he passed the note to Stephen.
    “Wait, so she left you a note in the gun safe because…?” Stephen said as he began to read the letter.
    “She took the peashooter,” Devin explained.
    “That old rusty gun?” Stephen asked as he gave the gun locker another look around. “I cleaned it before I went to prison. It works fine. She took a box of rounds for it. We have to go after her,” Devin said as he started toward the door.
    “No way, kid! Not going to happen. Do you know what the hospital is crawling with? Those fucking things! I don’t understand why she thought she could go to the hospital,” Stephen said as he held Devin from opening the door. Devin turned to the front of the house. After a tearful stare out of the kitchen window, Devin motioned for them to come to the window. “She didn’t make it to the hospital.”

A Knight in Shoulder Pads
    Chapter 12
    Monday 1045 EST
    Philadelphia
    H arrison and little Paul