The Zombie Chronicles - Book 2 (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) by Chrissy Peebles Read Free Book Online Page B

and though I felt nervous, I nodded. “Just don’t let go.”
    My brother rolled his eyes. “Have some faith in me, will ya?”
    When Nick and Lucas dropped me into the hole through the ceiling by my legs, my ankles hurt like crazy. Blood rushed to my head. I was sure I was gonna have a heart attack as they lowered me down. Though I reached out as far as I could, I still couldn’t touch the keys. “Lower!” I shouted.
    I glanced into the harvester. Jackie and Claire had rolled down the window and were firing at every zombie around me. Nick and Lucas lowered me a bit more, but instead of getting anywhere, I was clobbered on the head by some dead goon’s fist. I screamed and flailed my arms at them, but they kept trying to grab me. Lucas and Nick swung me by the legs, using the momentum to maneuver me closer to the key hook, like a human pendulum. Suddenly, my head collided hard with a zombie’s skull. The guy must have been seven feet tall. Lucky for me, my bone head knocked him down. My fingers curled around the key ring, and I snatched it off the wall.
    “ Got ‘em!” I shouted. “Pull me up!”
    “ Awesome!” Lucas said.
    As they slowly pulled me back up, the seven-foot zombie got back up, grabbed a fistful of hair on each side of my head, and started to pull my face toward his. His chattering mouth, dripping greenish bile, was just about to bite down over my nose, so I jabbed a key deep into his eye. He fell to the ground, shrieking, with several strands of my hair still clutched in his rotting fists. As I was hauled upward, the girls cheered, and I gave them two thumbs-up while clinging to the keys. It took a minute for me to comprehend that I’d just been hanging upside down like a bull in an abattoir. I had no idea what had possessed me to volunteer for such a thing.
    Lucas slapped me on the back. “Man, that was gutsy!”
    I held up the keys, dizziness washing over me. “Let’s just figure out a way to get to the harvester with the girls.” Dropping to my knees, I glanced around.
    Nick grabbed the keys from me.
    “ Hey!” I said.
    “ There’s no reason for you to go down there again if that harvester won’t even start up,” he said. “I’ll go check it out. Just cover me.”
    Lucas dropped a pile of dead rats at my feet. “Look what I found.”
    “ What the heck?” I asked, disgusted.
    “ Check this out!”
    He grabbed one by the tail and threw it down on the other side of the room. Straightaway, the zombies ran over and started fighting over the rodent. Lucas threw more while Nick fired a few shots. All the zombies swarming by the harvester door dropped one by one as I squeezed off one headshot after another. Nick jumped down into the room as Lucas and I shot any zombie that dared to get within a three-foot radius of him.
    Jackie and Claire covered him as well, then opened the door. I sighed in relief when I saw Nick rush inside, glad that his crazy plan hadn’t gotten him killed—and that it might have just saved all of our lives.
    A humming sound filled the air, and my eyes widened. Yes! The harvester works! Before the zombies rushed in, Jackie and Claire had removed the rotating paddles and elevated the deck blade a few feet. The girls were smart, and that was another thing I liked about them. The teeth on the machine looked exactly like the giant teeth on a Megaladon shark, two rows moving back and forth like scissors.
    Nick rolled down the window and waved us over to him.
    Lucas and I threw down every dead rat we could find as a temporary distraction; it worked well. While the zombies were distracted by their rodent treats, we jumped down. The others nailed any zombie that got too close, enabling Lucas and I to rush over and squeeze into the harvester cab. A wave of relief washed through me. Nothing made me happier than seeing Jackie’s face.
    Claire leaned over and locked the door, and then Jackie put the machine into drive. We jerked into motion, and soon were lumbering