THEM (Book 0): Invasion by M.D. Massey Read Free Book Online Page A

that was there was no way of knowing when or if we’d be able to get through again. So, onto Option B, which was to sit tight and wait for my dad to load up whatever wheels he could find and get here. He would find a means of transport, that was for sure. So no dice. Him and my mom alone on the road, all the way from Austin to here? Uh-uh, no way, no how.
    That left Option C. Pack my shit and get my ass in gear. Action over reaction. Now, there was an option I could live with. I made my coffee and fried some eggs, heating some toast up on the burners and making some bacon as well. Once I’d fueled up and tossed back some aspirin for good measure, I loaded everything I needed into the Toyota and did a once-over around the place to make sure everything was locked down. First order of business was switching the solar system over to start charging the battery bank. No telling how long I’d be gone, and by the time I got back the power might be out for good, so I figured I may as well prepare for that contingency.
    It also meant putting the bear shutters on the cabin. My dad had decided to get them a few years back after black bear sightings started increasing in the Hill Country. Glad he did, because they’d do double-duty for fending off these‌—‌what, zombies? Living dead? I thought back to that guy I’d put down the night before, and how after I’d punched his ticket he was deader than dead.
    “Deaders,” I said to myself. That was as good a term as any, and it didn’t freak me out quite so bad to think it or say it. Well, at least that was settled.
    As for all my valuables, the gun safe would take a forklift to move and a blowtorch to cut through. No way anyone was getting what I had locked up in there. As far as the rest of my weapons and ammo‌—‌my real stock of SHTF stuff‌—‌that was all buried in caches all around the property and at my camps out in the sticks. Hell if I was going to be caught flat-footed during TEOTWAWKI. Screw that.
    I looked around the cabin and supposed I was ready as ever. Then I remembered Stumpy. He was sure to draw animals and Lord knew what else to the cabin. I definitely needed to dispose of him before I left. I wrapped him in an old plastic sheet, taped him up with duct tape, and laid him across the lowered tailgate of my truck, after securing my gear with cargo netting. I’d drop him in a ravine right off the road on my way out of town.
    I drove down the old cabin road and hit 336, stopping to lock the gate on the way out. I was about to drive off when I thought better of leaving it exposed. I cut some brush to hide the gate and that shiny brass and steel lock. It wasn’t perfect, but it’d do for a short time. Then I got in the truck and boogied off down the road, heading south for Highway 83.

    About a mile down the road I started running into trouble. Never mind the cars that had slowed me down on my first little excursion this way; I’d forgotten about that mob of “looters” that I’d seen coming up the road the day previous. Yeah, those looters turned out to be what looked like the entire population of Leakey, all milling up and down the road looking for somebody’s face to chomp on.
    They were all deaders. All of them.
    I figured out what they ate by observing several packs of them huddled around corpses like a school of piranha, tearing off bits of flesh and skin and fat with their teeth and hands. Those groups barely paid me any mind as I drove as fast as I could past them. However, if I slowed down too much I drew the swift attention of all those who did not have their own human snack pack to feed on. This resulted in my truck getting beaten on in a few instances, not to mention all the gore they left on the windows. Nasty.
    Before I even got to Leakey I could see that this wasn’t going to work. There were simply too many cars blocking the road, and too many deaders milling about to get through. I briefly considered just running them down, then I came