Undead L.A. 2 by Devan Sagliani Read Free Book Online Page B

knew how good I really had it, he realized. I just took it for granted that it was always going to be here. It all vanished in an instant!
    He saw the Owens family, who lived at the end of the block, but no sign of their teenage kids, Scott and Laurie. He saw Mr. and Mrs. Garcia, from right across the street, fighting with their next-door neighbors, the Campbells, over the gnarled carcass of Dexter, their beloved Siberian husky.
    The reality of that hit him hard in the chest. It felt like his heart was breaking as he looked out at their angry, bloated faces. They screamed in agony, driven by their hunger, and surrounded the vehicle, pounding fists and faces against the windows, biting at the glass.
    There's Jimmy, Tyler thought mournfully, the kid from up the block, along with his dad, James. He has on that shirt my mom always made fun of him for wearing; the oversized Hawaiian one with tropical drinks printed all over it. Mom used to say it looked like something a pregnant woman would wear. Dad said he was retired and it didn't matter what he wore. Mom said he must have retired the last of his self-respect, too. She said she didn't know how his wife put up with it. She said she would divorce Dad if he ever humiliated her like that. He smiled and said he would remember that in case he ever needed an out. She smirked at him.
    Tyler thought about his brother, Sean.
    I shouldn't have let him try to help me, he thought, slivers of guilt gnawing at his weary heart. If he hadn't left the house, he'd still be alive.
    Sean was only a year older, but he acted like he was in charge long before the zombie apocalypse happened. They'd shared a bedroom ever since their mom had found out she was having a girl.
    I hated it so much at the time, Tyler thought, with Sean always snooping around in my stuff, and asking me tons of personal questions about my relationship with Em, but looking back now it wasn't so bad.
    Truth be told, he'd learned a lot from him, not just about cars and sports, but also about girls. Sean had given him nearly all the sex advice he'd ever gotten, which made sense. His brother had been the first to show him a Playboy—one he’d “borrowed” from their father. Sean was supposed to go to UCLA in a few weeks. Everyone was so proud that he got in. Tyler had been looking forward to having the bedroom all to himself. He'd begun to plan out where he was going to put all his stuff once Sean was officially gone.
    Guess that's not happening anymore, Tyler thought. Mom was so proud, too .
    Tyler tried not to think about his parents for fear that the memory would overwhelm him, but images of them turning on him and his brother—the dead look in their empty eyes as they lunged for them driven by their raw hunger—came rushing back to him anyway. He wanted to remember their smiling faces, but all he could see was the rotting skin and dark blood caked in the corners of their blood-smeared mouths.
    I'll never forget the way they came at us like animals gone insane.
    They'd woken up to the sound of his annoying little sister’s screams coming from the living room. They'd both shot out of bed. By the time they reached the living room, their parents were already kneeling over their sister, Amy's, tiny body, shoveling her slick red insides into their open mouths. They were drenched in her bright red blood. Tyler didn't remember screaming, he just remembered the sound of it. He knew that it had been him, and not Sean, but somehow in the moment it didn't seem real. The creature that used to be his mom looked up, and bared her bloody teeth at him with a hiss. His dad turned around to stare at them, slowly getting to his feet.
    “Come on! Let's go!”
    Sean had pulled him by the shoulder back toward their room. He had locked Tyler in while he used his prized LA Kings hockey stick to put them down—the stick Dad had bought for him during the big championship game.
    Sean told me not to come out until he'd arranged the bodies, Tyler