Wild Strawberry: Book 3 Ascent by Trevor Donnelly Read Free Book Online Page B

died.
                  The first of the crowd ran headlong into the back corner of the car as Danniella completed her turn, and started to speed away.
                  Looking in her rear view mirror she saw the creature run at full speed, untiring, unstoppable.
                  “We may just be a bit more fucked than we thought we were!”
                  “Dan,” Arlene said with a drawl, “I thought we were just about as fucked as it was possible to be; don’t tell me it’s worse.”
                  Danniella laughed, “I think it just might be.  We thought the zombies would be frozen.  We knew it wouldn’t be complete, but we’d hoped the ice would slow them down: make them clumsy and brittle.  Any creatures wandering around outside have been affected.  They are easy.”
                  “I think ‘easy’ may be overstating it,” objected Siobhan.
                  “Okay, whatever,” Danniella was peering intently for any sign of danger as she spoke, “the point is that any of those bastards who are lurking indoors are pretty much unaffected, which would simply be a pain in the arse, except that indoors is where we are all going.”
                  They pulled into the Salvini Trading Estate.
                  They drove slowly and looked at the large board which gave a map of the estate along with a list of companies within it.
                  “This could be good,” said Will excitedly, “we’ve your scientific instruments, we’ve a hardware warehouse, a security firm, and a postal depot.”
                  “What’s so great about security and the post office?” Asked Arlene.
                  “Both are going to be bloody secure and full of interesting stuff.”
                  “Well then, let’s get started.”
                  Danniella drove the car into the middle of the estate and beat out a loud tattoo on the car horn.
                  It beeped a cheery rhythm that she hoped would say to any living occupants that ‘here are a bunch of people in good spirits who can take you somewhere relatively safe.’  It would also let any zombies lurking in the area know that living, breathing, thinking fresh and juicy survivors were available for lunch.
                  Whether any living heard the sound they did not know, but the undead certainly started to appear, shambling from behind the few scattered vehicles in the car parks, and running from several buildings.
                  “Game on,” hissed Arlene,
                  The industrial estate was built around a long circular road.  Danniella drove around the circle, still pumping the car horn so more and more creatures were tempted to join the chase.
                  The aim was to empty the estate of zombies, lure them as far away as possible, then double back to explore the unoccupied buildings at their leisure.
                  They would repeat the luring.  The first time they would just pump the horn from the road; the next time, they would drive closer to the buildings to encourage any monsters that remained inside.
                  “You do know where this whole plan falls down don’t you?”  Tina said from the back seat.
                  “Do I want to hear this?” Asked Will.
                  “Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” Tina had to raise her voice to be heard over the constant cacophony of the horn. “This will get most of those fuckers from the buildings for sure, but I reckon we’ll also attract any creatures within a mile.”
                  Danniella stopped beating the car horn. “Now that you come to mention it, it’s obvious.  Why didn’t we think of this before now?”
                  “Let’s