Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde by Devan Sagliani Read Free Book Online

imagine how screwed we'd all be if
that were the case?” Benji patted Sam on the shoulder and walked to my side.
    Joel gave me a guarded look and I turned and walked on.
Neither of us spoke about our scuffle but I knew I didn't plan on letting my
guard down around him any time soon. He was faster than I had thought he would
be. Sooner or later we were going to butt heads again. It was just a matter of
time. I was seriously hoping we could go our separate ways once we got into the
city. After all, there was no reason for him to follow us all the way to
Hueneme. And he had Tom to keep him company.
    The first chance I get, I've got to ditch him, I
thought. The sooner the better.
    We came to a fork in the road where the freeway became an
overpass as it intersected another highway. A curl of fog wrapped over the bank
giving it an eerie feeling. There was something in the way up ahead, something
big and still. It was way too large to be a zombie but even from a distance I
got the feeling it wasn't going to be good.
    “What is it?” Benji whispered.
    “Only one way to find out,” I replied.
    I unsheathed my sword and carefully sauntered forward. Joel
followed close behind me, then Tom, Benji, and last, Sam. There was an orange
street lamp overhead illuminating the object. The fog drifted away by the time
I was ten feet from it to reveal a large deer laying on its side with its
throat ripped out. Dark blood pooled onto the ground around it. Foot prints
dragging through the blood led away into the dust on the side of the road.
    “What did this to it?” Benji looked stumped.
    “From the looks of those foot prints I'd say it was a
zombie,” I suggested.
    “Nonsense,” Joel chimed in. “There is no way a deer would
let one of those undead things get this close to it, let alone stand there
while it tore its throat out.”
    “It doesn't make any sense, man,” Tom agreed, obviously
trying to diffuse the tension between us.
    “Maybe it was wounded,” I said.
    “Or sleeping,” Benji added.
    “It's a mystery,” Tom agreed.
    “First the helicopter and now this,” Joel said sounding
exasperated. “What's next?”
    Almost as if on cue Sam let out a blood curdling scream that
ripped through the night. We turned and saw that something had attached itself
to his leg. It was a zombie that had been cut in half, a crawler. It had snuck
up over the side of the embankment and taken him by surprise, wrapping its arms
around Sam's tiny leg and pulling itself in for a bite. It all happened so fast
there was nothing we could do. Sam wailed in pain like a siren.
    Joel lunged toward him and kicked the twisted corpse off Sam
with his combat boot. It rolled helplessly on its back trying to flip itself
over. Blood covered its dark mouth as broken teeth snapped at the air like some
kind of swamp creature straining for its last meal.
    “It's getting back up,” Tom yelled, shaking me out of my
state of shock. As quickly as I could, I ran over and cut its head off,
separating the brain stem from the body. Instantly it went still like a deadly
toy with its battery removed. Sam fell on the ground and began examining his
bite mark with shaking hands. We all gathered around him.
    “That thing came out of nowhere,” Benji said.
    “Let's have a look at that wound,” Joel said. Sam had been
pulling the skin to show the blood oozing out. He moved quickly to cover it up.
    “It's not that bad,” he said.
    “Does it hurt?” Tom asked.
    “It stings a little bit,” Sam volounteered. “But I'll be
fine.”
    For a kid who was crying about his feet being sore, he
sure got tough all of a sudden , I thought.
    The truth was that he wasn't going to be fine. He was
infected and there was nothing in the world we could do about it. Every second
that passed brought him closer to his fate of transforming into a mindless
killing machine with an insatiable appetite for living flesh.
    No one said anything for a long time. We just exchanged
looks and stood