Zompoc Survivor: Exodus by Ben S Reeder Read Free Book Online

turned back to the window.
    “Alright, pick it up once we make it through the intersection,” I told her. She ran the blinking red light and hit the gas as we crossed the deserted street. Streetlights lit patches of road, but long stretches were dark as we drove toward Battlefield. Gunshots peppered the silence, and in the distance, I could hear the rhythmic thump of a helicopter’s rotors. Off to my left, I heard a single scream pierce the night before it was cut off.
    Safe for the moment, I unslung the assault rifle and the two pistol belts, then pulled my backpack off and dug my sweatshirt out for a little protection from the chill in the October air. With it on, I stood up and leaned against the back of the cab. The cool air blew through my hair and I took a moment to process what I’d learned. Shooting the infected wasn’t enough to stop them. Only headshots put them down for good, and even that was a maybe. Even more frightening, I had watched dead men get back up and move. Diseases weren’t supposed to affect dead people. I considered and rejected the idea that they weren’t dead. One of the National Guardsmen that I’d seen had been missing too much of his throat to have survived, and none of the people that they’d shot should have been able to get back up. Ergo, this was no disease. It worked like one at first, yes, but after a certain point, it stopped working like any disease or virus and started working like something else entirely. My brain rejected the word that came to mind next, but as Porsche drove down the darkened road ahead of us, I forced myself to accept it.
    Zombies. The Asura virus or whatever it was turned people into cannibalistic zombies. I was right in the middle of the fucking zombie apocalypse.

Chapter 5
    Oaths and Anticipation
    It is easy to make promises - it is hard work to keep them. 
    ~ Boris Johnson ~
                  We rounded another curve in the road and Porsche slowed down. Ahead of us was the burning wreck of a sports car that had hit a minivan in the middle of the intersection of Battlefield and Jefferson. Battlefield was a four lane road that ran past the only mall in Springfield, so I’d expected some traffic there, but the wreck complicated everything by closing off the lanes heading east. A few cars were backed up on Jefferson, and I could only guess at how far back Battlefield was jammed up. I crouched back down.
    “Take a right into the Kum’N’Go parking lot,” I said. “There’s a service road that goes further back. Stay on it until you pass the thrift store.”  She nodded and took the right. The convenience store was dark and empty as we passed it, and I glanced at the fuel gauge on her dash as we passed the gas pumps. She had just over a quarter of a tank, hopefully enough to get us to where we needed to go, and maybe a bit more. Now all we had to do was find a way to get there.
    As she made her way through the parking lot, I dropped down to sit in the bed of the truck and pulled my flashlight out of my backpack to take a look at the rifle I’d picked up. It looked like it had seen some wear, but nothing rattled or looked like it was going to fall off. When I’d been in the Air Force, we’d learned how to shoot the M-16A2. I’d even managed to qualify for the Marksmanship ribbon when I shipped to Iraq. It had been a few years since I’d handled one, but I remembered the basics well enough to drop the magazine and reload a new one. I pulled the charging handle to make sure it wasn’t jammed, then flipped it over to look at the fire selector. Like the M16A2, this one had three positions: “Safe”, “Semi” and “Burst”. I set it for semi to conserve ammunition, then ran the light over the rest of the gun. With the telescoping stock and flat receiver top, it looked like I’d grabbed an M4 carbine. It had a short scope mounted on it, and when I looked through it, I could see the illuminated reticle. With that, I’d be able to make