Affliction Z (Book 3): Descended in Blood Read Online Free Page B

dance.

Chapter 5
    Turk waited stock-still for thirty seconds while an unknown person aimed what he presumed to be a rifle at his back. The sun peeked through a hole in the gray clouds and glinted off the broken glass that lined the street. The humid air enveloped him. Sweat slid down the bridge of his nose, his forehead, and his cheeks. His soaked tank top clung to his body. The still air smelled of garbage, human waste, and stagnant water. While moving, Turk had been able to avoid noticing it. Now it overpowered his senses.
    Boots stomped the pavement behind him. There were two sets on the move, circling to the right and the left. Was that it? Or were there more? Would they keep their distance? Or was their plan to rush him from either side in an attempt to take him down?
    Turk inched his head to the right. The move extended his peripheral vision a good ninety degrees, allowing him to see almost directly behind himself.
    “Don’t move, boy!” The thick southern accent sounded as though it might belong to a guy trapped between teenager and adult. It was deep, but lacked power. And here he was calling Turk boy .
    Let him get close.
    The guy barked out commands. “Hold your arms out to the side. Drop to your knees. Lace your fingers together behind your head.”
    Turk remained silent, refusing to comply. Why should he? Intimidation tactics weren’t going to work. If the man intended to shoot him, he’d have done so already. The guy was trying to set up a hierarchy with himself on top.
    Fuck that.
    “You hear me, man?” The guy’s shoes hit the pavement, sounding as though he was making a straight line for Turk.
    One, two, three.
    The guy stopped. How close, Turk had no idea.
    “I heard you,” Turk said. “But without knowing who you are, I’m not really compelled to act on your commands.”
    The guy said nothing, but must’ve motioned to the other two, because they began approaching from the side. Their movements were out of sync. The guy on the left looped out a few feet, putting him in Turk’s field of view. He was tall and wiry with stringy brown hair that hung to his shoulders. He clung to a hunting knife, which he held in a defensive position across his chest. Turk pivoted his head to the right an inch or so. The other guy was the opposite of the first. Shorter than Turk, he had a rotund belly and bald head. His left hand shook as it clenched a pistol.
    Amateurs.
    “Ready to get down on your knees, boy?” the guy behind him said.
    “Fuck you.”
    “What?” The guy moved forward until the rifle’s muzzle pressed into Turk’s lower back.
    “That’s the wrong move,” Turk said.
    “Yeah, well, fuck you, bro .”
    At this point, Turk assumed there were only three men. If there were more, they’d have made their presence known in some way by now. Turk inched his head side to side. Skinny and Baldy were still more than six feet away.
    Baldy looked particularly shaky with the pistol in hand, as though in the old world he’d have pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, carrying it like was a dead mouse’s tail. That was the reality of life now. Survivors who were better suited to sit behind a computer screen punching keys were pressed into playing the role of soldier and protector.
    Turk figured Skinny and Baldy latched on to the dumbass behind him because the guy showed traces of leadership and signs of dominance. All three were scared of Turk.
    It showed in their faces.
    Their movements.
    Their actions.
    “Ready to bow to me, asshole?” the guy behind him said.
    “Nah,” Turk said. “But I’ll blow you.”
    “What the —”
    Turk spun to the left, toward Skinny, who clutched his knife. The move created a few more feet of distance between him and Baldy. Something told Turk the guy had never fired the weapon, and as such, his first shot would go wide.
    Turk’s left arm dipped behind his back and found the rifle barrel. He forced it down and away while searching for a grip on the weapon.