After the Fall (Book 1): Outside Read Online Free Page A

same as before. He could easily imagine he was returning to Leeds after a nice holiday by the sea. Just the normal world… Until you looked closely.
    The traffic lights that didn’t light.
    The large number of cars left on the side of the road, overturned in ditches, or ended into lampposts.
    The grass spurting through the cracks in the tarmac and the pavements.
    The cracked windows in the buildings.
    And, strangest and yet most prevalent, th e feeling ; a deep down knowledge in his being that things weren’t right anymore. A darkness…
    After twenty minutes or so of slow driving they turned off the main road. Here, more cars were lined up, abandoned, crashed.
    “Don’t look too close in the windows,” said Marcus. “There’s a load of them trapped. It’s not pretty.”
    Jack did look though. They passed closed to a large articulated lorry. Through the window was a skeletal figure, gnawing uselessly at the glass. Jack’s heart beat heavily and a nervous twitch in his lip fired into life. He never knew he had this twitch until three months ago. He didn’t know why he was so scared of the zombies.
    “You ok man?” said Marcus.
    Jack managed a smile and tried to breath deeply without it looking like he was breathing deeply.
    “It’s ok to be a little scared you know,” said Marcus. “I near shit myself first time I came out.”
    “Really?”
    Marcus nodded, his young face carrying an ambivalence that wasn’t usually seen until one reached their forties.
    “Ok. Well, yeah, I’m scared.” Jack let out a laugh, it fell weak and dead in the still air.
    “Don’t worry, you’ll be good.” Marcus turned round to look behind him as the truck slowed to take a right turn. “We’re here, you see it?”
    Marcus pointed to an area of many large metal warehouses, their signage still lively, calling out to customers that would never come . Drew Hardware, Animal Feed World, Boat and Sea, The Gas Man - Suppliers to the Trade.
    Marcus smiled at Jack. “Like I said, you’ll be good. Easy as pie.”
    The truck pulled off the road and through the gates of Tulloch Building Supplies into an empty car park. The store itself was a large corrugated building with a wide glass front entrance. Plain and functional.
    The rain picked up. A trickle of water seeped in through Jack’s helmet and down the back of his neck.
    Him and Marcus jumped off the back of the pick up. Marcus automatically ran a few feet from the truck, holding his axe ready to strike, and quickly turned through 360 degrees, scanning the area.
    “Look for movement of any type,” he said. “Sometimes you just see them as shadows, and next thing you know they are on top of you. Worst thing you can do is assume it’s just a cat, or a dog. Most of the time it is, but when it isn’t…”
    Simon and Ash got out of the truck. They left the doors open and the keys in the ignition.
    “Don’t make too much noise,” said Simon in an even voice. “They got good hearing.”
    Simon carried his baseball bat, and Ash had what looked like a long survival knife, the type they used to show on the front of survival magazines.
    Ash walked away from the truck and stared at the store. Beyond the glass frontage it was dark and uninviting. The glint of tools and the dull steadiness of piles of breeze blocks for sale stood in silence behind the windows.
    “How you doing Jack?” she said. “Easy so far?”
    Jack nodded, now getting strangely used to the constant anxious buzz in his body.
    “What are we looking for?” said Simon.
    Ash took a piece of paper out of her pocket. “The shopping list.” She half smiled. “Concrete mix, wooden posts, barbed wire, any sort of fence wire, sledgehammers…”
    “Looks like we’re building a fence,” said Marcus.
    Jack nodded. “There are still a good few gaps need plugging. Covered with trees and crap at the moment. Will keep them out for now, but a big storm, passing of time, who knows.”
    “Well, whatever the reason, we