Badlands Trilogy (Book 2): Beyond the Badlands Read Online Free Page B

watching the swarm of deadwalkers standing in his front yard and thinking of what to do next.
    A few moments later he heard a sound in the distance. “You hear that?”
    “Hear what?”
    He held up a finger and cocked his head. “I think I hear an engine.”
    “The guard!”
    Dave nodded.
    Annette furrowed her brow. “Well, look outside and see!”
    Dave poked his head through the small double-hung window and looked around. At the end of his street a camouflaged army truck headed their direction. “It’s them,” he said.
    “Flag them down!”
    Dave pushed himself out through the window until his belly rested upon the sill. He waved his arms wildly, yelling at the men in the truck. Below, carriers howled in response.
    The truck slowed as it neared the house, its engine growling as the driver downshifted through the gears. The carriers that weren’t interested in Dave’s yelling shifted their attention to the oncoming truck. When the truck came to a stop in front of their house, a man with blonde hair and a beard slid through the passenger window and sat upon the door, an automatic rifle in his hands.
    He pointed the barrel at the crowd of carriers in Dave’s front yard and opened fire. The infected charged the truck in a rage, only to be decimated by the onslaught of bullets. They fell quickly, the bodies piling up in the yard and around the truck.
    The blonde man spent the magazine taking down most of the walkers. Survivors wailed. After replacing the empty magazine, the man finished the job, leaving the front yard and the street littered with stinking corpses.
    Drawn by the machine gun’s chatter, carriers from inside the house stormed back outside, piling over the dead, only to be greeted by a steady stream of bullets. It took only minutes to take down the rest of the infected.
    “Need some help up there?” the blonde man called out.
    “Boy, are we glad to see you,” Dave said, smiling.
    “Hold tight,” the man yelled. “We’ll get you out.”
    Leaving the truck running, the driver got out. Carrying a smaller machine gun, he accompanied the blonde man. Thick, dark hair covered his head, a dark beard covered his face. The two men jogged up to the picture window and peered inside. They fired off a few more shots, taking down the remaining carriers still inside the house.
    Looking up from the yard, the dark-haired man called up to Dave. “Inside’s covered with bodies. We’re going to send a ladder up instead. Be ready.”
    Dave replied with a thumbs up gesture.
    A minute later the blonde man had a ladder against the house. Dave helped Annette out of the window and onto the ladder as the man steadied her on the way down. Dave followed. Moments later his feet touched the ground. He stood beside Annette, feeling relieved. “You don’t know how much we appreciate this,” he said. “We didn’t know how we were gonna get out of there alive.”
    The dark-haired man smiled.
    Then he seized Annette by the wrist, pulling her toward him and pinning her arm behind her back.
    Before Dave could react, he had a gun pointed at his head.
    He froze.
    “I wouldn’t do that,” the blonde man said from behind him.
    The dark-haired man wrapped a nylon zip tie around Annette’s wrists, binding them together in front of her. “I’m Calvin,” he told them, gripping Annette firmly by the arm. “We’re glad to have you two on board.”

Chapter Eight

    As the train traveled along the tracks toward Kansas City, Ed sat holding Zach on his lap. Trish sat next to him, tightly pressed into his side with Jeremy on her lap. They sat in the first open seat they found, near an older woman staring out the window in an almost catatonic state.
    Others sat around them, most silent. Around the passenger car, many seats still sat open. Too many, Ed thought. It reminded him of the lifeboats released partially filled as the Titanic began sinking, allowing so many to needlessly die in the frigid Atlantic ocean.
    Shortly after their