Blood Alley Read Online Free

climbed over the wall there a few years back, when they had wanted to go exploring. He could go there and climb the wall. He could go climb the wall and disappear into the forest, lay back against a nice tree and wait for the disease to claim him. Hell, becoming a zombie would be far better than having your brains blown out by one of the militia and then having them burn your body in a pit.
    A loud banging on his front door interrupted Conner’s thoughts. The banging went on for a few seconds then stopped. The banging was then repeated a second time, followed by a voice shouting through door. “Open up, Militia.”
    “Shit, shit, shit!” Conner whispered as he sat up. “They’ve already found me.”
    He got up, ran into the kitchen and grabbed a dirty, butcher knife that was sitting in the sink. Holding the knife up he started back towards the door. “Not taking me without a fight.”
    “What the fuck am I doing? They’ll shoot me in the back of the head. My life, my terms,” he said as he dropped the knife and ran to the back of the apartment, down the hallway and into Alex’s room that faced the back street. He paused long enough to make sure there was nobody out back, then slipped open the window and dropped the four feet to the ground below.
    He stopped long enough to make sure that nobody was watching and then sprinted off.
    Conner knew the right thing to do would be to turn himself into the militia. He really did not want to infect anyone else. He did not want to bring this on others, but there was nothing he could do, there was no cure for Freddy’s. Or was there? Hadn’t one of the guys at the brickworks been talking about the old witch who lived down by the river? What had he been saying? Didn’t the guy say the old witch had made some concoction of herbs and plants that cured a friend’s brother or something like that? Didn’t he say that you had to get the medicine from her within the first couple of hours before it had a chance to take over your whole body? Maybe, Conner thought. Maybe he still had time.
    Without hesitation, Conner Witt took off towards the river.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    V
     
    Odysseus Pawlowski had been with the militia for over ten years now. He found it to be an easy job with plenty of benefits not available to regular citizens of the apocalyptic world. Most of the time, he just had to stand around doing nothing but telling other people what to do. He was very good at that part of the job.
    Pawlowski hated coming to the quarantine building. Working quarantine was the one job in the militia he did not like pulling. Quarantine was a thankless job, the detainees hated being placed in quarantine and made the job miserable on the guards assigned to work the building. The only time he liked to work to job was when one of the female detainees became amorous and made the shift pleasurable.
    Now, Pawlowski stood outside quarantine, a one-story, cinder-block building with bars on its windows huddled beneath the outer walls of the city, trying to decide if he was actually going to go in and find out how the zombie got out or if he might just go back and tell Captain Walters that he didn’t find anything.
    Duty eventually took over and Pawlowski walked up to the steel door and went into the building. The guard who normally sat at a tiny desk in the reception area was not at his post and the door leading into the cell block was wide open. The usual chatter amongst the detainees as they talked was also missing.
    Pawlowski walked up to the open doorway, drew his revolver, and peered down the dark hallway. Eight doors lined the hallway four to a side facing each other. The doors were made of metal and had a small viewing port at eye level that could be opened and closed to see inside the cell. Another latch at the base of the door allowed the guards to slide food through to the people inside the cell. At the far end of the hallway was a ninth door which opened into the guard’s