DEAD (Book 12): End Read Online Free

body would slide back down the embankment. She, Paddy, and the others had been on the move since before sunrise. For over two weeks they had done nothing but observe. Dolph and his wanna-be Nazis numbered over a thousand. Yet it was clear that only one person gave orders. It was history repeating itself.
    It did not seem possible that one person could be responsible for so much destruction. Yet, down below was a testament. Of course, this man Dolph had found a way to utilize the zombies as his own private army.
    He did so by grabbing a few of the undead (over a hundred if what Vix had heard or seen was any indication) and then fitting them with backpack-sized devices that made an incredible racket. From what they could tell, he obviously had quite a few in reserve. If he needed to re-direct the horde, he would simply move to a location and release one. Once he activated the pack, he used prisoners to lure the zombies wherever he wanted them to go.
    “Looks like your little island did not fare well,” Paddy whispered.
    When Vix had seen for herself that New England had fallen, she went numb. It had simply been a matter of the bodies building up to the point where the fallen made a ramp for those who still moved. The zombies had washed over the walls like a tidal wave of undeath.
    Using binoculars, she had scanned for any signs of life and come up empty. She heard Chaaya weeping and glanced over at the woman. Losing her lover had hardly elicited a response; yet, here she was now, crying and near hysterics.
    “Shut her up,” Gable hissed.
    Seamus moved over next to the woman and his low rumbling whisper came almost like the buzz of a bumblebee. Chaaya’s sobs receded to hiccupping gasps, but at least she had quieted down. Vix looked down the line at the others. She saw the same look on their faces that she felt: defeat.
    It had seemed so grand as they all sat around the campfire and tossed out the different ways they would stop this maniac. Yet, every day was more of the same. They would look upon the destruction created by the army as they would happen upon some encampment or another…and do nothing.
    Now they were where the River Medway met the Channel. The Isle of Sheppy was lost. New England was gone.  A decade of rebuilding wiped out in days. Hundreds of the living torn apart or joining the ranks of the undead.
    “Bugger this!” Vix spat.
    She started to get up and felt a hand yank her back down. “Stay put,” Paddy whispered.
    “What was the point of all this?” Vix argued.
    “Point?” Paddy almost laughed, but the look on the woman’s face made him pull it back. He knew well enough how her temper could flare and did not wish to add any fuel to it at the moment. “There stopped being a point to things when the first dead body sat up and took a bite out of the closest living person it could find. It is not about points, lassie. It is about staying alive.”
    “What happened to stopping this army?”
    “It is not as easy as just wishing it to be so. We are only able to act within our own limitations. That madman has gathered followers in numbers that we can’t hope to stand against.”
    “How many of them are doing so willingly?” Vix insisted.
    They had gotten close two days ago when Dolph’s mob rolled into a small, walled village. They hit fast and were scaling the walls before the alarm had even been sounded. By the time the people of that little hamlet managed to mobilize, it was past too late.
    Vix and the others had watched as several of the citizens were either hung or exposed to the bite of a zombie and tossed into a cage on wheels that reminded Vix of the old circus train cars from the black and white films she watched with her husband back in what seemed like another lifetime. That cage held the supply of zombies fitted with the noise packs. After everything of value was stripped, people were apparently given the choice of joining or death. Not surprisingly, many joined.
    “I would guess