Dead Team Alpha: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Read Online Free Page A

standing straight and stretching. “Ration tickets are already gone.”
    “Son of a bitch,” Harmon says. “I’ll see if I can find his stash and get some of your tickets back.”
    “Don’t bother,” Val says. “The food’s better at the barracks.”
    “Hey, isn’t today the big day?” Harmon asks. “They pick the new Mates for DTA?”
    “Yep,” Val smiles. “Eight candidates . Just have to get through the Trials and I’m in.”
    “You’ ll make it, Val,” Harmon says. “If anyone was born to be part of that Team it was you. Lord knows you’ve had enough fighting experience with that asshole in there.”
    “Careful now, he’s still my dad,” Val says. “But, yeah, he’s a total asshole. Gotta run, Har.”
    “Good luck, Val,” Harmon calls out as he watches the young woman sprint off down the street. He turns back to the rundown house and growls. “Okay, you drunk fuck, let’s do this.”
     
    ***
     
    The Stronghold.
    Also known as Boulder, Colorado.
    Or was before Z-Day hit the world close to a hundred years ago and the dead started walking the Earth. No explanation, no warning, just one day corpses began to dig themselves out of graves, sit up in morgues, fight their way our of body bags and caskets. And they were hungry. Attacking the living and feasting off their flesh, the undead, the zombies, the Zs, multiplied quickly as the victims turned and became part of the undead ranks.
    That was a Sunday.
    By Monday evening, the world was lost and those still alive began their never ending fight to survive.
    Many survivors realized that running wasn’t an option and began to fortify their homes, their neighborhoods, their towns. Boulder was a city that decided the undead wouldn’t be allowed citizenship. They fought, they killed, they died, they endured until they were able to push the Zs back and take back most of the city.
    Now, so many decades later, they have the Stronghold locked down tight against the zombie hordes with a system of ditches, barricades, fences, razor wire nets, pits, and other various defenses, all stretched out before a massive wall.
    In the beginning, and for years after, they had power from solar, wind, and geothermal sources, but that’s all gone as parts, and expertise died out; remnants of a dead society left to live on in memories handed down from generation to generation.
    Val jogs past houses with wisps of smoke coming from their chimneys as they start stoves for the morning meal. Everyone gets up when the cock crows, ready to begin another day of work and duty, all to keep the Stronghold running and safe. Val waves at familiar faces and calls out to those that address her by name.
    Children rush out of front doors, wooden swords in their hands. They go at each other, emulating the Team Mates they have come to see as heroes. Val smiles, knowing she was once one of those children that wished to be part of the Teams.
    A Mate of Denver Team Beta One, Val Baptiste is in a hurry to get to the Team barracks, and be counted among the candidates for promotion to the elite Denver Team Alpha. Or, as it is commonly called because of the level of shit the Team gets thrown in, and the high casualty rate: Dead Team Alpha.
    But she has to make a stop first.
     
    ***
     
    “What?” Stanford Lee mumbles as he feels the hand jostle him over and over. “Go away.”
    “Someone’s at your door,” a voice says sleepily from his side.
    Stanford , twenty-two, tall, muscular, with blond hair like his cousin Val, but instead of brown eyes, he has ice blue ones, slowly pushes up from the mattress tucked into the corner of a bare room. He looks over at the naked young man in bed with him and frowns.
    “What’s your name again?” Stanford asks, feeling like his tongue is made of paste and glass. “Bongo?”
    “Benji,” the young man says, grabbing a fistful of blanket and rolling over, tucking it around his bare ass and legs.
    “Right,” Stanford says. “Benji. New Runner guy.