Decay: A Zombie Story Read Online Free Page B

tables still occupied with customers. They were all staring at the sickly man and whispering at one another.
    “Are you all right, sir?” I finally asked.
    Suddenly, he fell right out of his chair to the restaurant floor!
    “Paul!” I shouted and looked around at the customers as several of them gasped and stood up.
    “I’m calling 9-1-1!” shouted a man at another table.
    Paul came running out as Teddy watched from the kitchen doors.
    “What happened?” Paul shouted and knelt down next to the man. “Tara!” he shouted again.
    “Sorry,” I said. “I…I don’t know, he just fell. He threw up. I think he spit up some blood maybe. He’s not well.” I was frantic; I didn’t know what to do. But Paul did. “Okay, Tara, calm down. Go in the back and get the first aid kit. Hurry,” he said.
    I was unable to move. Then, out of nowhere, the seemingly disease-ridden man’s eyes opened. He got to his feet and bit Paul’s neck! He took a chunk right out of his throat!
    Paul fell to the side, screaming. Then, as customers began running to the nearest exit, the man started grunting—or moaning—and staring at me. Without giving it a second thought, I ran to the back of the restaurant. I ran past Teddy and to the coat racks, to retrieve my keys from my jacket.
    “Hold up, man!” Teddy shouted to the sick man.
    I heard a gargling scream and looked back. The man had tackled Teddy and was biting him, too. I could hear yelling from the dining room, the customers probably.
    The man left Teddy alone as he bled out on the floor and turned to face me. I was trapped in the hallway, with Teddy dying on the floor and this man stumbling towards me. I did the only thing I could and ran to the walk-in refrigerator. Immediately after going inside, I jammed the door handle with a broomstick.
    Then, with the screams softened but still audible, I sat down on a box of processed shredded cheese and cried.
     
     
    MIKE
    I opened my eyes slowly; the unfamiliar surroundings were fuzzy and dark. I moved my head around and heard the crunching sound of dead leaves beneath me. Once my eyes began to focus, I saw a silhouetted figure, a woman, standing over me, holding something.
    “Get up,” I vaguely heard her say. “Get up.”
    As I tried to stand up, I focused in on her. She was a young woman with short hair, dark clothes, and, most importantly, was wielding a shotgun.
    “Who are you?” I asked with barely enough strength to get the words out.
    It had become dark since I took my nap on the forest floor and I couldn’t see her face.
    “I’m Kelly,” she said and extended her hand to me. She helped me up and smiled at me. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “And not one of them .”
    I assumed she was talking about the people on the highway, the sick people. However, I didn’t know what to say to the comment, so I simply began the slow and painful process of getting to my feet. Scared that I might have broken something, I braced myself with my arms—bad idea. Turns out, I dislocated my right shoulder. As I tried to pick myself up, I fell flat on my face and ended up with a mouthful of those wonderfully crunchy and decayed leaves.
    Kelly helped me up, and having dealt with the same injury before in my tenure of racing, I showed her what to do, and she popped my shoulder back in place. I’m getting older now and the injury would likely cause me some lagging pain, probably for a few weeks.
    We made our way out of the woods quietly and tried to find somewhere safe from this chaotic nightmare. She led the way. While we walked, we told each other what we knew, which wasn’t much. I told her what I saw on the highway and briefly heard on the radio.
    Then she told me she thought it was a virus of some kind, a sickness that had spread through the area making people lose control. We both thought of terrorists, maybe something biological. That would explain the erratic behavior exhibited by the people on the highway.
    She seemed