Here We Stand (Book 2): Divided (Surviving The Evacuation) Read Online Free Page A

Helena said. “Hey! Can you hear me? Are you alive?” she called out. There was a moment of silence, then a faint knocking from inside the vehicle. Hope flared, but was almost immediately extinguished when the knocking grew erratic.
    “She’s turned,” Helena whispered.
    Tom walked over to the car. “The driver’s dead,” he said. “Long dead. At least a few days. There’s an empty pill bottle on the seat next to her.”
    “The RV, Tom,” Helena said. “We need to… to do something about the woman. We can’t just leave her.”
    “I know. I know,” Tom sighed. “I was looking for weapons.” He looked at the machete. Gore covered its handle. He wiped his palm against his leg and thought about how many zombies he’d come in close proximity to. He remembered what Dr Ayers had written on the whiteboard in her home: It’s not a virus . Did that mean that blood and brain matter weren’t always infectious?
    The knocking grew louder.
    Or did it just mean that he’d been lucky? No matter how good a streak was, luck always ran out.
    “We need weapons,” he said, walking over to the RV’s rear door. “And gasoline. Food, too. It’s all inside.”
    The knocking came again.
    “One minute they’re friends, allies, our saviors,” Helena said, coming over to help him pry the barbed wire away from the door. “The next, they’re corpses that we have to rob.”
    “Yeah. Go up to the roof. Distract her,” Tom said, “I’ll open the door and… and do the rest.”
    She grabbed at the ladder and climbed up. She stamped on the roof, and then bellowed down through the hatch. “I wanted to thank you,” she yelled. “An hour ago, you saved our lives. You said we should repay the favor, and this is the only way we can. I’m sorry. She’s underneath me, Tom. I can see her.”
    Tom hammered the machete into the lock. The door popped open. He took a step back. He saw the woman, the same one who had come to their aid, illuminated under the open skylight. Her front was covered in blood. Her face was almost unrecognizable.
    “Come on,” he said softly. “It’ll be over soon.” And even as the undead woman took a step toward them, he realized how wrong the words were. He raised the machete. It wouldn’t be over soon. Even if the zombies all suddenly collapsed, the memory of this would live on forever, tainting the past and coloring the future. She staggered toward him, her arms banging into the sides of the RV, knocking over items neatly stowed on shelves. She reached the door and toppled forward as she failed to manage the steps. The zombie landed face first on the cold ground. Tom brought the machete down, bringing a swift end to the zombie who’d been a person who’d done nothing but help strangers in need.
    There were no other bodies in the vehicle. That was a relief. Tom had been dreading the discovery of children. Dead or undead, he wasn’t sure which would be worse. They did find fuel.
    “That’s about sixty gallons,” Helena said. “And enough food for a week.”
    Tom picked up the rifle. “Three and half magazines, and another seventy rounds of ammo for a 9mm.” There was a spare pistol on the driver seat. There were also two boxes of shotgun shells, but no sign of the shotgun.
    “We’ll take enough gas to get us to the airfield,” Helena said. “We’ll leave the rest, most of the food, and the shotgun shells. We don’t need it. Someone else might.”
    Tom didn’t argue. It was a small offering, and utterly insufficient. He did take a small portable radio. They locked the RV, went back to the truck, and continued driving.
     

 
    Chapter 1 - No Admittance
    Clinton County, Pennsylvania
     
    “And you…. in California… ago?” a stuttering voice on the radio asked.
    Most of the reply was drowned out by same static that distorted the question.
    “Really? And what…?” the reporter asked. The signal was lost. Tom twisted the dial.
    “The seven seals are broken,” a man boomed. “The