Invasion of the Dead (Book 3): Escape Read Online Free Page B

had heard from a man in Yass that people were gathering there to make the crossing. Bass Strait was a treacherous body of water though, and whoever made the trip would require a competent person to skipper the boat. Jacob held little hope of finding someone, but that didn’t deter him from the notion.   
    He looked into the side mirror for the tenth time just to make sure the battered four-wheel drive was still following. It was there, some distance behind, dusty red, cracked windscreen, two men peering at them through the glass. Four of them. Four out of twenty-two. They’d lost some of the finest people Jacob had ever known. Monica, Arty, Gary Edney, and of course, his good mate Samuel. The thought of the way he went out sent a shiver up Jacob’s neck. Sure, some of them had to have survived, but who knew where they had gone. John and Sandy; their children, Greg and Amelia. Stuart, the butcher. He could go on, but knew it did no good. It just happened that the two that made it weren’t what Jacob considered friends. They’d joined the group just south of Sydney. His policy was always to let anybody who contributed tag along, and he hadn’t turned folks away so far. But these men mostly kept to themselves, almost as if they were planning something. Samuel didn’t trust them. It didn’t seem fair. Wasn’t . He wished he could change it, but what would he have done differently? Probably not stopped so close to the road. The service center had been enticing with its large awning and the shop, but the sentries had failed and it had cost them in the end. They all knew the risks though. Knew what this new life was like. Each day they ran the gauntlet of death by just staying alive. Sometimes he wondered how they would ever make a life for themselves again.
    “How much further?” Rebecca asked, shifting into a more comfortable position. She was tinier than Jacob had expected given his large frame, although her mother had been petite. Rebecca had her curly blonde hair and narrow features, too, along with those blue, seductive eyes. What had she gotten from him? He would find out. You need to spend time with a person to discover such things.
    “A while yet.”
    “We got anything else to eat?”
    “Crackers. Staple diet of the new world.”
    She didn’t smile. “Where we going?”
    “Seymour.”
    “Never been there. You?”
    “Long time ago. With your mother, actually.” That silenced her.
    She slumped, peering out the front window in thought. “Tell me about her. What you remember.”
    Despite all the time that had passed, he still remembered her vividly. Jennifer Jabowski was a beautiful woman—in Jacob’s eyes, anyway, and that’s all that mattered—attentive and obsequious. She was fearsome too, when unappreciated. Jacob had spent too much time trying to build his business and not enough being a husband. That pushed Jennifer to look elsewhere for the love and attention that a woman required. Jacob put up little resistance, and that still burned away at him. But it wasn’t Jennifer’s fault. None at all. Still, he didn’t feel like talking about it today.  
    “Maybe another time, okay?”
    She settled back into the ripped leather seat in silence. Jacob thought about the potential towns they had passed in favor of Seymour. Wagga, Albury, Wangaratta. But there were reasons why he had foregone them all. They were more than lucky at Tarcutta, just south of the Wagga Wagga turnoff. The others wanted to stop at Wagga, and Jacob had almost taken the exit, but in the final moments, his foot gunned the accelerator past the intersection. It had almost cost them their lives. A blockade greeted them just beyond. What sort of people tried to take advantage of others in a situation like this? Men had lined the road with vehicles in an attempt to stop traffic and hijack people for whatever items of value they carried. They  caught a gap in the corner of the blockade though; Rebecca had spied it. Jacob made for it