Love in the Time of the Dead Read Online Free Page A

complaining?
    They had about forty-five minutes of daylight left, and the team was trapped in a housing development on the edge of town. Deads were more active at night, and the action had definitely started picking up.
    Laney checked the lock on the front door again. Pictures of a young family lined the hallways, and two small gap-toothed children grinned from within dark wooden frames. She couldn’t help but imagine that the children who once played in these rooms were presently in the horde of zombies banging on the door and groaning for a taste of their flesh. She pried her gaze from the happy pictures and swallowed a lump in her throat. Houses like this one felt haunted by the ghosts of the unresting souls of the families that once lived in them.
    “What’s the plan, boss man?” Mitchell asked. “We going to try for the colony tonight or are we bunkering down?”
    Jarren shook his head. “Can’t bunker down here. The windows and doors won’t hold under the growing numbers, and they are making enough noise to attract all of the Denver Deads.”
    “We go up then,” Guist said as he flew into action and ran downstairs. They didn’t have to discuss it. They had been in this exact same situation before. Their first order of business would be to search for something to get through the ceiling.
    The houses were attached in that neighborhood, which would make it easier to travel by roof. The problem would be getting outside from the upper floor. There were windows they could climb out of, but the Deads would see them and follow, which would make it impossible to get down and escape.
    “I’ll cover the front door in case they get in before Guist makes it back,” Laney said. She braced herself in front of the banging entry.
    Jarren and Mitchell took the stairs behind them two at a time. Furniture scraped across wooden floors as it was stacked and dragged around the room above her. Window glass broke and tinkled across the floor. Bang, bang, bang. The noise grew louder as the Deads became more frantic outside the door and the outer walls of the house. She wiped sweat off her brow to keep it from her eyes.
    “Guist? Guist!” she yelled as the frame of the door splintered loudly. Deads were coming in sooner rather than later, and the team was low on ammo. All hell was about to come barreling through that door and she only had half a clip left before she got to her last mag of tracer bullets. Those she would desperately need after dark.
    “Guist, we got company!” Where the hell was he?
    The door gave way, halting only momentarily as the small chain creaked and tensed before it snapped, illuminating the entryway with waning daylight and a mob of walking Deads. Guist appeared and sprinted for the stairway behind Laney. He held an ax in a white knuckled grip, and slid into the stairwell just as the first wave of monsters poured through the front door.
    She checked out. She always did in battle. It was necessary for survival. No fear, no thought, just her instincts guiding her body.
    Shot to the head.
    Next Dead.
    Aim.
    Shot to the head.
    Next Dead.
    Guist’s strong grip dug into her shoulder, dragging her up the stairs while she kept the Deads at bay. It was all he could do. Guist had been out of ammo before they even made it to the house. Other than blades, he was weaponless. He yelled something behind her, but she couldn’t understand him over the sheer volume of the gunfire and the roaring Deads who stumbled and crawled over the bodies she felled. At the top of the stairs, Guist pulled her into a bedroom just as the zombies clawed at her clothing and gnashed their rotting teeth inches away from her skin. The door slammed behind her, and Mitchell pushed a dresser in front of it so fast it almost hit her in the hip.
    She slid her rifle to her back and reached around to help steady the pile of furniture under Guist. He was already hacking away at the drywall in the ceiling with the heavy blade.
    The dresser in front