Slowly We Rot Read Online Free

changed
that.
              The dead thing was a
reminder not only of the incontrovertible existence of the old world, but also
of that world’s cataclysmic demise.  And there was even more to it than that. 
Civilization might have passed away, but its corpse was still out there.  In his
head he saw empty cities standing in ruin, dark skyscrapers with shattered
windows, streets choked with the decaying remains of countless dead.
              Noah abruptly rose from
the rocking chair, deciding he needed another way to divert his mind from these
dark thoughts.  Getting high again so soon after passing out on the porch
wasn’t an attractive option, so he decided he would spend the rest of the night
reading a selection from his cache of western novels by the light of an oil lamp.
              He was on the verge of
stepping through the door into the cabin when he heard a sound that made his
heart lurch in his chest.  He braced a hand against the doorframe to keep from
falling over.  The moment of terror was intense, easily surpassing anything
he’d experienced in the last few years.  But not allowing fear to paralyze him
into inaction was yet another lesson his father had hammered home time and
again.
              Noah backed away from
the door and turned to stare out at the dark woods.  Several silent moments
passed as he stood there and peered into the darkness, waiting to hear the
sound again.
              I didn’t hear what I
thought I heard , he thought.  It’s just my mind fucking with me in some
new, even more messed-up than usual way.
              This might even have
been true.  Hell, it was probably true, because the sound Noah
thought—or imagined—he’d heard had been a brief burst of laughter.
              There’d been a lilting,
distinctly feminine tinge to the sound.  Or so he’d thought.  But the longer
the silence drew out, the more sure he was that his ears had misinterpreted
some animal sound.  It was the most logical explanation.  He could think of no
good reason why a girl or young woman would suddenly be in the woods outside
his mountain cabin, years after his last glimpse of another human being.  And why,
for fuck’s sake, would she have laughed?  This wasn’t a situation or setting
conducive to laughter.  Unless, of course, the person doing the laughing was
deranged.
              Noah shivered.
              Now there’s a
comforting thought .
              Noah was by no means an
expert on the subject of mental illness, but he thought it was a good bet that
any lone person laughing in the woods at night was probably some kind of
lunatic.  Or maybe there was an even more sinister underlying truth.  Maybe
this was a sign he was cracking up.  He wanted to shrug off the idea as ludicrous,
but this wasn’t easy to do.
              The sound came again.
              Noah went into the
cabin and closed the door, locking it behind him.  He scurried rapidly around
the cabin’s interior, bumping into things in the dark as he scrambled to lock
all the windows and shut the blinds.  He got one of the oil lamps lit and
carried it over to the fireplace, where he planned to park himself for the rest
of the night.  This would give him the best defensive central position against
anyone trying to enter the cabin.  He set the oil lamp down, retrieved the
rifle from the kitchen, and dragged a chair from the dining table over to the
fireplace.
              He sat in the chair and
braced the rifle across his legs.
              The sound had been
clearer the second time.  And closer.  It’d definitely been the laughter of a
girl or young woman.
              And there had
definitely been a taunting quality to her laughter.
              Noah stared at the door
and waited for something to