The Beginning Read Online Free Page A

house, but his ankle was still injured so instead settled for a quick walk. As the engines of the departing quads got fainter, the only sound left were the heavy footsteps of Martin’s slippers. They hadn’t even asked about his blood covered pyjamas. Maybe the sight of blood was that common now.
    He felt naked crossing the field without the big shotgun. Even though it didn’t have any firepower it was still a heavy weapon. As he got closer to the house this feeling increased. Those bastards, why did they have to take it!
    Approaching the porch, Martin noticed the windows in the front had been smashed and the front door was covered in scratch marks. But the most worrying sign was the silence. He was unsure where the three infected had gone, whether they we re in or around the house. The silence was quickly broken by the creak of Martin’s footsteps on the wooden porch steps.
    Martin advanced towards the door and took a closer look at the claw marks. He noticed the door was ajar.

Chapter 7
    Martin stood at the door not knowing what was on the other side. Martin tried to recall the layout of the house from his childhood, it had been over five years since he had left but everything was still fresh in his mind. Beyond this door was the hallway, this opened up into the living room which had doors to both the kitchen and staircase. He turned his ear towards the door and listened intently for a few seconds. When he was satisfied that there wasn’t anyone in the hallway beyond the door he slowly pushed it open.
    The doo r silently swung open to confirm his guess; the hallway was empty. But the coppery smell that Martin was beginning to associate with the infected was definitely present. They were here. There was several bloody handprints on the blue wallpaper, Martin prayed it was someone else’s.  He took a step inside and, in a half-crouch, began moving towards the living room. Something crunched under his footsteps. He glanced down and quickly realised it was broken glass from a fallen picture frame. A picture of his parents lay on the ground, glass shattered and a single drop of blood smudged across their faces. Martin waited.
    In the corner of his eye there was movement.
    Martin’s head jerked up. But there was nothing there. Maybe it was Martin’s mind playing tricks on him. Maybe it was the whisky. Or maybe it was a snarling creature. Martin had no idea and his grip tightened on the useless revolver.
    At the bottom of one of the walls lay a mirror that had once hung on the hallway wall. It had obviously been knocked off as the three infected had entered the house. Martin could imagine them ploughing through the door, then pushing and shoving to move along the corridor three-a-side like children do with narrow doorframes. Martin picked up a broken piece of the mirror and edged closer to the entrance to the living room. With his back to the wall, he held the broken piece of mirror at arm’s length and looked into the reflection of the living room on the mirror’ surface.
    Fuck.
    This was Martin’s first thought. His parent’s usually kept everything in the house immaculate, everything had its own place and there was never mess or rubbish anywhere. The sight before him now was the complete opposite - the whole room had been trashed. The sofa was upturned with its wheels sticking in the air, the cabinets had been pulled over and Mom’s best china littered the floor. But there was no infected, only the trail of their destruction remained.
    Martin crossed the room, making sure to avoid the broken china and entered the kitchen. It appear ed as if the infected group hadn’t entered here. There was a distinct smell of apple in the kitchen, Martin looked over to the oven and saw it was cooking something. As he got closer he could see an apple pie, but it had been in too long and was now burnt. The sweet smell of apple, cinnamon and nutmeg didn’t even raise an ounce of hunger from his body, it had locked itself