The Coalition: Part II The Lord Of The Living (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 2) Read Online Free

their heads exploded into neat little flowers of bone and brains. Somewhere there were snipers watching the streets, but either they were out of earshot or were using guns equipped with some kind of silencer. A few more zombies moved up to replace them and were put down in a carbon copy of the first response, and after that, nothing moved.
    “How many do you have here?” They were now at the front of the building and Ron saw that the sidewalk had been completely cleaned of weeds and shrubs, and had been swept and washed down with military precision.
    “Patients? Or everyone involved?”
    Ron could only stand in place as the officer stopped in his tracks and looked up at the eight floors looming over them. “Here we have about one thousand souls. Maybe a hundred patients. Most minor injuries and sicknesses, but a few are critical.” He half turned and looked back at Ron.
    “Do me a favor, son.” He indicated his left pocket on his jacket with a nod of his shaved chin. “There’s a whistle in there. Could you retrieve it for me and stick it in my mouth? I don’t wish to let go of their little hands just now. I think they’re just this side of hysteria, and I want to keep them that way as long as possible.”
    Ron did as requested, unbuttoning the flap with his left hand, keeping his right one clasped tightly to Mrs. Lund’s fingers. Producing a glittering chrome metal whistle, he held it out while Dale took it in his teeth and turned to face the building with it clenched tightly there. He breathed in and then blew briskly through the little instrument. The sound was piercing and quite louder and more intense than Ron had suspected it would be. If not for Mrs. Lund, he would have put his hands to his ears to block the offending shriek.
    Immediately a double-door opened just in front of them, on the far side of concrete barriers that had been staggered to create a bit of a maze. Cutter followed the Colonel’s lead and before any of the lines of undead could move within a hundred yards of the building , they were inside and the stout doors were quickly shut and locked tight. Stopping only for a brief moment, Ron looked back at the door, at the locks and metal bars reinforcing it. To his eyes, it didn’t look strong enough to hold back what he suspected was coming. He wanted to ask about it, but before he could they were joined by four women and two men—all of them roughly in their late 20s or early 30s—who took charge of the Lund Family and took them through another door and down a hallway where all three of them vanished.
    Allowing just a second or two of relaxation, Ron let the muscles in his shoulders relax and he took in a deep breath. The place smelled clean and antiseptic. “Damn. Is this…is this a hospital?”
    Dale nodded. “It is, now.” Taking a few steps to his left, he turned down the hallway, moving in the opposite direction from where the others had taken the Lunds. When Ron hesitated, the Colonel motioned to him. “Come with me. We need to speak.”
    And so Cutter followed the older man down hallways that were clean, that glistened in the electric lights that were keeping even the darkest corners revealed. “You have a generator going?” He thought to ask, moving quickly to keep up with the brisk pace his companion had set.
    “Yes,” Dale told him. “Big ones. We run them on diesel for several hours a day. Whenever the doctors are going to do surgery we fire them up, or just to let the patients feel extra comfortable when we think they need it,” he added.
    As they walked, other doors opened as people went about their ways. Some of them were dressed in street clothes, some in military fatigues, others in white smocks that marked them as either physicians or nurses or nurse’s aides. “You’ve got doctors here,” he said, amazed.
    “Twenty, last time I spoke to the head physician,” Dale told him. “Six certified physician’s assistants and fifty-three nurses. Not sure how many