The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III Read Online Free Page B

last night.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I was feeling reflective last night. Today I’m not.”
    Nova huffed. “Come on, just talk about something mundane, then. I like noise. I need the noise.” She put away her knife and swiftly pulled out a different one and began giving it the same treatment. “You could sing,” she offered, and I barked out a laugh.
    “No, that’s not gonna happen.”
    She huffed and we continued our silent walk. Minutes passed by until the sound was broken up by Nova again. “Okay, so quick-fire round.”
    “What?”
    “Ice cream or chocolate?”
    “Again, what?” I raised an eyebrow at her again.
    “Ice cream. Definitely ice cream. Okay, milk or fresh juice?”
    “I’m not doing this.” I scowled.
    “Sure you are. Milk, but it has to be freezing cold, maybe even with a couple of ice cubes floating in it. Shit, I miss ice so bad! Okay, clean underwear or a new coat?”
    “Underwear,” I replied without any hesitance. “But I’m not doing this.”
    “Don’t be so uptight, Nina.” It was her turn to scowl now. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “You don’t always have to be so teenage angst about things.” She lit it and took a long drag. “I bet you listened to Nirvana your entire youth.” She laughed.
    “I am not teenage angst, thank you very much.” I stared up at the road ahead of us. It seemed to go on for miles, this weird little scrapyard smack dab in the middle of nowhere, but I knew it was only another twenty minutes or so to the garage just outside the town, where we had left the truck. “We just need to pay attention. Besides, I never listened to Nirvana. I was more of a Jimi Hendrix fan.”
    “Really?” She looked across at me. “I never would have saw that comin’. I actually thought you would have been more of a boyband lover.”
    “Hell no!” I snapped, feeling offended at her misconception of me. “I was into classics like Jimi, Clapton, I loved Bob Marley.” My thoughts drifted to a conversation I’d had with Emily and if there were rasta deaders. The thought soured my mood abruptly. I missed her already. And then I missed Mikey. And then I was pissed with myself for missing him. Stupid man.
    “Sorry, Mom.” She snorted out a laugh.
    She chuckled, and I smiled and then we lapsed back into silence, just the sound of our boots on the lonely highway. Though the road was quiet, I checked back behind, as did Nova, there was nothing coming; however, the road up ahead of us held movement.
    We both stopped and watched for a moment or two, noticing that the shadows of people were clumsy and uncoordinated, and we both continued to walk at the same time.
    “Deaders,” I said dryly.
    “Yeah,” she agreed.
    We both mentally got our heads into the places they needed to be in order to kill these things—the zombies. Since they were in front of us, they clearly couldn’t be ignored, which meant we had no choice but to fight them.
     

 
FIVE.
     
    “I’m so over all this shit, you know?” I huffed, my throat feeling sore and scratchy.
    “Deaders are assholes,” Nova chuckled. She finished her cigarette and threw it to the ground. “I definitely think you’re getting sick, girl.”
    “I know,” I grumbled.
    There wasn’t much wind, but what little there was typically worked against us and blew our scent in the direction of the deaders. We were closer now and could see that there were four of them. Scrap that—make it four and a half, since there was one on the ground. I couldn’t tell if his legs were partially missing or completely missing, but I could see his little head bobbing up and down to get a better fix on the direction of our obviously delicious scent.
    The four able-bodied deaders began to move in our direction, their groans being carried away in the wind. They were slow, as usual, but they didn’t seem as rotten as the ones we’d encountered on the previous night, and that was worrying. In fact, as we got closer