The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

was shot in the head, it was Tina who stepped up and led the survivors. She rallied them and restored their will to fight, their cohesion, and their morale during the dark weeks that followed. When Al finally recovered, he stepped back into a community that had a new commander and no longer needed his reluctant leadership, and he was more than happy to step down. Now, with the situation steadily deteriorating, if Tina went out and failed to return, the base would soon fold without her.
    “Shit,” Tommy hissed, coming to an abrupt halt at the corner and stepping backward, almost colliding with his friend behind him.
    To their left in the adjoining street, a crowd of bodies stood motionless and staring at the ground like grotesque statues that were frozen in time. They had congregated together for some unknown reason, and with nothing to further stimulate them, had all remained there crammed together and becoming dormant. The pale light from the moon reflected from the hundreds of bare skulls, the flesh having rotted away and the bone becoming whitened from the elements as they remained exposed to the sun, wind, and rain, season after season. It was hard to tell where one figure started and another ended. They had been transformed into a wall of mottled greys and browns that were fused together with inactivity, grime, and decay.
    The two men remained still and carefully watched the macabre barrier of gaunt figures, searching for any sign that they may have been seen by the thousands of eyes that stared, completely oblivious to everything around them, at the asphalt beneath their rotting feet. It was hard to imagine them as having once been living people. In the early days, despite their appearance, they were clearly the bodies of human beings. Now, dried and withered, most of them skeletal and blackened through the ravages of time, it was difficult to believe that they had ever been anything other than the monsters that they were.
    Carefully, taking slow and deliberately placed steps, the soldiers turned into the next street. They hugged the wall as they moved, avoiding detection from the swarm in the road behind them as they clung to the dark shadows of the buildings that flanked the road. Every fibre in their bodies urged them to run, but their experience and discipline prevented them from doing so. The infected were attracted to sound and movement, and two fast moving objects, possibly making noise as they sprinted along the street, would surely draw the attention of all the dead eyes in the vicinity. They were in the heart of enemy territory, and they needed their nerves to be as tough as steel. Al always compared it to placing their feet inside a bear trap, hovering just above the pressure pad, and taunting it with their boldness.
    Further along, out of sight from the throng of frozen corpses, Al suddenly stopped and stared at the open door of a building on the left side of the street. He stooped, squinting into the gloomy doorway and wrecked windows while attempting to penetrate the thick blanket of blackness that glared back at him from inside.
    “Wait,” he whispered, gesturing to Tommy and nodding towards the entrance. “We should take a quick look.”
    Above the doorway a faded and weather beaten sign stubbornly clung to its brackets. Tommy took a step closer, struggling to identify the building.
    “Are you fucking serious?” he hissed back at Al when he was finally able to recognise the lettering. He was standing in the middle of the street and suddenly feeling exposed. “We can’t be fucking about right now, dickhead. We’ve got more important things to do.”
    Al turned to him, his face clearly showing that he had no intention of continuing with their mission at that moment. He shook his head and began to step away towards the gaping doorway.
    “It’ll only take a minute,” he reasoned, beckoning for his friend to follow him. “We’ll be done before you know it.”
    Without another word he turned and