The Dying & The Dead 2 Read Online Free

to
spare.
     
    Finally a man got to his feet. The top
of his scalp was bald, but brown hair lined the sides of his head. There was a
dent on the bridge of his nose from where he had, until recently, worn glasses.
Eric wondered if the man could even see anything without his spectacles.
     
    “Just going to stand there?” said the
man. He walked over to the woman. He seemed so angry that his shoulders shook.
“Cowards. You’re all cowards,” he said, glancing around him so that he could
address everyone.
     
    He kneeled next to the woman and held
his fingers against her neck. After a few seconds, he shook his head. He raised
his fist and punched the carriage floor, then pulled his hand away and rubbed
his knuckles, wincing. He picked the baby up off the floor and cradled it close
to him. Adjusting the blanket around the child, he looked at one of the guards.
     
    “I hope you see our faces at night,” he
said. “I want you to picture this woman while you try to sleep. Look at her.
Would it have been too much to let a little air in here?”
     
    Eric walked over and sat next to the man.
He put his hand on the baby’s forehead. Its skin was hot, and its breathing
sounded raspy.
     
    “How much further?” Eric asked the bald man.
     
    The man looked surprised, as if he
hadn’t expected anyone to talk to him. The guard at the door crossed his arms.
     
    “Don’t be so quick to wish the journey
away. Enjoy it,” said the guard. “Because the end is a hell of a lot worse.”
     
    In the heat, and with nausea churning in
his stomach, Eric didn’t have the brain power to figure out where they were
going. Kim’s mum was out there somewhere, and her daughter needed her. But
where were Eric’s mum and his sister?
     
    It seemed like years since he had last
seen them. They had been on a meadow with Dale, the man who had taken them in
and who made his mum’s cheeks turn red when he spoke to her. They had been
enjoying the grass and the flowers and the sun, but everything had turned dark.
The bounty hunter Charles Bull had appeared, a bulky figure blotting out the
sun, and he’d ruined everything.
     
    He had to find them. His mum and sister were
out there, and somehow, he had to get to them. Who knew, maybe he was going to
the same place? His sister was immune, after all. She could have been taken to
wherever the train was going.
     
    A door opened at the end of the
carriage. For a brief second Eric glimpsed the engine room, with the train
driver sat in a chair peering out of a window as the train rushed along the
tracks. A man stepped through the door.
     
    He wore a long coat that went down to
his thighs. It was clear and plastic, and there were red and yellow stains
splattered on it. The buckles squeezed the material tight against his
stick-like frame. Despite the heat in the carriage, the man’s face looked cold.
His nose seemed sharp enough to tear a hole in his mask, and his forehead bulged
out just a little bit too much. He stood tall in the doorframe, his head only
inches from the ceiling. His boots made clanging sounds on the metal as he took
a few steps forward. A guard closed the door behind him.
     
    Cold seeped through the carriage. The man
took in the faces of all the people around him, but if there was any emotion in
his stare, it was faint enough to be invisible. His gaze stopped on the woman
who had collapsed and died. Next to her, with the shock of adrenaline wearing
off, the man held her baby.
     
    The man in the doorway spoke.
     
    “What happened to her?” he said. Even
through his mask, his voice was sharp.
     
    One of the guards shrugged.
     
    “Just collapsed.”
     
    “For God’s sake, get her some water.”
     
    “She’s dead.”
     
    “Then get her out of here.”
     
    Everyone else in the carriage seemed too
scared to meet the man’s stare. Eric wondered if they knew something that he
didn’t, or if he was supposed to recognise the tall and cold-looking man. Well,
if the rest of