The Infected Dead (Book 2): Survive For Now Read Online Free

protect the lives of the people who lived there felt like they were rescuing their residents, but eventually the attacks began inside their protective boundaries, and the guards found themselves fighting for their own lives.
    “We found pockets of people who were kind enough to take us in, but if you hung around too long, you got to see it happen every time. There was just no way to be prepared for the sheer numbers of those things. They would either overrun your defenses, or someone would get bitten and not tell anyone.”
    Tom paused for a moment and looked over at Molly. She was contentedly downing her chocolate milk as her father was reliving what it was like to keep her alive. I tried to imagine what it must have been like to be so worried for such a long time about someone else. Children would be so helpless to defend themselves. I wondered when Tom had been able to sleep the last time.
    “What made you head south when you left Myrtle Beach?” asked the Chief. “We’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a pattern to their movements.”
    Tom said, “We didn’t choose south originally. I couldn’t think of where else we should go, so we headed west. I don’t know if I thought we could make it all the way to Guntersville, but that was the direction toward home, so that’s the way we went. We only made it to Conway, though. It seemed like everyone was trying to go straight west, and the infection was moving faster than the people.”
    “I think,” Tom continued, “it was like pouring water into a funnel. Thousands of people were trying to squeeze out of Myrtle Beach using one main road, and Conway was like a big dam. People just kept pushing from behind, and what we didn’t know was that the infection was also in front of us. There were people trying to escape toward Myrtle Beach, and we were colliding with them as the infection spread outward. To tell you the truth, I don’t think it would have been any different no matter which way we went.”
    “If you were heading west through Conway, how did you wind up directly south of Myrtle Beach?” asked Jean.
    Tom answered, “Well, I guess I would have to call it dumb luck. We were stuck on Highway 501 with a few thousand other people as the sun was going down. Everything had come to a complete stop just as it was getting dark, and headlights were coming on. The police were trying to keep everyone moving west without getting all jammed up, and one of them recognized me. A Conway police officer who said he went to all of the games when he wasn’t on duty recognized me and asked for my autograph.”
    “I was the same way,” said Kathy. “When I would do traffic duty over by the minor league ballpark in Charleston, I’d watch for the players to leave, and I’d get their autographs. You never knew when one would be famous.”
    Tom laughed, “How many asked for your phone number when they gave you an autograph?”
    Kathy blushed, which we weren’t used to seeing. She knew she was pretty, but she wasn’t one of those attractive women who had to hear it all the time. If anything, she was a bit self-conscious about her looks.
    “There were a few times,” she said.
    He flashed her a smile before he went on, and I could tell she liked it. She returned the smile but then looked down at her plate.
    “The officer saw Molly in the car with me and asked if she was my daughter. When I said she was, he told me to make the next left turn and pull over to the side of the road. He didn’t say why he wanted me to get out of traffic, but he had this really serious look on his face. I could tell he was worried, so I did what he told me to do.”
    “What did he want you to do?” I asked.
    Tom told us that the officer had come up alongside him in a police cruiser and motioned for him to follow his car. Not knowing what else he should do, he followed the officer as he sped down a dirt road that sloped toward the Waccamaw River.
    We were very familiar with the Waccamaw