The Walking Dead Collection Read Online Free Page A

attentions of the swarm. It had a big yard with good sight lines, and a high, sturdy privacy fence. It also seemed empty. But when they carefully backed the Suburban across the lawn and up to a side door—leaving the vehicle unlocked, the keys in the ignition—and they sneaked in a window, one by one, the house almost immediately started working on them. The first creaking noises came from the second floor, and that’s when Philip had sent Nick back to the Suburban for the assortment of axes stored in the back well.
    *   *   *
    “I’m telling you, we got ’em all,” Philip is saying now, trying to calm his brother down, who sits across the kitchen in the breakfast nook.
    Brian doesn’t say anything, just stares at his bowl of soggy cereal. A bottle of cough medicine sits nearby, a quarter of which Brian has already chugged down.
    Penny sits next to him, also with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch in front her. A little stuffed penguin the size of a pear sits next to her bowl, and every now and then Penny moves her spoon to the toy’s mouth, pretending to share her cereal with the thing.
    “We checked every inch of this place,” Philip goes on as he throws open cabinet after cabinet. The kitchen is a cornucopia, brimming with upper-class provisions and luxuries: gourmet coffees, immersion blenders, crystal goblets, wine racks, handmade pastas, fancy jams and jellies, condiments of every variety, expensive liqueurs, and cooking gadgets of every description. The giant Viking range is spotless, and the massive Sub-Zero refrigerator is packed with expensive meats and fruits and spreads and dairy products and little white Chinese carryout boxes full of still-fresh leftovers. “He might have been visiting a relative or something,” Philip adds, making note of a nice single-malt Scotch sitting on a shelf. “Might’ve been with his grandparents, staying over at a friend’s house, whatever.”
    “Holy freaking Jesus, look at this!” Bobby Marsh exclaims across the room. He stands in front of the pantry, and he’s lustily inspecting the goodies inside it. “Looks like Willy-damn-Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in here … cookies, lady fingers, and the bread’s still fresh.”
    “The place is safe, Brian,” Philip says, pulling the bottle of Scotch down.
    “Safe?” Brian Blake stares at the tabletop. He lets out a cough and cringes.
    “That’s what I said. Matter of fact, I’m thinking—”
    “Just lost another one!” a voice pipes in from the other side of the kitchen.
    It’s Nick. For the past ten minutes, he’s been nervously surfing through the TV channels on a little plasma screen mounted under a cabinet to the left of the sink, checking the local stations for updates, and now, at a quarter to twelve Central Standard Time, Fox 5 News out of Atlanta has just crumbled into snow. All that leaves on the cable box—other than national networks showing reruns of nature programs and old movies—is Atlanta’s stalwart, CNN, and all they’re showing at the moment are emergency robo-announcements, the same warning screens with the same bullet points that have been airing for days. Even Brian’s BlackBerry is giving up the ghost, the signal very spotty in this area. When it does work, the device is full of blind e-mails and Facebook tags and anonymous tweets with cryptic messages such as:
    … AND THE KINGDOM WILL BE IN DARKNESS …
    … IT’S THE BIRDS FALLING FROM THE SKY, THAT’S WHAT STARTED IT …
    … BURN IT ALL DOWN BURN IT ALL …
    … BLASPHEMIES AGAINST GOD …
    … U SUCK U DIE …
    … THE HOUSE OF THE LORD HAS BECOME A DWELLING PLACE OF DEMONS …
    … DON’T BLAME ME FOR THIS I’M A LIBERTARIAN …
    … EAT ME …
    “Turn it off, Nick,” Philip says gloomily, plopping down on a chair in the breakfast nook with his bottle. He frowns and reaches around to the back of his belt, where his pistol is digging into the small of his back. He lays the Ruger on the table and thumbs the cap