The Withered Series (Book 1): Wither Read Online Free

once and then
again before he speaks.  “It’s not good.  We’ve
lost New York, Chicago, LA and countless other cities.”
    “To them?”
    “The
Withered Ones?” I nod, not liking the way the term rolls off
his tongue with hardly any emotion. “No.  They are the
least of our worries.”
    I’m
not sure I agree with that.
    I
always prided myself in being prepared for anything.  Self-defense
classes at the Y and a few street brawls have helped me to survive on
my own, but nothing could have prepared me for this. The term ‘zombie
apocalypse’ has been thrown around.  It’s sure as
heck not like what I was expecting!
    I
spent hours at the hospital window watching the Withered Ones
shuffling along the streets, waiting for the gruesome deaths to
begin, but they never did.  They show no signs of hunger, or
anger or fear, but I stay clear of them.   I keep waiting
for this to all be some sick joke, and one of them will finally
decide I look tasty and take a chunk out of my arm.
    Glancing
toward the window, I strain to hear the moans on the street below.
 They are out there.  The Withered Ones, or Moaners, as
some people like to call them now. A fitting name I guess.
    “You
thought I was becoming one of them ,
didn’t you?”  I ask after a moment of silence.  
    “Of
course you did,” I answer for him to fill his continued
silence. How could he not?  Fever is the first symptom.
 Anxiety. Unexplained pain. Rashes. Delirium. Sudden lowering of
temperature to abnormal levels.  Tremors. Loss of memory and a
dozen other symptoms that pop up randomly.  The end result is
always the same...an all-consuming nothingness left in this disease’s
wake.
    I
saw it at the hospital.  Watched the woman in the room across
the hall from my mother slip into an eerie void.  She was among
the first, the doctors said.
    I
don’t know what they did with her.  She just disappeared
from the ward.  Maybe the military disposed of her.  Maybe
the doctors did. After more people started turning I stopped asking
questions.
    He
slowly nods and lowers his gaze so that his face is shielded by the
brim of his camouflage hat.  “Then why did you stay?”
    “I
had to know for sure.  Turns out it looks like you just have a
common flu bug, mixed with a heavy dose of shock.”
    What
would he have done with me if my fever hadn’t broken?  Would
he have left me here, locked in this tiny apartment to slowly starve
to death? To beat endlessly against the door in a futile attempt to
escape?
    “Would
you have put a bullet between my eyes?” I ask. He clears his
throat and turns his face away.  His posture grows rigid and I
have my answer. “Nice to know.”  
    I
look at the room around me and notice black garbage bags duct taped
over the windows.  Peering around the flashlight beam beside
him, I spy used candles on the tabletop, their wicks long since
spent.  The furniture in the studio apartment is a hodge podge
of garage sale finds. Nothing matches.  Nothing smells good.
    Glancing
at the ceiling, I discover that all of the air vents are covered.
Torn drapes are shoved into cracks around the window sills. “You
think it’s in the air, don’t you?”
    When
he glances back at me, I notice something akin to appreciation in his
gaze.  “We don’t really know what caused the
mutations.”
    “You
don’t know or you don’t want to say?”
    His
gaze narrows.  “I don’t know.”
    I
nod slowly.  “Someone does.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “Still.
 Better to be safe than sorry, huh?” I spy an upturned gas
mask on the floor and realize the distorted face I saw before passing
out was this mask, not a person’s face.  I wonder why he
has it.  I’ve seen a few people darting around the streets
with clothes tied around their faces.  Maybe the military knows
something they don’t deem important enough to share with the
general public?
    Growing
up on the streets, I’ve learned a thing or two about reading
people.  You have to