Undead 02 The Undead Haze Read Online Free Page A

undead roaming the areas I hadn’t cleared. As time went by, a new sense of paranoia set in. Weakness and fear gnawed at me, and it only grew worse the longer I didn’t search. Each time I thought I heard something I paced behind my closed office door, secretly hoping the soft padding of my feet on the carpet would lure any undead out, but dreading the moment when it did. It was a vicious cycle.
    And Kevin? I imagined hearing the convoy outside the building. There to come take me back. I remembered his crazy, made-up verse and dreamt of it on bad nights.
    Dreams of Blaze plagued me since the night I couldn’t find her in Startup. They’d been growing darker and more frequent since I’d been searching for her. Now that I was sick and sleep deprived, the dreams were becoming more hallucinogenic. Sometimes I woke up smelling cigarette smoke or feeling like she was in the room. I chalked it up to a guilty conscience and gave up trying to make peace with the situation.
    I huddled in my makeshift bed of padding ripped out of couches and chairs and I shivered. I carried one thermal blanket in my backpack, but winter was coming on and that wouldn’t be enough. Hell, I even layered on tapestries and wall quilts from the offices. Not like it mattered.
    I glanced outside once more. The scene hadn’t changed, but my willingness had. My head swam as I removed myself from the blankets and I grabbed the filing cabinet for support. My nose dripped and my body convulsed in an onset of shivers.
    There was one thing about my situation I particularly hated—my lack of weapons. I suppose my adventures in the summer were far too easy because ammunition was abundant. Even during desperate times I had something, whether it was a handgun or assault rifle. Now all I had was a 9mm with a few rounds, a flashlight, and a baseball bat. The bat had modifications, though. Just some nails here and there. And a lady’s face I drew on it—her name was Barbara, in case you were interested.
    Gathering my two weapons, I opened the office door and peeked out. To my left there were no windows and the hallways faded into blackness. Even if I waited for my eyes to adjust, I wouldn’t see anything. Well, except part of a corpse. Half the body was obscured by a right turn in the hall. All I saw were the legs. That half of the building was creepy. It instigated my paranoia. So still and dark. When I went to search that floor, I could only take a few steps into the bleeding edge of blackness before I had to retreat. I’m not sure what it was about down there, but I didn’t want to find out.
    Look at me, Cyrus V. Sinclair, afraid of the dark and the boogeyman.
    I stepped out of the office and closed the door securely behind me. Yesterday Pickle escaped, bent on having an adventure. I still hadn’t seen her. Since then, I’d been keeping the door shut.
    The hall was vacant and chilled. My boots made no noise on the carpet. At the right end of the hall were heavy wooden doors that led to an open space before the staircase. I heaved one open. Blinding light dazed me and I squeezed my eyes shut until the burning went away.
    Once my vision returned, I took a few steps towards the window until I had a good view of the campus. Taking my time, since I had a lot of it, I scanned the area for any signs of life—or death—of which I found none. Not even a breeze moved the leafless branches of the bushes and trees.
    I was as confident as I ever would be. I opened the stair access door and headed one floor down to the sky bridge landing. Each footstep echoed, bouncing around the cement stairwell.
    Too loud. Stop being so noisy, I chided myself.
    I was soon in a room similar to the one above me. Open and chilly. I assessed the area around me then stared at the door to Parks. It was just across the sky bridge. Like most entrances in the college, it was glass with a metal frame bisecting it at waist level. As far as I could tell, my only option was to break the glass and