Alexa's Travels: A Prelude Read Online Free PDF

people together to fill even twenty tents, let alone hundreds. Reminders of the old world were everywhere they turned; moldy books, stacks of wood, rope, cruddy jewelry, and ceramic mugs winking in the dim light, lumps of mildewed trash that used to be clothes: signs of the life that once existed here.
    There were none now. Not even the bugs could live here, and the group stared at the message together.
    8-13
    St Mt
    God help the USA!
    The nearest mountain ridge was another day’s walk, and the group kept moving even as darkness fell. This was poison ground. If they made camp here, they might stay forever.
     
    2
    Before the grudging daylight, they found survivors… of a sort.
    The cool morning breeze billowed their cloaks, cooling sweaty skin, and the though the gritty sky was barely beginning to lighten, their sharp eyes picked out details on the cliff they were passing.
    “Caves.” Jacob muttered lowly, hand caressing the butt of his .357.
    The doorways were set high into the stone, dark and ominous. When Alexa unfastened holsters, her men did the same. Danger was closer now.
    The group moved steadily past the first doorway. As they neared the second cave, Alexa slowed her steps, got ready. This was a lookout zone. One of Safe Haven’s? If so, there was no hope. The eyes watching them were full of madness.
    “Something moved behind us,” Jacob stated softly.
    Edward, her second in command, echoed it, “In front as well.”
    “How many?”
    It was the normally silent member of their group who answered.
    “Too many for being on the ground.”
    David’s tone was pointed, and the woman nodded, seeing his worried gaze keep returning to the dark cave doorway they hadn’t reached yet. David was part magician, though he had yet to recognize it, and she never ignored him.
    “What was it King said in his book?” Alexa intoned, falling into battle mode with a smooth transition the others admired and sometimes feared.
    “Trouble. And it’s in our road.”
    She was glad to hear the rookie’s voice – it was set, deadly. “Shall we go around?”
    “No.” Mark’s tone was firm.
    “Shall we flee?”
    “Never!” Edward growled.
    “Shall we barter for passage? Beg our way through?”
    “No!”
    “Never!”
    “What then, shall we do?”
    “Fight!”
    “Fight!”
      And as if on cue, it started.
    Inhuman shapes emerged swiftly from the caves, their red, insane faces bulging with hatred and infection. They leapt from rock to cliff ledge with strange, clever movements, huge legs and naked, hairy bodies grotesquely distorted from the constant contamination in which they ate, slept, and bred. Unlike Heather and her daughters, these were true dangers and the fighters stopped to face them like they always did. Gunfire filled the air in a ceaseless succession of sharp cracks and vivid blasts that rang for miles.
    The males dropped back into a tighter circle around their leader, weapons barking death as the woman spun continuously in their protection, deadly Colts picking off the horrors about to drop in on them from the ledge above.
    The woman ducked a flying shape meant to grab her and break their circle, firing into the back of the creature’s head as it went over. Blood sprayed.
    It was salty copper in the stale air, and the smell of it sent the cold haze of battle into her hands. She fired at everything that moved outside their ring and didn’t miss. The Walking dead fell from the cliffs around them, blown out of dark doorways and off of jagged rocks as Alexa unleashed that hard part of herself that had brought them this far.
    The men ducked to give her a clear line of fire, and their low aim kept back the zombies that had made it to the ground. Their shots took a toll, too, but it was the twin Colts that were making the real difference.
    When Alexa knelt, reloading, her men stood straight, determined to do their share. Bodies fell, the no-longer-human people refusing to give up, or perhaps not recognizing that