Alice in Deadland Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page B

she just sat in silence and
waited for what was to come next. The Queen sat down next to Alice and took off
her gloves. Alice saw that underneath the gloves were not the hands of a
healthy human, but yellowed, decayed and blood crusted hands crisscrossed with
open wounds and bite marks. When the Queen laid a cold, hard hand on Alice's
wrist, she involuntarily flinched, but the viselike grip on her wrist prevented
her from moving. In a brief moment of panic, Alice contemplated striking out, but
a low growl behind her warned her that Bunny Ears was right there, watching her
every move.
    'Dear, you must be wondering what all the fuss is about,
right?'
    Alice noticed that the Queen's face was twitching and while
her lifeless eyes betrayed no emotion, she seemed excited, like a little girl
at a toy shop.
    'It is the prophecy I had made. It is finally coming true,
and that means that our days of suffering will come to an end.'
    Alice had no idea what the Queen was talking about, so she
just waited for her to continue.
    'Don't you see? You must be the one the book told me about.'
    'What book?'
    The Queen got up, and Alice saw that she was virtually
hopping in excitement. At that point, Alice realized that human or undead, one
thing was for sure: the Queen was totally unhinged. The Queen walked back to
her desk and fished in the drawers for a few seconds before bringing out
something covered in a coarse cloth. As soon as she raised the package in her
hands, Alice saw that Bunny Ears had gone down on his knees. Several thoughts
were buzzing through her mind. Since when did mindless Biters get religious?
How the hell was this so-called Queen partly human and partly Biter? How was it
at all possible that she of all people had anything to do with any prophecy
this crazed old Queen claimed to have made?
    The Queen was now in front of Alice and holding the package
in front of her.
    'Do you realize what this is?'
    Of course Alice had no way of knowing, but she was young
enough to not know a rhetorical question, so she shook her head. Any response
on her part was largely unnecessary because the Queen was in a trance like
state, talking without a pause.
    'When the mad human governments rained fire, I hid in the
underground chambers that they had made as bomb shelters and old sewers, moving
from one tunnel to another. Do you know how long I was down there?'
    Another rhetorical question, and then the Queen continued.
    'I kept my phone running as long as I could, turning it on
for a few seconds every day to see the time and date. When I lost it, it had
been three months. I had been bitten seven times.'
    The Queen put the package on the sofa next to Alice and
raised her sleeves, showing a bloody, mangled mess on her hands. Alice wondered
again how this woman had retained some human faculties despite so obviously
having been bitten by Biters. Also, she shuddered to think just how horrible it
must have been to wander alone in the dark tunnels, surrounded by crazed Biters
in utter darkness, with no easy access to food or water. Anybody would have
lost their mind in such circumstances. The Queen continued.
    'I would have given up and killed myself if I had been just
a human, but as you can see, I was becoming something more. I did not have much
to eat, so I scrounged around for herbs and leaves. And one day, I found this.'
    She motioned to the package.
    'At the time, I didn't know what to make of it, but when I
came back to the surface and saw what the world had been reduced to, I realized
it was perhaps the last book left in the Deadland.'
    The Queen took a break and went back to her desk, bringing
out a bunch of green leaves that she proceeded to chew raw. Alice could hear
Bunny Ears growling in anticipation and the Queen threw him a couple of leaves
that he gobbled down. Alice recognized the leaves as ganja leaves and
remembered the warnings from the adults about never eating them. If this woman,
or Biter, or whatever the Queen was, had been living