Badlands Trilogy (Book 3): Out of the Badlands Read Online Free PDF

a multi-tool, a hunting knife, flints and more.
    Chloe volunteered to retrieve his pack from the room. Sam didn’t argue. While he waited further down the hallway by the library door, Chloe entered the room that had once housed Denise Treiber and her only son. All Chloe found of Denise was a wad of bloody, shredded clothing and a congealed pool of rust-red blood. Could have been worse, but still something she didn’t want Sam to have to witness. Better that he stayed away.
    “How bad was she?” Sam asked after Chloe had retrieved the backpack. He stood in the door frame, the pillow cases of food piled up around him.
    “It wasn’t bad,” she replied. He didn’t ask for details.
    They entered the library, the musty-smelling interior illuminated by the mid-day sun shining through hazy windows. Aside from some stained ceiling tiles and a thick layer of dust, the contents of the room remained pristine. Jonathan had arranged the few weapons they had in neat rows. Two Glock .380 pistols and two more pistols she didn’t recognize. Several boxes of ammunition sat alongside each gun, neat and orderly, just the way Jonathan liked things. She didn’t see her hand gun—the one Jonathan had taken from her upon her arrival—anywhere. After searching the entire room, they found no more guns, pistols or otherwise.
    “I thought he had an arsenal in here,” Sam said, eyeing the pistols. “Four guns? That ain’t much.”
    “I know.”
    “He lied,” Sam said, his voice taking on a harsh tone.
    “He wanted us to feel safe,” Chloe said. “A white lie.”
    “I suppose,” Sam shrugged. “Well, so much for that.”
    Chloe didn’t disagree. She packed the ammunition and the two unidentified pistols into Sam’s backpack. She loaded both of the .380s’ magazines with six rounds before handing it to Sam. “Be careful with this,” she said.
    Sam took the pistol. “Kinda small, isn’t it?”
    “We could be stuck with nothing.”
    “Good point.” He stuffed the pistol into his waistband. “We ready?”
    “Almost,” Chloe replied. Placing the .380 into her own waistband, she made her way to the fiction section of the library. A few moments of searching turned up what she’d been looking for: Swan Song , by Robert R. McCammon. She placed the book into her backpack.
    “What’s the book for?” Sam asked.
    “Reading, dummy.”
    “You’re funny.”
    “You never read?” Chloe asked.
    “My mom read. Lots of Stephen King and Dean Koontz.”
    Chloe gave a weak smile. “ Swan Song is my favorite book.”
    “What’s it about?”
    “The end of the world.”
    “Seems like a weird choice. I mean, have you looked around lately? We’re living it.”
    “Different apocalypse. Nuclear war. I guess it makes me feel better. At least we didn’t get bombed.”
    “Was the virus really any better?”
    “It’s still my favorite book,” Chloe said. “I’ll tell you something my mom always said: never argue matters of taste.”
    “She sounded smart.”
    Chloe smiled. “She was.”
    They lifted the bags of food onto their shoulders, the broomsticks bending under the weight, and exited the library. The bloody walls stared back at them, reminding Chloe of her dead companions. She’d become friendly with Jonathan’s group over the past few months. It hurt to know they didn’t survive.
    “The creatures that did this, what do you think they are?” she asked, looking away from a bloody handprint on the wall.
    “I’m not sure.”
    “They’re not human, are they? Not even carrier. They can’t be. That thing that I saw, it was a whole new type of monster.”
    “Not human, no,” Sam said. “Carrier? Maybe.”
    “They don’t look like it.”
    “What else could they be? They’re definitely not people and they’re not wild animals. I mean, they’re human-like. So if you rule out people and carriers, then they’re something else.”
    “But something like that can’t just suddenly exist,” Chloe said.
    “The virus