Blog of the Dead (Book 2): Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

see in the direction I was staring in.
    ‘You see it?’ I asked.
    ‘Yep.’ We both watched as the figure stumbled across the shingles on unsteady legs, away from the promenade. It had one arm wrapped around its waist, the other hung loosely by its side and every now and then it would collapse onto its knees, haul itself up and carry on – in our direction. ‘I’ll go put it down,’ said Misfit and he sprung to his feet. ‘Won’t be a minute. Stay here and watch the fishing line.’
    ‘Wait,’ I said. I stood and put my hand on Misfit’s arm. I watched as the figure reached a breakwater. It rested its free arm on the weather and sea worn wooden post and lifted a leg over a beam, its next leg didn’t quite clear the beam and it toppled, sprawling onto a patch of sand. Something fell from its free hand – what I had thought was a free hand – it looked like a hammer. The figure must have been holding it near the base, with the handle hidden up the sleeve of its long black coat. It scrabbled about in the sand, found the hammer, picked it up and staggered to its feet. ‘It’s a human,’ I said.
    ‘Shit,’ said Misfit. I guessed he’d witnessed the whole hammer thing too, so didn’t need me to explain. ‘He’s hurt bad. What do we do?’
    ‘What we always do – we help.’ I sprinted along the promenade and down the slope, onto the beach. Shingle crunched under my baseball boots. Misfit whizzed past me, the shingle hardly moving in his wake. As we both neared the figure, I could see a man, mid to late forties, shoulder length grey hair slicked out of his face by grease, apart from a few strands that hung in his dark eyes. He stopped moving as we approached and stood watching us through those strands of hair. One shoulder, the one with the hand that held the hammer, slumped forwards, the other was raised, that arm tensed as it held his coat closed around his tall, thin frame. He had a bruise beginning to develop on the left side of his jaw.
    ‘You OK?’ I asked as I stopped a couple of metres back from him, my hand on the handle of my knife through my belt. Something about him, more than his bad physically state, something dark within him made me feel uncomfortable. Misfit had also stopped at a safe distance. ‘We … we’re here to help, if … if you …’ The man just stared at me. ‘Can we do anything? We can get you water … something to eat …’
    ‘I don’t need any help,’ said the man, his voice gruff, gravely and hoarse.
    ‘Fine,’ I said, slowly nodding my head. ‘It’s just … you need to be careful down here. We had a run in yesterday with a lot of zombies further into the Warren. They wander in from the train line. It’s not safe. Do you have anywhere to stay?’
    ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘Hey,’ said Misfit, knife in hand, and he strutted forwards, squaring up to the stranger, even though he stood more than a foot shorter than him. ‘Don’t. Talk. To. Her. Like. That. Got it?’ The stranger remained impassive and stared down at Misfit.
    ‘Are you going anywhere in particular?’ I asked.
    ‘Again … what’s it to you ?’
    ‘ Again … don’t talk to her like that,’ spat Misfit.
    I tightened the grip on my knife. If the stranger carried on in his current direction, travelling down the Warren towards Dover, he’d have to pass Flick and Sara’s shack. The two of them suddenly appeared vulnerable to me. Flick had a shotgun and knew how to use it, but I wasn’t about to grant this stranger a free pass on our turf. We’d had a shotgun, and we’d been a group of five, but Caine, Misfit’s stepdad, had terrorised us even so. I shot Misfit a glance, and when he turned and looked into my eyes, I knew he was thinking the same thing.
    Faster than my eyes could keep track of, Misfit turned back to the stranger and lifted his knife arm, its trajectory, the stranger’s head. The stranger swung his arm up and blocked the knife with his hammer, and the pair grunted at