Dead Beginnings (Vol. 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

straining her neck to get to the fresh, warm meat that hovered over her.
    She was a monster come to life.
    With the cry, Lee raised his foot high and brought it down on her head. In the movies, they show blood shooting out from all sides and brain spilling onto the floor, but all Lee heard was the crack of Heidi’s skull as it caved in from the force of his foot.
    Tears streaked his face as she stared down at the unmoving mess that was once a happy, thoughtful, sweet, and caring woman. There was no going back from what he had just done. It didn’t matter what she was now. She was once a human being and he had just crushed the life from her in a matter of seconds.
    The urge to crumble overwhelmed him. His legs shook as he forced them to stand tall under the weight of his massive body. His hands shook violently. How could he have done that? How could he kill someone? His job was to save people! The voices in his head screamed. His knees trembled as they prepared to buckle.
    “No!”  he yelled aloud. He couldn’t give up now. He was so close to getting out the hell unraveling around him and getting home to his wife. He had to protect her and his child.
    Another monstrous beings came for Lee as he stood staring, unable to look away from the damage he’d caused, the life he’d taken. It grabbed ahold of his arm from behind and pulled toward its mouth. Lee felt hot breath beat against his skin as the thing groaned. He swung around and hit it in the side of the head with his iron-like fist. Then he swiped the thing’s legs out from under it with his own, but its grip still remained on his arm, threatening to drag him down as well.
    What was once a young man, possibly a patient who came in to be treated for something as small as the flu, looked up at Lee with an unquenchable thirst in his eyes, a hunger that would never be suppressed, and an urge that could never be satisfied. It strained its neck relentlessly, trying to get its teeth around Lee’s arm, until multiple veins burst in its eyes and they turned bright red. Still, it kept on.
    Suddenly, warm blood splattered Lee face and shirt. The tight grip on his arm fell away.
    “This way!” a man shouted, waving Lee on with a fire extinguisher.
    The bottom of the metal barrel was dented from where he’d bashed in the skull of the thing attacking Lee. They ran for the exit together. Without stopping, they charged the group still devouring what was left of the old man on the entry mat. Lee kicked his leg without a second thought and sent the ravenous teenage boy flying backward down the hall.
    He charged forward to the promise of safety, the man who saved him by his side, clutching the bloodied extinguisher to his chest.
     
     
    VII.
     
     
                  The parking lot wasn’t in any better shape than inside the hospital. Dozens of bodies laid sprawled out on the hot pavement, surrounded by pools of fresh blood. Most lay still in the peacefulness of death, while others stirred and tried to stand back on their feet, a new hunger behind their vacant eyes.
                  “My car’s this way!” Lee shouted.
                  His legs were almost twice as long as the man who’d saved him, carrying him further and further ahead. He didn’t stop until he reached his burgundy Honda, his chest heaving gulps of the thick, hot air. There was screaming all around as he fumbled in his pockets for his keys.
                  He glanced quickly over his shoulder. The man with the extinguisher was almost to him, just another twenty feet to go and they would both be safely contained in the confines of the little car. Lee pressed the unlock button on the key-fob and hurried into the driver’s seat.
                  A sickening scream echoed. Lee snapped his head to look out the window. The man he waited for lay flat on his stomach on the ground, the extinguisher rolling out of reach from his hands. One of the sick had been