Dead Living Read Online Free PDF Page A

pulled open
the door and took his first steps onto the second floor. As Joe ran
up the stairs he heard Frank shooting.
    His hopes fell. How far did he really expect
to get with a keyboard?
    He looked through the window leading to the
third floor. Down the hall he could see someone walking, his back
facing Joe. For a moment, he thought it was a normal person. Then
he noticed the slow, unsteady gait. In a closet just behind the
creature, a mother burst the door open and fell to the ground. Her
young daughter, whom the parent had spent the last hour hiding in
the closet with and treating her wounds, tore a chunk of flesh out
of her mother's back. The other creature turned and joined in the
attack.
    “My God, this can't be happening.”
    A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind.
    Joe spun around and cocked the keyboard back,
ready to strike. Denise held up her hands and shielded her
face.
    “Hey, hey! It's me!”
    He let out a breath and lowered his weapon.
“Shit, lady! What are you doing here?”
    “I, uh, don't really have anywhere else to
go. And you need help. You gotta find your family. Hell, that's my
job here. I'm supposed to help people.”
    Joe was surprised. He didn't expect help from
anyone. He gave her a smile and looked at the fire extinguisher she
carried. It was no doubt a little sturdier than the keyboard he
had.
    He stuttered. He didn't know what to say. “I
. . . well . . . thank you. I owe you one.”
    “I'm Denise.”
    “Joe.”
    Denise pushed her face to the glass. She
looked away when she saw the disgusting feast still happening at
the end of the hall.
    “Okay, the maternity ward isn't too far away.
It's just two halls over to the right. But . . . I don't know what
we're gonna find there.”
    He took a breath. “You ready?”
    She nodded.
    Joe opened the door. The two creatures at the
end of the hall looked up. They climbed to their feet and started
walking quickly.
    “Come on,” Denise said.
    They took the hall slow but steady. It took
everything Joe had not to break into a run. He heard the two
creatures trying to catch up behind him, but he told himself they
were slow. If they ran, they would make noise, and who knows what
they would run into.
    As they approached one hall intersection Joe
saw a hand grab the corner of the wall, then pulled around the
corner. Denise recognized the man as Doctor Jay, a nice man who
always told her how pretty she looked.
    He looked at her now and wailed. His eye hung
halfway out of the socket. When he opened his jaw to moan, the eye
fell out completely, held only by the optic nerve.
    Denise was convinced now they were walking
corpses.
    Joe, who hadn't kept track of the news, was
stunned. He knew they didn't feel pain, but this was too much.
    He raced toward what used to be Doctor Jay.
He swung the keyboard as hard as he could across his face, breaking
the cheap plastic. Doctor Jay stumbled backwards and fell awkwardly
on his leg. Joe heard it break.
    That still didn't stop the doctor. He slowly
crawled toward them, drooling blood on the floor.
    “The ward's one more hall over,” Denise said,
grabbing his arm. “Let's go.”
    As they passed an exam room, Denise saw a
nurse she used to eat lunch with ripping the tongue out of
someone's mouth. The nurse, with the scent of warm flesh in her
nose, left her cooling meal and stood up.
    “We have to hurry before we attract too much
attention,” Joe said.
    “We're here. Just this next left.”
    When they reached the intersection they
stopped. Joe looked down a long hall with rooms on both sides. A
creature had a woman pinned to the wall, teeth in her throat, about
halfway up the hall.
    “Doctor Blair would have brought her
here.”
    Joe looked behind him. Three creatures were
still slowly approaching, their arms outstretched. He took the fire
extinguisher from Denise.
    “I guess we have to look in every room,
right?”
    She nodded.
    They started searching rooms. The first room
they saw that wasn't empty had a