Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse Read Online Free PDF Page B

crow-bar.
    I hunted the darkness, my eyes searching the lawns and driveway for any sign of movement, my sense of alarm and unease rising. The man had disappeared.
    But to where? He could be anywhere. He could have gone around to the rear of the house – or he could be shambling his way across the street towards me…
    The whine of the helicopter’s engine tore my attention back up into the night sky. The chopper was plunging towards its destruction.
    But a t the last possible moment, the helicopter seemed to gather itself like a horse about to meet a fence. It lifted, surged. I heard the engine screaming in protest and the helicopter seemed to hang on its tail, maybe just fifty feet in the air. It went over the roof of the house directly across from where we watched, and then disappeared from sight in a wind-whipped cloud of dust and leaves and rain and noise.
    I felt Harrigan beside me, his body brushing past my shoulder as he stepped impulsively out from the shelter of the tree line and into the long grass that fringed the road. “Come on!” he said, his voice a ragged hiss. “He’s going down behind that house. We’ve got to get there– fast!”
    I reached for him – too late. In an instant, Harrigan was half-way across the street.
    Jesus!
    I punched Jed in the shoulder. “Come on!” I said. “But keep your eyes peeled, for God’s sake. I saw a zombie come out of the house. It was a man. He could be anywhere.”
    We went out into the open night, chasing after Harrigan. The big man seemed to have grown wings, moving like an Olympic sprinter. I scrambled in the long grass and muddy ground and then my feet hit the hard surface of the tarmac and I plunged after him. When I knew I couldn’t catch him in time, I risked everything – including our lives.
    “Wait!” I shouted, knowing that single word would be enough to draw the zombie’s unrelenting attention.
    Harrigan seemed to freeze in mid-stride. He was standing on the home’s front lawn. His body seemed to cringe – as though shocked by the desperation of my cry. He turned, his expression blank, and yet somehow his tension radiated in the way he held his body.
    He was suddenly scared.
    I ran on towards him, hunched under the driving onslaught of the rain and with the nylon bag pounding against my back and slowing me like an anchor. I heard Jed right behind me, but I didn’t take my eyes off Harrigan. As I ran I thrust out my arm.
    Harrigan must have thought I was pointing at him. I saw his expression transform into one of bewilderment – and then everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.
    From behind Harrigan, a ghostly grey shape appeared through the driving curtain of rain. It was a drifting, shambling shadow that attacked from behind the black shape of a garden shrub.
    The zombie lunged at Harrigan. I saw its face become a twisted mask of rage. I saw its undead eyes widen. I saw the dark blood that streaked the ghoul’s shirt, and the fingers – seized into claws as it struck.
    Obliterated by the sound of the storm, and the desperate whine of the helicopter’s rotors, the zombie’s attack was silent. Its mouth was open – maybe it was growling. Maybe there was a blood-curdling roar in the back of its throat. I heard nothing of it – and I was certain Harrigan would hear nothing either.
    I wasn’t pointing as I ran. I had the Glock in my hand, arm extended, and I squeezed the trigger once. The retort of the shot was a snapping punch of sound that split the night for an instant. I fired as I ran. I fired with my arm swaying, and my hand trembling, and in hindsight, I was lucky I didn’t shoot Harrigan accidentally.
    The zombie lunged from behind Harrigan and to his left. My shot went wide. I heard the sound of breaking glass and figured I had probably just killed a window. I fired again and missed again. Harrigan glared at me in horrified alarm.
    “Behind you!” I gasped. My breath sawed in my throat.
    The zombie lunged. It was like