Empire's End Read Online Free PDF

turned and gone in the opposite direction. As much as he
yearned for companionship—
    (Lily)
    He didn’t expect all people to be as
accepting as the child had been. The man who’d helped to get Lily
out of Jefferson Harbor, Voorhees—he had regarded the former Death
with more than a bit of apprehension. But he’d been a good man.
Adam had watched him for a long time to make sure of just that.
    “You’re lost in thought,” Thackeray said. He
chewed an ear off of the rat’s blackened head. “I don’t think you
heard a word I just said.”
    “I’m sorry. What was it?”
    “I said the berries around here are deadly
poisonous.”
    “Oh.” Why was the man telling Adam that? He
was forgetting his own lies.
    “Let me try something,” Thackeray said
through a mouthful of rat meat, and sank the fork’s tines into
Adam’s shoulder.
    They both stared down at the handle of the
fork. It had gone clean through the new suit Adam had taken from
one of the rotters back in town.
    “This is where you would express some sort of
discomfort,” Thackeray said.
    Adam looked across the fire at him.
Tentatively, he grasped the fork and pulled it free. “I... it
didn’t...”
    “I know who you are,” Thackeray said softly.
“Josie was right. You’re the angel. The angel of death.”
    He reached out and took the fork back. “Sorry
for the whole ‘stabbing you’ thing. I’m a little eccentric, they
say. Maybe that’s why I can sit across from you and keep a straight
face. If the others knew...” He shrugged and took another bite of
his dinner.
    “How do you know of me?” Adam demanded.
    “Most badlanders in these parts have heard of
you. I mean, you’ve saved so many lives, cut the undead down right
in front of them—did you really think no one would tell?”
    “I’ve appeared to many in the past,” Adam
said. “I didn’t think anyone would believe them.”
    “Well, in a world where the dead walk,
nothing seems impossible. I’ve heard old folk say they saw you
killing rotters seventy, eighty years ago. Were you?”
    “I have been hunting them since it began,”
Adam said. “But things are different now. You have to
understand—I’m no longer the Reaper.”
    “I guess that explains the suit. Sorry for
ruining your jacket, by the way.”
    “It’s fine.”
    “So what’s been strapped to your back all
night?” Thackeray asked.
    Removing his jacket, Adam loosed the ropes
securing the scythe blade to his pale torso, and handed the weapon
across the flames. “Jesus, that’s heavy,” Thackeray whispered. “So
this is it.”
    Adam nodded. “You don’t talk to a lot of
people, do you?” Thackeray asked.
    “I’ve not had much need to,” was the reply.
“There was one, but...” His face brightened with hope. “Maybe
you’ve heard of her. Maybe she told you her story. Her name is
Lily.”
    Thackeray shook his head. “Sorry friend.”
    “I shouldn’t have thought so.”
    “Where did you know her?”
    “Somewhere far away. A man took her north. He
said she’d be safe there.”
    “Maybe he meant the Great Cities?”
    “I don’t know them.”
    “It’s the place where the government’s
hoarded away all of our country’s resources.” Thackeray’s
expression grew dark, angry. “It’s where they’ve consolidated
America—leaving Americans like us here with nothing. And now all
the troops are there too. They’re walling themselves up in there
and going on as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist, as if the
plague doesn’t exist. They’re wrapping themselves up in a blanket
of ignorance and trying to sleep through the apocalypse. As for the
rest of us—the people who choose to keep fighting for this land,
the people who are actually living —we’re condemned along
with our homes. But make no mistake, the Great Cities aren’t going
to last. Unless something’s done, the bubble is going to burst, and
then no one will have any resources to use against the undead.”
    He spoke with a