Fear the Dead 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

shook Harlowe by the collar. His
body jerked, but he didn’t do anything to stop it.
     
    “I told you not to let him go, but
you did it anyway. And look what’s happened. This is on you.”
     
    He pushed Harlowe to the ground and
kicked him in the ribs. Harlowe flinched, but didn’t move to protect himself.
     
    I put myself between him and Moe. I
pulled Harlowe to his knees, but Moe snatched his collar.
     
    “What’s happened?” I said.
     
    “He came back and tried it again,”
said Moe. He slapped Harlowe on the back of the head. “Only this time, he’s
killed someone.”
     
    The words winded me. Harlowe’s face
looked like a swollen tomato, and his body sagged in Moe’s grip. His eyes were
half-closed, and he looked at the ground as though he were resigned to his
punishment. There was no fear in his face now. He didn’t look like the same man
who had shown me the picture of his wife and kid, the one who had convinced me
not to kill him. I had made a massive mistake.
     
    Guilt started to flood my stomach,
but I could suffer that later. I needed to know what had happened. “Who did he
kill?” I said.
     
    Moe rubbed his face with his free
hand. “Does it matter who’s dead? Do you really need to know his name, or is
the fact that he murdered someone enough?”
     
    “Just tell me what’s going on.”
     
    A man shoved his way through the
crowd. He was short and squat. Beady pupils rolled in the whites of his eyes,
and below them a swollen-looking nose flushed red. His chest spread wide and
his gut stuck out.
     
    It was Dan, one of Moe’s scouts. He
was one of the people who had never come to me for work, instead helping Moe
with whatever he wanted doing. Wherever Moe pointed, Dan jumped. When hard work
needed doing, Dan ran.
     
    He looked down on Harlowe, his pink
face twisted in contempt. The contempt didn’t leave him when he looked at me.
     
    “Sam’s dead,” he said, his words
slipping through gritted teeth. “His wife’s a fucking widow because you didn’t
follow the law. What’s gonna have to happen before you realise that we know
best? Things were working well before you showed up.”
     
    That wasn’t true. Things had been
turning to crap before I got here. They were running out of food because hardly
any of the tinned stuff was remotely edible, and they hadn’t made any effort to
grow their own.  They had no direction in life, surviving for the present
by borrowing from the future. Dan was wrong, but I couldn’t say shit because he
was on the mark about one thing; my mercy had gotten someone killed.
     
    My throat thickened, and I got a
sinking feeling as self-loathing slid through my body like bad medicine. I was
going to have to go see Sam’s widow. I didn’t know what it was going to take,
but I would make this right.
     
    Moe grabbed hold of Harlowe’s hair
and pulled his head back. He took out his knife and pressed it to his throat.
Harlowe’s Adam’s apple bulged out of place as he gulped.
     
    “Who wants to see justice?” he said.
     
    The crowd murmured and a few people
spoke in the affirmative. Their features were covered in shadows, twisted into
positons that only anger could make. They had seen one of their own killed by
an outsider, and now they wanted revenge. And there was nothing I was going to
be able to do to stop it. I didn’t know if I wanted to; Harlowe and his
quivering chin were a pathetic reflection of my mistake.
     
    I crouched in front of Harlowe. I
took his chin, made him look at me.
     
    “What about your wife and boy? “I
asked. “They’re not worth living for?”
     
    I don’t know what I expected from
him. Did I want him to say sorry? Plead for his life? It wouldn’t have made a
difference at this point. I was looking at a dead man.
     
    The edges of his lips curled and his
face tightened into a grin. “Can’t believe you bought that shit.”
     
    I gritted my teeth. “What?”
     
    He leant in as far as Moe’s grip
would allow