Hollowland Read Online Free PDF Page B

Ripley!”
    “Ripley?” Harlow furrowed her brow.
    “Yeah, I figured if she’s gonna be following us around, we ought to give her a name.”
    “But Ripley?” She raised an eyebrow.
    “She’s badass,” I shrugged. “You saw what she did to those zombies. So she needed a badass name. Like Sigourney Weaver in those Alien movies.”
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harlow shook her head
    “The woman’s name was Ripley, and she killed everything,” I tried to explain. “She was the toughest chick I’ve ever seen.”
    “Alright. Whatever.” She was already wandering away. “I’m gonna go see if I can find anything else I need.”
    “Ripley!” I yelled again. “Here kitty kitty!”
    Harlow screamed and dropped her bottles of water as the lion ran past with the massive chain clattering behind her, and then dove on the marble kitchen island. It scared the hell out of me, too, but I tried not to show it. Ripley flicked her tail and stared down at me.
    “Stupid cat.” Harlow collected her water and headed off to scout out the rest of the house.
    I rummaged through the cupboards and found a metal baking bowl. I set it on the kitchen counter across from the island and started filling it with water.
    Ripley jumped from the island to the counter and began drinking before I’d finished. She started purring as she lapped it up, and I didn’t even know lions could purr.
    “Yeah, you like the name Ripley, don’t you?” She kept purring, and I nodded as if she’d actually agreed with me.
    While Ripley drank her water and Harlow explored the rest of the house, I went to the pantry to look for food. I found a couple cans of salmon, tuna, SPAM, and baked beans, and that was about it for things we could actually eat. A lot of stuff had gone bad or been broken.
    The whole house had been ransacked by something else, and by the random, bloody state of everything, I’d say it was a zombie.
    I set all the edible food on the counter and decided I needed to hit a bedroom for some new clothes. The clothes I was wearing were ratty and covered in blood, and the few extra I had in my messenger bag weren’t much better.
    I’d made it halfway up the grand, winding staircase in the foyer when I heard Ripley growling. Then there was a loud clatter, followed by a gun going off, and Harlow screaming.

 
    – 4 –
     
    I leapt over the banister, landing on the floor in a way that sent a searing pain through my ankle, but I ignored it and ran into the living room. Once I got there, I realized that the gunshot had come from the living room, but Harlow’s scream came from upstairs. She had screamed because she heard the gun.
    While I had been making my way upstairs, two guys had come in through the patio doors off the living room, and Ripley caught them. Her chain clattered, they got frightened, and from the bullet hole in the wall way, way above Ripley’s head, I assumed they were terrible shots.
    Ripley stood in the middle of the living room, looking pissed off and confused.
    “Whoa! Whoa!” I ran in front of Ripley, blocking her from hurting them and them from hurting her, and belatedly realized how dumb that was.
    I didn’t know if I could prevent Ripley from attacking anything, and she might lunge at me if she was scared. Two guys were here, and one of them held a gun, which was now pointed at me since I had stepped in front of it.
    I stood between a lion and a gunman, and both of them might kill me just for the hell of it.
    “What’s going on?” Harlow yelled from the top of the stairs.
    “Stay upstairs!” I shouted.
    “Put the gun down!” That was the gun-less young man, talking to his friend. He was the taller of the two, with sandy blond hair and reassuring gray eyes.
    “No way,” the gunman said. The hand holding the shotgun quivered, and black hair kept falling into his eyes, so he couldn’t even take aim properly. He gestured at Ripley with the gun. “Is that thing safe?”
    “She’s a