Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

the infected below and onto the fire escape behind us. We went to the fire escape and made sure nothing was on it like I did before; we had to check everything from this point forward to be safe. Although there wasn’t anyone on the fire escape, directly below it, one of the infected stood, it stared into the vast nothingness of a wall. We went down the ladder and down all the stairs to the last level of the fire escape but we didn’t go down the ladder that would put us on the ground below. We didn’t know what to do about the infected below us. If we dropped down, whichever one of us made it down there first would be left alone with the infected, but if we backtracked and made our exit through the building’s front door, we risk being seen or heard and this meant there was a possibility of attracting the mob of infected all over again.
    “I’ve got it,” Melissa whispered so the infected below wouldn’t hear. She lowered the ladder on the fire escape. She lowered it slowly to avoid making a sound too loud. The slow pace she lowered the ladder at made the metal the fire escape was made out of screech while the ladder rubbed against its support. The infected below us reacted but aside from that it was clear.
    The man walked into the wall in front of him in chase of the sound that came from over his head. At that moment Melissa took the knife she pinned in her jeans and she flung it at a trashcan below us, instantly the infected man was alerted. As he moved towards the sounds of the knife impacting against the trashcan, she climbed down the ladder and jumped off at the bottom. The fall was some six or seven feet to the concrete below. Melissa looked up at me and smirked, then signaled me down with her hand. I followed her lead and jumped off after I climbed down the ladder. Once at the bottom I hit the wall lightly a couple of times with the baseball bat to make some noise so the infected would walk towards the noise and give some room for Melissa to get her knife back. It was like we were in perfect sync; I didn’t need to tell her the noise was for her to pick the knife up. She just knew instinctively to grab it as soon as it was clear and we worked our way out of the alleyway the fire escape left us in.
    The distant sound of dragging feet across pavement and gravel resonated in the alleyway and bounced off of the walls as we made our exit. To the right, a flood of infected awaited it’s next meal, to the left, a burning gas station emptied of infected with a wreck of cars to walk around to continue on our way home. This short walk home became the longest trip of my life. We turned left and walked away slowly; we attempted to make as little noise as possible. The sun was almost gone and there was no power in the town, darkness was on its way. The infected began to blend into the darkness and vanish entirely from our view. I became paranoid as to what things were the infected and what things were just objects in the dark that looked like the infected. Melissa let me know on the walk that we were not too far from her home. We took the next left and walked a bit further down a block that looked like it jumped out of some fifties neighborhood and Melissa pointed her house out of the bunch at the end of the block.
“I’m sure my family is waiting for me. They wouldn’t leave me,” she said in relief now that we were so close to her home.
     
     
    Springfield: The Neighborhood
     
    A lthough we made it to Melissa’s street, we couldn’t just walk up to her house and lead the infected that chased us straight to her family. The street itself wasn’t empty of infected either but we side stepped them and took advantage of the fact that they wouldn’t run. “We need to lead them away before we go to the house.” Melissa cautioned me. I stopped to think. The front door was outside of the question. If we were seen by the infected when we entered the house, they would followed us and attack the house the way the