Infection Z (Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

world without a tit to suckle on. We’ve just got to figure out how to crawl as comfortably as we can before it all catches up with us.”
    Hayden didn’t want to accept Sarah’s words, but he knew deep down they were right. Something else was niggling at him too. Something he couldn’t keep hidden for much longer. “Newbie found … found a transmission.”
    “He found a what?”
    “A radio signal. Some safe haven calling all people to wander on down there. Somewhere near Warrington, so not even that far away. He … was telling me about it just before you got attacked. But yeah. We might have somewhere.”
    Hayden watched as Sarah’s eyebrows raised. He knew how keen she was on getting out of the confines of the bunker. He knew how eager she was to find somewhere new, somewhere safer and more adept to housing the four of them.
    “What do you think about it?” she asked.
    Hayden wasn’t sure whether to be honest or what being honest even meant anymore. “I … I dunno. I just don’t have a good feeling. I know that won’t surprise you. But I just think it seems too … too easy. Like, everything since the undead started walking has been a struggle. And a mythical safe haven that just so happens to be thirty miles from here? It just seems iffy to me. And I can’t help but keep on thinking of Frank. What the military did to him. And what the military did to the whole of Smileston and other cities, too.” He raised his hands, which shook through a combination of cold and hunger. “So yeah. Call me tin hat brigade or cynical or whatever. Can’t help but feel that way. Shall we head back?”
    Sarah looked at him for a few moments. She didn’t say a word, as Hayden walked away from the smouldering fire, coughing as the ashes of the dead tickled his chest.
    “I think you’re probably right, y’know,” she said.
    Hayden frowned. “About what?”
    “About this safe place in Warrington. I think you’re probably right to be cautious. I know I’ve made my position perfectly clear in the past but … maybe a bit of cautiousness isn’t such a bad thing after all.”
    “Wow,” Hayden said. “Didn’t expect that from you. Now just to convince Clarice and Newbie to stay put at the five-star delight that is Hotel Bun-keur.”
    Sarah snorted and shook her head. “You really aren’t funny.”
    “Then why are you laughing?”
    “The same reason people laugh at Alan Partridge. The key word being ‘at’ there.”
    “I’ll take it,” Hayden said. “Just about.”
    “Please just … just lay off your sister a bit. You can’t wrap her in cotton wool. The sooner you understand you aren’t solely responsible for her, the better.”
    Hayden didn’t respond to Sarah. Because he disagreed—he did feel solely responsible for her. And maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was some pent up long-standing feelings of inadequacy.
    Whatever it was, it was going to keep Clarice from danger.
    Sarah and Hayden walked back up the frosty hill towards the bunker as the pile of bodies crackled and hissed in the flames.
    They didn’t see them coming.
    Not yet.

Seven
    T o Hayden’s disappointment , he didn’t get to stay in the “safe confines” of the bunker long before he was out in the treacherous wild again.
    He walked across the grassy hill with a fresh trap in hand. It was an idea of Newbie’s—an empty plastic bottle with a small bit of food inside. A little window was cut into the side of the bottle, which small animals could crawl in through but struggled to get out of.
    In theory, anyway. The traps had only really been successful once, and even then they’d only managed to catch a mouse with barely enough meat on it to feed a small kid, let alone four fully grown adults.
    Newbie walked beside him. They hadn’t said much since their little disagreement back in the comms room was interrupted by Clarice and Sarah. Their footsteps both crunched against the frozen ground. The sun was low but there was a gradual