LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series Read Online Free PDF Page A

soon refugee camps began to rise up as well. Everywhere along the Mississippi River states were seceding from the Union, and the Federal Government had little reason to fight them. If they wanted to live in a wasteland, the President and Congress decided to let them. But when the storms came and the plague spread, most of America was lost. As the East Coast fell, war inevitably followed to take control of resources.
    As for the Olive Garden on Van Dyke Avenue, it was bound to still have some food. There had to be much that had been overlooked in the initial Panic. At least I hope so. I look and almost immediately find a can of diced tomatoes and an old jar of pimiento olives. I make a strange, savory meal of it, taking small swigs of water as I look out the smudged, dirty window at the desolate world waiting for me. I want to find a car, but I begin to question that logic.
    If I find a car, then that would mean that people would see me. Ash is raining from the cloudy sky all day long. It would go from a blizzard to a soft flurry of puffy white ash at the whim of the winds. All of that ash was settling upon the road and that car I might find would send thick, billowing clouds up behind me as I drive, just as the Jeep had. No telling how long the teens had waited for me to arrive. They could have seen me coming for hours. A new means of transportation would be a dead giveaway to everyone inside of Detroit and there is bound to be some band of survivors that have set up their own little dominion in the city. If I am lucky, there will just be the one band in Detroit, but rumor is that there are multiple factions vying for control over the territory and the food scattered throughout the city. I silently thank the preacher for sharing the information over the airways. I know to keep a low profile, and plan to do just that, but the feeling of security within the confines of a car still beckons me.
    Then there is the issue of navigation. Cities are full of vehicles and everyone didn’t just take their cars home and park them nicely during the Panic. When the collapse happened, people abandoned their cars in traffic jams and immediately started strangling and mauling each other in their desperation to find salvation along the highway, or in the heart of the city, or at the lake, or taking to the skies far beyond the horizon. Ultimately, that meant there was gridlock everywhere. Any attempt to get a car through a city would end up with me driving it straight into a traffic jam that has been abandoned for months only to be swarmed by another pack of desperate teenagers who might not be as kind and forgiving as my previous encounter had been.
    No, deep in the pit of my stomach, I know that the only safe way through is on foot.
    If I want to survive, then I need to avoid drawing attention to myself. That is something I can do. It will be faster to cut straight through Detroit on my own, silently, than to go driving around the outskirts of the city just to avoid choke points and dangers. I can’t stall any longer. I have to get to the girls. I can’t waste another day unconscious in the gutter and I certainly can’t waste time avoiding enormous cities altogether. I finish the remnants of my olives and drink the brine. Taking a swig of water to wash down the saltiness, I pull myself up and limp out the front door with a cleaver I found stuffed into my belt. Outside of a pocketknife, it’s the only real weapon I have.
    My headache refuses to abate, regardless of the amount of water I keep drinking. I need sunglasses or caffeine to try and shake the tension, but I begin to suspect something more sinister. I touch the gash on my cheek, feeling the crusted-over wound. I need to clean it and I am way too afraid to use any of the cloth I have on me. If it gets infected, then I’m dead. I need antibiotics.
    Making my way down Van Dyke Avenue, I eventually come across a place that makes me smile out of irony until the pain in my cheek is too