Outbreak (Book 1): Emerald City Read Online Free PDF Page A

close. It was a pretty normal routine. Pete would push Matt to the limit, Matt would snap at Pete, and Pete would slink off and cry. A fabulous life , Luke thought. He decided it was time for another smoke.
    Matt ignored his cousin and kept going. “So we get over there, and that shit is like, just a few miles across town,” he said, tracing his finger down a line on the map. “We get there and we make sure the fence is still secure. Then we clear out all the zombies from inside the fence and it's home sweet home.”
    “That’s not bad,” Luke said as he carefully took a cigarette out of his pack. At first he had no interest in Matt’s plan of moving out of the building. He had his own secret stash of food, plus the hotel was as secure of a place as it was going to get. All he would have to do would be to ration his food and he could hole up for quite a while. At least until this shit blows over, he reasoned. Still, he knew there was safety in numbers, which was the only reason he put up with the three of them in the first place.
    When the shit hit the fan and the infection spread across the country, Luke had been in the hotel on a business trip. Before the apocalypse, Luke had been a software engineer and the one time the stupid company he worked for had ponied up to send him to a client site, it had turned out to be the same week the world was going to go to hell. Luke had found himself two thousand miles from home and in a city he knew absolutely nothing about. As soon as people started turning into zombies, the city locked everything down and they were all quarantined to the hotel. Nobody was sick at first and folks got along okay sharing food from the hotel’s restaurant. Then the virus got in and the hotel became a madhouse. People started getting sick left and right, so Luke had barricaded himself in his room. He lived off of cigarettes, energy drinks, and the protein bars he had brought from home and passed the time listening to people scream up and down the hallway outside his door.
    After a few days, it got quiet and he decided to look around. Corpses were everywhere but he was hungry and made a try for the lobby. He was scavenging for food in the kitchen when he encountered his first zombie. The monster had Luke cornered and he was sure he was going to die when a gunshot had rung out and Luke turned to see Matt standing there. Turned out, Matt, Pete, and Ted were looking for a new place to hole up. “Mind if we stay awhile?” Matt had asked. Luke could tell by the look on his face it was not really a question, so Luke decided to go along to get along.
    “So we clear out the zombies,” Luke said, coming back to the present. “Then what?”
    “We have a new base of operations,” Matt continued. “Somewhere with floor space so we can do whatever we want. I’m thinking we build some kind of convoy super truck. Something like a tank that we can drive straight over the zombies with.”
    “Crush those nasty bastards,” Ted said, speaking up for the first time. Luke looked over at him. Of course our resident psycho would say something like that, he thought.
    “Yeah,” Matt said.
    “Where will we go?” Luke asked.
    “I’m thinking eastern Oregon or something,” Matt said. “I don’t know for sure. Somewhere it doesn’t rain every Goddamn day. Plus, there ain’t too many people out in that part of the country so there shouldn’t be too many zombies. I figure we find some small town, clean it out, then make ourselves comfortable until the military gets the world figured out again.”
    “Like the Amish,” Pete said from over by the window.
    “What?” Matt asked.
    “Like the Amish did. Back in the 80’s? I saw it on the internet. They all dressed up in red and bought a town out there in Oregon, or something.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Matt asked.
    “It was the Rashneesh,” Luke said. “But, yes, kind of like that.”
    “We could call it Zombie Free Country,” Pete