Plagued: The Midamerica Zombie Half-Breed Experiment (Plagued States of America) Read Online Free PDF Page B

horde had split them up. Father and mother climbed to the roof with most everyone in the apartment complex, but Tom and Larissa had been stuck in the elevator between floors. Only Gary knew where they were, and he hadn’t found their father yet to tell him. So when the horde came, Tom, a boy of twelve, could think of only one way to escape. When the horde climbed up the stairs past them, they would go down beneath them. He forced open the door and climbed out above to watch the stairs, but he had left Larissa alone. A girl of eight. A frightened little girl. Her screaming never left him.
    Tom rushed forward. The zombies were shuffling toward the woman even as Tom reached down and grabbed her by her waist. She shook frantically but he lifted her and spun her about, her legs kicking fiercely. He ran to the back of the shop and to the broken window. The hole wasn’t large enough for them both.
    “You have to jump,” he yelled in her ear. She shook her head and struggled to free herself of his grip, somehow managing to kick him in the groin from all her thrashing. He dropped her as he fell to his knees, a debilitating pain seizing his muscles. She scrambled away from him, kicking furiously behind her. “Stop!” he shouted at her, but she wouldn’t listen. “Stop!” He fought off the pain and the lump in his gut and stood up, intent on chasing after her again, but as he did a zombie appeared in the aisle above her. Tom watched with bitter resentment over having eyes, the same hatred of owning a memory as he had when Larissa had been bitten. The zombies couldn’t reach Larissa from below more than to grab her and pull her to them, enough to bite her before she fought free. Tom remembered jumping into the elevator and picking her up, then running for the stairs. He remembered rushing down the stairs to street level, all the while Larissa sobbing on his shoulder, crying, begging him not to tell mother or father that they bit her.
    Two more zombies toppled over the woman. Tom turned away from the brutal savagery. He jumped out the broken window and felt weightless a moment before plunging into the icy water of the channel. He wasn’t the only one swimming for it. There were several others trying to reach the ferry, but it was moving too quickly now.
    “Gary!” Tom managed to shout once, waving an arm frantically. But he couldn’t see Gary anymore. He wasn’t along the railing as he had been. Gary couldn’t see him. “Gary!” he shouted desperately.
    The water was like ice. Tom began to swim with the current instead of giving into his fierce desire to swim at the ferry like so many others were trying. The ferry’s engines were creating a furious tide that pushed those behind it back under the pier. The water streamed around, washing back out toward the channel. The bleating of the alarm rained down over him, gaining volume over the gurgling groaning of the ferry engines growing softer as it easily out-distanced him. He was thirty or forty feet away from the pier posts when he finally gave up. The ferry had moved out into the choppy waters and was racing at full speed to the other side. The men and women behind him were clinging to the algae covered posts holding up the pier, trying the climb out of the icy chill. Tom knew he would die if he stayed in the water. He’d die on Biter’s Hill too, but at least on the hill he had a chance to run.
    He swam for the boat launch ramp on the other side of the wharf. From his vantage point it looked like he was the only one to think of it. He wanted to shout to the others in the water to follow him, but the cold had constricted his lungs so much he could hardly breathe over his shivering. But he swam. He fought the rigidity taking hold at his knees and ankles and elbows, and swam. Just get to shore, he told himself. Maybe they’ll get things under control. Maybe the ferry will come back. He’ll laugh about this someday. Just get to shore.
    The old slaver’s truck – the man