Safety Lost (Killing the Dead Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

touch told me that Sara was no longer alive. Her body was cold and still beneath my hand. I gently probed her body to find the reason for her death. I had no intention of being in the same small room as someone who had died from being bitten.
    “What happened, how did she get hurt?” I asked when my probing found no visible wounds.
    “Her car crashed.” The little girl said. “She hurt herself then and that bad man was chasing us so she brought me here.”
    If nothing else, the dead girl had my admiration. She likely had some internal injury from the crash but had still managed to bring her little sister to a place of safety to hide from the undead. A futile effort admittedly as it would have been a slow death by starvation if I hadn’t turned up, but a noble effort at least.
    “Can you help her?” the girl asked.
    “Your sister is dead. No one can help her now.” I said and the girl burst into tears. I realised that I should have been a little more diplomatic and silently wished for Lily to be here to help deal with the girl.
    She sat on the floor as huge racking sobs shook her small frame. I had no idea how to deal with the situation and my usual method of either walking away or permanently silencing the person weren’t really feasible.
    I lowered myself to sit by the girl and gently patted her back. I thought back to my travels with the group and tried to remember how they dealt with things like this. I made some sounds that I hoped were soothing and continued to pat her.
    The girl pressed close and wrapped her arms around me, needing human contact so badly that she would take what comfort she could from a stranger. She cried for a time until exhausted she fell asleep against me.
    It wasn’t long before I had an ache in the small of my back from sitting on the hard floor with no back support. Every time I tried to move the child stirred and whimpered and I had to settle back in place or risk her waking and subjecting me to more weeping.
    I clenched my free hand into a fist and pushed it against the ache in my back in an attempt to knead the pain away. It didn’t work. With a sigh I shifted my weight and considered what options I had for dealing with the child.
    A small part of my mind was already warning me that Lily would not approve of abandoning a child in the zombie infested world, though another part snidely pointed out that she would never know.
    If the girl was left alone she would probably die and while I was more than happy to let adults live or die by their own choices – or mine – a child was different. I liked children. They were refreshingly easy to deal with usually and while I would never actively kill one, that didn’t mean I wanted to be in any way responsible for one either.
    My best idea would be to leave her with someone else, though that would mean finding someone I could trust enough to actually take care of her and not harm her. The only person I truly trusted was Lily. She would be able to decide what to do with her.
    That decision made, my next was how to keep her alive to get to Lily. That would mean food and water first of all, which meant that my raiding the village for supplies was still necessary. I sat quietly and let the child sleep until the sky started to darken.
    “Wake up, time to go.” I said as I shook her awake roughly. She rubbed at her eyes and looked around in post sleep stupor.
    “Eh?”
    “We need to go.”
    “Go where?” she asked.
    “I need to find some food and then I am going to find my friend. You can come with me or you can stay here on your own.” I told her firmly.
    Her eyes darted to the office and quickly away again as tears formed, “I’m not supposed to go with strangers.”
    “You don’t have much choice do you?” I asked and then as she started to sniffle I added, “Look, my name is Ryan. What’s your name?”
    “Emma” she said and swiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
    “Ok Emma, now we aren’t strangers. Do you know