Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

about your mission,” Vincent said. “You never get tired of talking about it, but I’m getting tired of hearing it.”
    Her mission was to find Jim Traverse and bring him out of Detroit. He might be dead, but she wasn’t.
    Another gunshot outside. She could only hope they were killing zombies. What if they weren’t? What would happen? Everyone got along in their little commune so far because everyone pitched in. But she wasn’t the only one having nightmares. These civilians had survived a mild winter with survivor’s guilt.
    Another gunshot. A dog barked.
    Another sleepless night.
    Vincent eventually fell asleep, as she expected. She walked out into the neighborhood. Sometimes she saw other people wandering around in the dark, and she always feared they were zombies. They probably thought she was, too. But she had a reputation for walking around at night, and some people tried to talk to her about random things. Like the weather, or old movies they wanted to see again.
    Nobody bothered her this night, and she was able to make her way to a fenced-in basketball court for a scheduled rendezvous.
    “I can hear you breathing,” Vega said to the darkness.
    Long pause.
    “You don’t look like you brought anything with you,” a woman responded, cloaked by the shadows. She was invisible, though Vega had a good idea where she might be.
    “I probably didn’t,” Vega said.
    “Wasting my time. I can’t come out here every single damn night. When I do come back out here, I’m kidnapping your ass and trading you.”
    “ Calm down, bitch.”
    “You got one minute.”
    Vega sighed. The other woman was good at doing business, had a nose for it. Angelica was her name, a woman who was probably mixed with every bloodline known to man. Calling her “Angie” was an easy way to piss her off.
    Angelica had done Vega a huge favor. Their first trade involved Angelica making a promise that she would be able to get Alexis, a little girl who lost both her parents, to a better outpost. Vega wanted the girl to be safe, but she didn’t trust herself anymore. She spent a lot of time wishing she had the courage to go back out there, to take Alexis to a safer place herself. Angelica was the next best thing, or so she had hoped.
    “I don’t have anything for you,” Vega said. “I just want to know what it’s like out there, by yourself.”
    Angelica chuckled.
    And then awkward silence. For a long time Vega wondered if Angelica was there at all, if she had ever been there. Vega might be totally nuts by now, and nobody was around to tell her. A cold beer would have made all the difference in her world.
    “You can’t trade me enough to answer what your real question is,” Angelica said. “You want to know if you can do it. You want to take my place. You think you can do better, huh? I’m not coming back. Ever. Fuck you, and fuck this place.”
    “I’ve always liked your sense of humor,” Vega said. “I keep hearing about this Sutter guy. You think he’s going to come in guns blazing, or give everyone a chance to surrender?”
    Vega didn’t wait around too much longer before deciding she wasn’t getting an answer.

 
    JIM
     
     
     
     
     
    Her name was Linda and her stomach rumbled. Suspended from chains, her limp body dangled outside of a window, three stories above the pavement. Linda often twisted and turned, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
    Jim flipped through the pages of a poetry chapbook and ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while sitting by the window. He paused every few lines to inhale; dust and rot and ash, smells that he never wanted to grow used to, smells that he wanted to feel and experience to remind him where he was, and what he had made.
    The abandoned automobile factory, the Packard Plant, was the perfect place for his new kingdom. How silly it was to think going back to Egypt would be helpful. Detroit’s ruins were perfect, and it was ground zero for the apocalypse. What better place to build