Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

man after all. By her own admission, Kai was new to this way of life and she herself remembered how difficult it had been for her to get used to stripping down when the need arose to wash in mixed company, let alone relieving yourself in front of someone else. But Fran knew there was simply no room in this world of the Dead for any outdated shyness; privacy was a luxury of the past, privacy could get you killed. So with her resolve returning, Fran began to climb back over the gate. She was just about to swing her legs over when she heard Kai’s stammering voice calling to her.
    ‘Y… you g…gonna give me a h…hand?’ he asked, appearing through the tree line further down the gravel track; a heavy looking sack over each shoulder.
    Somewhat relieved that the situation had resolved itself without her having to interrupt Kai answering his call of nature, Fran nodded, jumped from the gate and jogged to meet him halfway. She knew she would still have to broach the subject though and even as she approached him she tried to think of just how to phrase what she needed to say.
    ‘T… take this one,’ he gestured, easing the sack slowly off his right shoulder, ‘there’s p…plums in there too so g…go easy… d…don’t s…squash them.’
    ‘Got it,’ she replied, briefly opening the sack to look at a mound of the bright red and golden fruit.
    ‘Kai…’ she began, gently lifting the sack of precious fruit.
    ‘L…look I’m s…sorry about before,’ he cut in, his features suddenly scrunching up apologetically, ‘I sh…shouldn’t have gone off on one like that about T…Tom…. b…but he’s s…so unpre…predictable.’
    Fran turned to look up into Kai’s large dark eyes, so full of worry and concern for not only his own safety but clearly for hers too, that it almost made her want to drop her burden and pull him into a comforting hug. As far as life among the Dead was concerned, this twenty-one year old man was an innocent. His previous life had sheltered him from the terror filled realities they had all had to endure and she knew he had to learn fast if he wanted to survive; there was more than just rules about relieving himself she needed to tell him about.
    ‘Kai,’ she continued, knowing that mollycoddling him now simply to protect him from the realities of this new world he found himself in could only end badly for everyone and may even get him killed. ‘Kai, you’ve got to understand something… the old rules, they… they don’t apply anymore. You can’t judge people’s sanity or reliability by what used to be normal… not now, not anymore. Everyone you’re going to meet from now on, they’ve all had to survive their own horrors…they’ve all seen the most terrible things imaginable happen to people they loved and they’ve all had to come to terms with it in their own way. Some have become spiteful and full of anger; angry at the Dead or angry at other survivors for simply surviving when others didn’t. Some, like Tom, are wrestling with their inner demons, somehow keeping those they lost with them and only allowing their pain to surface when they can use it to their advantage… But everybody’s different, everybody’s found their own way to make sure they get can through to another day… Christ! Some people have even managed to find God in all this madness…’
    They had reached the gate again by this point and as she slowly lowered the sack to the ground with a ‘grunt’, she turned to Kai again.
    ‘Do… do you get what I’m saying?’ she asked, searching his face for understanding.
    Kai effortlessly lifted his sack of fruit over the gate and set it down the other side before looking back at Fran.
    ‘And w…what about you?’ he simply said. ‘What gets you through the d…day?’
    She thought for a moment, pondering just what it was that enabled her to go on without her own loss overwhelming her and then a single word formed in her head.
    ‘Hope,’ she softly said.