Surviving The Evacuation (Book 5): Reunion Read Online Free PDF Page A

warehouse. How they had died was obvious. It was the vaccine. Maybe it was a brutal accident, and maybe it was just this consignment, but he didn’t think so. His eyes on the grim scene, he backed slowly outside.
    The streets were deserted. He checked the time. He took a few paces to the left, then walked a few paces back again. He didn’t know what to do. The uncertainty grated. It was unfamiliar. Ever since he’d escaped from the police and met and killed his first zombie, he’d been reacting without thinking, and now…
    “Now everyone’s dead,” he said, speaking aloud to fill the grim silence. Everyone. The word jarred. He looked up at the rooftops, and it seemed as if that silence stretched out above him and across the city and beyond, to encompass the whole world.
    “No,” he said. “No. It’s just here, just the warehouse. The others’ll be fine.”
    But if they were, then where were they? Everyone was supposed to meet at the warehouse by noon on the day after the evacuation. That was still over five hours away, but he would have expected some people to have come early.
    When they’d been given the vials, they’d been told not to take the vaccine until everyone had left on the evacuation. Then they were to stay put, and stay inside. The government was using satellite surveillance to ensure that everyone left the city, but after twenty-four hours the satellites would be retasked. At least, that’s what they had been told would happen. Told by Cannock, who had delivered the vaccine to them and—
    “And no one’s here, but that doesn’t mean they’re dead. So, come on, do something. Go and find them.” But that presented a problem in itself. He didn’t know where everyone lived. For that matter, other than McInery, he didn’t know where any of them lived. The few that weren’t career criminals knew well enough that the rest were. Under those circumstances no one was likely to share their address, not even with McInery. But she knew where they lived. She knew where everyone lived. Attention to that sort of detail was the cornerstone of her power. McInery.
    “Mac,” he murmured. Like him, she’d taken some of the vaccine home. Had she taken it? Why wouldn’t she? He started walking south towards Kensington, away from the warehouse by Paddington Station. As he reached the end of the road, the walk became a run.
     
    He rang the bell. There was no answer. He hammered on the door. Still nothing. He listened. No sound. To dispel a growing unease that was tempered with an edge of fear, he raised his leg and slammed his boot into the red-painted wood. Once. Twice. The lock splintered. The door swung open, and he saw McInery halfway down the stairs, one hand trying to pull her robe closed, the other trying to extract a compact 9mm from its pocket.
    “Chester? What the hell are you doing? What time is it? Did you—”
    “You didn’t take the vaccine?” he interrupted.
    “What? No. Not yet. Why?” And she saw his expression. “What happened? What’s gone wrong?”
    “Everyone at the warehouse is dead. They all took the vaccine.”
    “And you didn’t?”
    “I… I don’t like needles.”
    “Really?” For a moment she sounded curious, then the enormity of the situation cut through the haze of sleep. “And they’re dead?”
    “Like I said. Everyone who was in the warehouse.”
    “And anyone else?”
    “I don’t have the addresses.”
    “In the blue folder, on top of the bureau down in the cellar. You get it, and I’ll get dressed.”
    Trying not to think of the last time he had been in the small, secret room, he went down into the cellar. But as he looked for the folder, all he could see was that figure tied to the chair. He could see himself raise the ornate revolver Cannock had handed to him. He could hear that shot, the one he had not expected would come. He saw the man fly backward on the chair, his brains sprayed out against the wall. That, he knew, was an image that would stay