The Dead Survive Read Online Free PDF Page A

someone’s mercy. I kept Melissa firmly by my side, determined that whatever happened, she wouldn’t be left alone to deal with it.
    The looters who were left alive after the Compound’s attack on the hotel, or who converged from other locations, attacked repeatedly, as did the zombies. So much human activity drew the undead in growing numbers. Some of the women from the hotel fought them alongside the Compound’s defenders, eager to release some of the rage they’d bottled up while being held prisoner, but I stayed hidden in our assigned bedroom in one of the fortified houses, trying to get Melissa to talk.
    Then I started drinking.
    Everyone wanted to help us. They knew some of what we’d endured, but nobody who hadn’t gone through it could ever really know. There was still plenty of stockpiled liquor around, and some people thought maybe it would calm us, help us sleep, whatever. I didn’t care. If I drank enough, I forgot about things for a while. And any second I wasn’t reliving Mason’s atrocities, and hoping someone had blown his head off during the rescue, was precious.
    During my lucid moments, I learned one thing. We all had lives before this pandemic—because it was beginning to look like this was some sort of disease—but none of it mattered. The only parts of our past lives which were relevant were the experiences and skills we had that might contribute to the survival of the community.
    I was a librarian-in-training. I could research and catalog with the best of them, but I didn’t have any particularly useful skills. I’d have to figure out a way to fit in here, eventually. But for now I was busy being depressed. And terribly, terribly angry.
    It was strange meeting the women who had shared my captivity. They’d suffered the same abuse, from the same men, but we couldn’t talk about it. In fact, we tended to avoid each other’s company. Even among the other residents of the Compound, most people didn’t talk much about their lives before. It was too painful, because the majority of the people in that life were lost to us. So some of us worked, some raged, some cried alone in the dark, and I drank.
    A few of the women attached themselves to men in the community. I guessed they needed to be reminded what it was like to be touched without violence. I couldn’t. If bland, inconspicuous Mason could turn out to be such a monster, how could any man I saw here be any better, any safer? I knew it didn’t make sense even as I thought it, but it was how I felt.
    Several weeks after I came to the Compound, some looters tried to burn us out, and were captured in the attempt. When I heard this, I hoped Mason was one of them, because I was certain they’d be executed. I wanted to see him beg for his life. I wanted to pull the trigger or drop the noose. I was disappointed when he wasn’t among them, though I recognized them all.
    The residents debated how to punish these men, and weren’t even close to a consensus. Some wanted to send them away, while others thought they should be imprisoned and forced to perform hard labor. Others wanted them executed. I knew how I’d cast my vote.
    I couldn’t understand how anyone could show these abominations any sort of mercy. They hadn’t shown any to me, or Melissa, or any of the other captives. And the fact that some of the women here wanted to put them out of the Compound, where they could torture even more women, infuriated me. They could call it banishment if they wanted, but the fact remained these men would be free to continue their violent ways.
    Courtney and Amelia were the worst. They were part of the group who would ultimately decide, and I considered them the lowest sort of traitors. I’d heard rumors that Amelia had briefly been held captive herself, and the idea she would not want rapists dead was beyond my comprehension. If I were able to bring myself to speak to anyone but Melissa, who still wasn’t speaking back, I’d have told them what I