The Hurst Chronicles (Book 1): Hurst Read Online Free PDF

builder, originally from South Africa. He was a bear of a man with a luxurious beard. He looked in good shape, despite months of living rough, scraping an existence before coming to Hurst. The other two were younger, probably in their late teens. Mila and Sean had arrived together. They were bold as brass, cocksure in their youthful arrogance, but underneath the bravado, Zed could tell they were bricking it. Everyone did on their first trip. Zed did his best to settle their nerves, brief them and assign them roles, teaming them up with the more experienced guys. Zed would drive Mila and Sean in the Land Rover. Will would stick with Bob and Riley in the Mitsubishi Land Cruiser with Joe as their driver and seventh man.
     
    As the two-car convoy rounded the wall and headed out west, a silhouetted figure on the battlements waved them off with a mock salute and a smile to Zed, which he acknowledged with minimal effort by raising his index single finger off the steering wheel.
     
    After bumping along the spit at a steady crawl they joined the coastal road that ran along the seafront at Milford. They turned on to the main road out towards Lymington, passing dozens of abandoned cars. Many had their doors opened, some burnt out, some with bodies still visible inside. They had cleared the road some time ago and pushed the cars on to the grass verges and pavements. In places, the convoy had to slow to walking pace to navigate the resulting obstacles and rusting metal chicanes.
     
    Today their search area was a row of houses on Lymington high street, some five or six kilometres away. They would be outside of radio contact with home base. That meant that they were on their own if things went ‘turbo’ as Bob was fond of saying. That didn’t worry Zed though. They had made these trips dozens of times, in and out, with few complications.
     
    Coming along the main road through a fire-damaged Pennington and into Lymington town centre, they passed Waitrose. The supermarket had been swept clean in the first few days of the outbreak. Nothing now remained, except shopping trolleys, smashed together at one end of the car park by the recent storms, a twisted pile of rusting metal.
     
    “People would have paid good money for that back in the day,” joked Joe pointing.
     
    “Yeah. Deserves to be in the Tate Modern. ‘Shopping trolley sculpture’ by Damien Hirst. Price tag two million pounds,” added Sean with no small degree of sarcasm.
     
    They all laughed, despite the nerves they were all feeling.
     
    “Not any more Sean. Those times are gone,” said Zed. “And good riddance.”
     
    “The only thing money is good for is burning,” said Sean laconically.
     
    “Right on brother. Citizen Sean here has spoken,” mocked Joe.
     
    Along the high street they inched forward cautiously in silence. All of the team were watching for movement on either side as they progressed. The car in front pulled up in a side street so they could start their search on foot.
     
    There was an eerie quiet at street level. A lone seagull soared on the breeze, scanning for scraps. A cardboard box skated along the pavement. Newspaper rustled where it had got caught on the railings of the local bank, its ATM screen dark and lifeless. There were no signs of bodies here but there was widespread evidence of a rapid exodus. Unchecked looting, storefronts smashed in, doors kicked down. Loss of power had silenced the alarms and blinded CCTV systems. Some storekeepers and homeowners had stayed behind to protect their property, shouting impotently at the looters to keep back. The police never came. Those that stayed behind in the towns had died. Only those that got out survived.
     
    Zed’s team operated in silence. Hand signals were passed between the team members as they crept along separate sides of the high street. They stopped several times to listen and observe. There was no one around. Half way along, they reached a large town house with a front