The Infected (Book 2): Karen's First Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

action unfold. Cliff had never liked being the center of
attention. He wished he had not gotten involved, but it was too late now. He
looked over the scene before him.
     “Shit,” he whispered. It was the same as when you
decide to clean out the junk in your garage but have no idea where to start. The
man in the suit with the missing face slowly got back to his feet.
    “Hey asshole, what are you doing?” shouted Cliff. It
dawned on him that this guy might try and attack him. One of the bottles
survived the crash and rolled over next to Cliff’s foot. He bent down and
plucked it from the floor. Cliff held it up in the air by the neck. Deep down
he had always wanted to smash someone with a beer bottle like in a movie bar
fight.
    The man lunged at Cliff. The bottle shattered across the
man’s forehead and chunks of glass were buried deep into the exposed muscle.
There was a distinct sound of the skull cracking from the blow. It was like a
baseball hitting a wooden bat at ninety-miles an hour and Cliff had hit a home run.
The sound echoed through the entire store.
    The body of the man in the suit stiffened, fell straight
back and his skull cracked again on the hard floor. Cliff’s heart pounded in
his chest. What was left of the bottle shook in his hand. He kept it perched
high in the air. Ready to strike if this crazy son-of-a-bitch got up again. Black
blood oozed out of the cracked skull and mixed with the other two growing pools
on the floor.
    “Cliff?! You tell me right now, what’s going on?” Tina
demanded after him. She stayed behind the shelving with her arms wrapped tight
around the children so they didn’t escape and run to their father.
    “He tried to attack me and I hit him with a bottle. They pick
up that call?” Cliff looked over to Darleen.
    “I keep calling but no one’s there.” She dropped the
phone on the hanger.
    Cliff looked back over the audience. A guy in his early
twenties held up his phone and recorded everything.
    “Hey, dipshit. Stop recording and call the cops!”
    “No way, bro. I’m selling this to the news.” The guy with
the phone angled around to get a better look at Cliff’s face.
    “Turn that shit off!” Cliff realized he was holding the
jagged broken bottle while threatening the guy and doing it all on video. Cliff
tossed the broken bottle to the ground and it shattered. A girl standing next
to the cameraman thumbed through her phone.
    “The internet is going nuts. Something about an infection
that spreads through bites,” she said as her face held a look of disgust.
    “Infection?” Cliff rubbed the hairs on the back of his
head, “What kind of infection is that?”
    An old man with a cane waddled next to the bleeding teen.
He struggled to get down on one knee. He read the kid’s nametag. Jake.
    “All right Jake. Let’s take a look.” The old man set his
cane down and produced a pearl-handled switchblade from his pants pocket. He
flicked it open and cut the cuff at the bottom of Jake’s pants. The fabric tore
easily once he got it going. He ripped it past Jake’s knee and revealed the mouth-sized
gash in his thigh. The tear in his skin already looked festered. The veins
around the wound had turned black. Cliff looked over at Tom on the ground and
the same black lines streaked down his wrists.
    “You’re going to be okay,” the old man lied, “Try and
keep pressure on it,” the old man faced Cliff and shrugged his shoulders.
    Cliff kneeled next to Tom and hesitated to reach out and
comfort the stranger.
    “Hang in there, buddy.” Cliff glanced over at the woman
behind the counter, “Darleen, right? You have a first aid kit?”
    “In the manager’s office.”
    “Go get it.”
    “The door’s locked and he’s got the keys.”
    Against his better judgment Cliff dug into the man’s
pants. He found the keys and tossed them over to Darleen. She caught them and
took off for the office.
    A woman raced into the store from the parking lot. She was
covered in