The Killing Floor Read Online Free PDF Page B

shanties with this beautiful creature he thought he’d never see again.
    She asks him again if there is something wrong.
    “I don’t know,” he says.
    “You’re not hurt, are you?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “I had to ask. You may not know this, but you’re, like, covered in blood.”
    “Oh,” he says, touching his chest. His shirt feels stiff as cardboard. His entire body hurts, but he does not believe anything is broken. “I didn’t know.”
    “You also smell like smoke and sour milk,” she laughs. “Come on.”
    Erin leads him into the small shack and lights two candles, revealing a bucket of water and a stack of towels on a blanket.
    “Take off your clothes,” she says.
    “I don’t have anything,” he tells her. “You took it all already.”
    “Do as I say, mister.”
    He obeys, peeling off his grimy shirt and tossing it into the corner. Then his boots and socks and pants. None of it is salvageable. He is going to have to burn all of it, and find more. Last, he tosses his gun belt and pistol on top of the pile.
    “Now lie down.”
    He stretches out his long, gangly body on the blanket. Erin dips a sponge into the foamy bucket, wrings it out, and gently rubs him down. Pure bliss.
    “Why did you come back?” he asks her. “You really hurt me.”
    Todd arrived at the camp with a bag full of DC-powered electronic gear, hoping to use it as capital to set up a trading business. Erin marked him, seduced him and robbed him. Reeling from the blow, he sought out Sarge and Wendy and signed up for the mission to destroy the bridge.
    “I’m sorry for what I did to you,” she says, blinking tears. “I didn’t know. What you did, going to that bridge. . . You’re an amazing boy. I really hoped you would make it back.”
    “My friends are dead,” he says.
    “Tell me about it.” She pulls her shirt up and over her head. “Tell me everything.”
    ♦
    The Infected shriek down at him, kicking and clawing with faces twisted by rage. The shotgun roars and their bodies explode in a shower of blood and smoking entrails.
    The deep voice booms: “Don’t you touch that boy!”
    He opens his eyes. Paul, the old reverend, stands over him, chambering another round and firing again. The Infected squeal and crumple in a wave in front of the blast.
    “ Don’t you touch that boy, I said!”
    BOOM. Reload. BOOM. Bodies splash in piles onto the bloody roadway.
    The boy looks up at the Reverend through a blur of hot tears. The man’s grizzled face looms large, frowning. He grips the boy’s hand in his own, his eyes burning with worry and love.
    “ You’re all right now, son. I’ll get you out of here.”
    A rumbling sound fills the air, the monster purring deep in its throat. The boy can feel it deep in his chest. The Reverend gasps, his eyes wide with sudden knowledge.
    “ You all right, Rev?”
    The Reverend smiles sadly.
    “ God bless you, Kid—”
    Paul lurches thirty feet into the air and into the chomping mouth.
    Todd screams.
    “I’ve got you, baby,” the girl says, hugging him from behind.
    Todd sits naked on the floor of his shack, arms wrapped around his knees, screaming.
    “It was just a dream,” Erin tells him. “Just a dream. You’re okay. See? Everything is fine.”
    He stops, panting for breath. Tears and snot stream down his face. His skin is slick with sweat and Erin’s body feels like fire against his back. Sunlight streams through cracks in the walls, illuminating the dust. The small shack feels like an oven.
    “What was your dream about?” she asks him.
    “I was being saved,” he says hoarsely, barely recognizing his voice as his own. He wipes his face with the back of his hand.
    “That sounds like a good dream.”
    His face twitches. He notes the symptom.
    “Not for the guy who saved me.”
    Todd tries to stand and sits back down with a grimace. Every muscle in his body is stiff and sore. His lungs seize from the smoke he inhaled during the fighting on the bridge, and he