World of Ashes II Read Online Free PDF

now… We need a computer so we can find out more. I had one on the plane, but I couldn’t find it before we left. There isn’t one in this house either. The truth is always on the net, you just have to know where to look. I bet I can even find us a safe place that’s still up and running.”
    “What makes you think the internet will work here?”
    “I was going to MIT next year on a scholarship. I can make the internet work anywhere.” Lea boasted. They elected Rick to stay behind, everyone else would sneak over to an apartment complex less than a mile away while he guarded the nest, or watched movies on the homeowner’s ancient VCR. Greg found a ladder outside the complex’s maintenance shed and as silently as possible they made their way up to the third story of a building on the other side of a frontage road. The stairwell was blocked off by survivors that were long gone, and most of the first floor had markings spray painted on the doors by FEMA. Shell casings and dead people, some whom hadn’t been dead when they were shot, littered the concrete hallways between the upscale apartments. The smell of rot and animal urine was overpowering, forcing them all to tie towels around their mouths to keep from inhaling so many flies. It didn’t help much.
    A locked apartment with the shades pulled down looked undisturbed and Greg skillfully picked the lock by putting his fist through the window and reaching for the doorknob. “Why are the lights still on?” He asked, flipping the switches on and off. He looked much older than he was with a scraggly beard coming in. “Shouldn’t this all be blacked out?”
    “Why?” Lea asked, scoping out a laptop with a little girl’s Barbie stickers all over it. “It’s a national power grid. Most power comes from local plants, but they would keep the lights on for the government, especially around here. What I need to do is find a landline I can tap into because this wireless equipment isn’t picking up any signals.”
    “Just grab what you need, I don’t want to be here for long.” Daniel was keeping watch on the ladder. They didn’t know anything about the plague victims, not really. Could they climb ladders or even open doors? The news reports were still sketchy at best, and in some places people were even being arrested for shooting or clubbing to death “Infected Citizens.” Daniel didn’t care if they were alive or dead, he was going to shoot the next thing that moved.
    Greg was raiding the refrigerator for what might be his last cold beer when he screamed in agony. The preteen girl who’d owned the laptop, or what was left of her, was gnawing on his calf, her teeth sunk into the leather of his boot. He pulled the trigger of his M4 at close range, the high powered rifle blowing the rest of the girl across the kitchen floor. Lea and Daniel stood in silent horror, watching as Greg ripped his boot off.
    “Stay where you are.” Daniel said, aiming his M9 at Greg with a steadiness he didn’t think he had in him.
    “Chill, man. She didn’t get through the leather. Hurts like a bitch, though.” Greg was about to stand when the girl’s mother came through the 70’s era beads dangling between the doorway to the kitchen. She wasn’t undead, not yet anyway. She looked like she was starving even though food was everywhere in the apartment. With a scream that was barely human she pulled a cooking knife out of the wooden set holder and stabbed Greg in the shoulder. Lea raised her gun and shot the woman in the side just below her arm. She dropped to the floor like dropped groceries. Greg wasn’t dead and was screaming bloody murder, the knife was deep in the fleshy part of the shoulder. Daniel rushed over to bandage him, but had to shut him up first. A quick punch to the temple and Greg was out like a light. He almost woke up again, but Lea hit him too and he was back out while Daniel checked the knife wound. The blade was still in there, it had deflected off his