Chloe Zombie Apocalypse series (Book 1): Chloe Read Free Page B

Azkaban still in hand.
    A knife in her other hand.
    She hadn’t meant to hurt her old group. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. And Riley had forgiven her for what she’d done. He’d forgiven her and they’d all moved on.
    But more bad things had happened.
    Bad things that led to the scars on Chloë’s face.
    The pain between her legs.
    The mark around her neck.
    Bad things had happened. And they’d made her realise that she couldn’t be around people anymore. She couldn’t trust anyone because whenever she trusted someone, they went away.
    Or whenever she trusted someone, they died.
    Died, because Chloë was forced into doing something bad.
    Died, because Chloë just wanted to live.
    She listened to the footsteps pass by. Heard the howling of the wolves echo through the woods.
    She held on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, her dad was still out there somewhere. Alive.
    She held on to the hope that she’d be with him again some day. She’d see him again some day. Because he was the only person Chloë could ever trust. The only person who’d ever understand Chloë.
    The only person she had left.
    But she knew that he was gone.
    She knew she’d never find him.
    She wouldn’t even know where to start.
    Light split the sky as the moon emerged from behind a thick grey cloud. The tips of the trees were illuminated by its light, bringing Chloë’s attention to all kinds of movement, all kinds of shuffling and shaking and twitching and turning.
    She thought she wanted the moonlight. Thought she felt safer in it. Until it was actually here, and she felt exposed. Like she was standing on a stage in a spotlight.
    She stared up at the moon. Listened to the howling. Listened to the footsteps.
    Watched the clouds creep over the moon.
    Cover the first quarter of it.
    Then half.
    Then three-quarters.
    She waited for the darkness and she thought about her dad. Thought about her mum. Thought about her sister.
    All the people she’d loved.
    All the people she’d lost.
    And then the cloud completely covered the moon and trapped Chloë in the pitch black again.
    Alone with her thoughts.
    Alone with her memories.
    Alone.

Four
    A lfie Clyne heard the footsteps echoing down the corridor and he knew his time was almost up.
    He sat in the corner of the cold, dark cell. Outside, he could hear the hounds barking, lashing at their leads in a desperate effort to break free. He could hear laughter. Glasses clinking together. The occasional peppering of gunfire.
    Closer to home, he could hear the sobbing of his fellow prisoners.
    The pained cries of the captives.
    The chattering of his own teeth.
    He listened to the footsteps approaching. Listened to them echo against the tiled walls of the inside of this room. It obviously used to be some kind of storage facility, but the lifts had been deactivated and turned into cells; the spare rooms had been emptied and fitted with metal cage doors.
    Alfie Clyne had been in one of those cells for months.
    He’d lost count of how many.
    He’d also lost count of how many prisoners had been taken out of the cells in that period.
    How many hadn’t come back.
    He felt piss trickling down his chapped leg. Felt the sores along his cuffed wrists, his cuffed ankles. He knew they were infected. They had been for quite some time. Scorching hot pains stretching right into his hand, right to the tips of his fingers, making them feel like they were going to burst.
    But anything was better than being dragged out of this cell by his captors.
    Anything was better than the fate every prisoner faced, eventually.
    His clock was ticking.
    His clock ticked to the sound of echoing footsteps.
    One.
    Two.
    Three.
    The cells stunk of piss. Shit. But most of all, they reeked of dog food. The canned stuff they fed the prisoners with. Alfie struggled to eat it at first. He’d heard a cellmate burst into a scream at the opposite side of the room a few weeks—or months—back.
    Turned out they’d ripped up the metal food can