Dead Days (Book 2): Tess Read Free Page A

until I’m looking at the smashed car.
     
    I almost faint when her foot twitches.
     
    The shoe drops to the ground as her leg extends, there is an awful, organic cracking sound as she pushes herself upright.
     
    Then I see her face.
     
    Or what’s left of it.
     
    The entire right side of her head has been obliterated, the eye-socket smashed in, the eye itself now a burst glob of white jelly running down her cheek.  Her jaw is hanging off on one side, the remaining teeth broken and twisted.  Despite this, she tries to open it, a horrible groaning sound issuing from her throat.
     
    How is she still alive?  How can’t she feel it?!
     
    She reaches out an arm and pulls herself from the bonnet of the car.  She hits the tarmac with a dull smack.
     
    Other people are looking on, horrified, but no one comes near, and there are other noises now, something that sounds like a car crash, more screaming.
     
    The thing that used to be a woman is now pulling herself towards me.
     
    Her remaining eye is cloudy but it is fixed on my face, that hissing moaning sound doesn’t stop as she drags herself forward.
     
    I can’t move.
     
    Oh God this thing is going to kill me in the middle of the street and I can’t do a thing to stop it.
     
    It opens its mouth wide to lunge and I close my eyes.
     
    CRACK.
     
    The bite never comes.
     
    I open my eyes.  The infected woman is now motionless, laying next to me.  I can see a red smear of blood and brains streaked across the road behind her head. 
          I see flecks of white in the gore and I realise with a wave of revulsion that I’m looking at pieces of her skull.
     
    A hand is shaking me.
     
    I turn dazedly and look into the face of a woman. 
     
    She is short but stocky, her dark hair tied into a ponytail, her face hard and angular.  She is wearing a police uniform.  In her right hand she is carrying a pistol.
     
    “-I said are you alright?!”  She is almost shouting over the noise.
     
    I don’t answer.  I just cant- OW! 
     
    She has slapped me, hard.  It hurts like a bitch but it does the job.
     
    “I’m ok, I’m ok!”
    “Did it get you?”
    “Get me?-”
    “Did it bite you?”
    “No!”
    She seems to relax. 
    “Ok, you got a place you can go?”
    “My boyfriends’ office is just there-”
     
    The sound of screeching brakes and twisting metal cuts me off.  We both turn to see a double-decker bus plough through the traffic at the end of the street, smashing into one of the huge buildings near the Oxford Circus tube.  I hear shouts of pain and confusion, the end of the street now full of smoke.
     
    “You can’t stay here, this place is a warzone.”  The policewoman says.
    “But I-”
    “Look around you, the city’s falling apart!”
    I feel a flash of anger, this woman thinks I’m an idiot.
    “Well what are your lot doing about it?”  I snap.
    She laughs bitterly and my heart goes cold.
    “You mean the police?  There won’t be a police force in a few hours.  Not at this rate.”
    “What do you mean-?”
    “These things are springing up everywhere.  We’re stretched too thin as it is and most of us, myself included are going to find our families.”
    “You’re deserting?!”
    Her expression turns suddenly furious.  “Fuck you!  I’m a civilian not a soldier.  I’m going to get my son, and then I’m getting the fuck out of London.  If you have a problem with that, write to your bloody MP because I couldn’t give a flying fuck what you think.”
    She turns and stalks away.  There is a police motorbike on the curb, and she straddles it, putting on a helmet.
     
    “Wait!”
     
    She looks up.
     
    “Which way are you going?”
    “What? Why?”
    “I can’t stay here.  I don’t have a car and I don’t know how to fight…”  I look at the gun in her hand.
    “That’s not my problem.”  She speaks abruptly but she doesn’t look at me.  I notice her unease and I feel a flicker of hope.
    “Please,