Dead Series (Book 3): A Little More Alive Read Free Page A

eyes. “Three shots?
Really?”
    “What, man, it’s
dark. She scared the shit out of me.”
    Sighing, he jerked
his chin to the double doors. “Let’s find that radio.”
    Stephanie watched
him pass her by, bending an eyebrow of her own. “ Bring him ? Really?”
    Paul gave her a
cocky wink and quietly pushed through one of the double doors while Curtis
opened the other, wondering how many of those things were hiding on the other
side, lying in wait. Wondering how long the dead could stay quiet like this.
With guns drawn, they eased into a lobby with more red carpeting and that old
school smell clinging to the couches and chairs. Framed posters of Blade Runner , Cloverfield , and Jaws adorned the porpoise-colored walls and off to the left, sat a snack bar with a
popcorn maker and soda fountain, all free of the living dead. Turning his
flashlight to the glass doors straight ahead, twilight peeked back, sinking his
shoulders. This might be as far as they get tonight and his patience was wearing
thin. He wanted to find a radio and right fucking now; not in the morning when
they could all be dead. Glancing at the bathrooms to the right, he wondered if
they still worked. Wondered if anything worked.
    Wendy took a green
flier from the snack bar and brought it to her light before holding it up to
the others. “This was the last movie these people ever saw.”
    Curtis bent closer.
“ Jarhead ? Those poor bastards. That
movie sucked donkey tits.”
    “So what do we do now?
It’s getting dark out.” Stephanie studied the two doors just past the restrooms.
One was made of wood with the word Office inscribed in the top half’s glass, the other solid metal from head to toe.
    “They’ll never
make another movie again,” Billy said with a wistful sigh, scanning a framed
poster of an angry Jack Nicholson from A
Few Good Men .
    “Never say never,”
Paul replied, forcing his muscles to relax and trying to think.
    Curtis shifted his
weight from leg to the other. “They stopped making good movies a long time ago. Bunch of superhero reboots and shitty
sequels. Hell, I haven’t been hit by a movie since Avatar .”
    Billy raised his brow.
“What about Twilight ?”
    Curtis did a
double-take at him.
    “Come on, you can
admit it.” A slow grin slipped through Billy’s stubble. “A Garth Brooks lovin
cracker like you bound to be a romantic at heart.”
    “Wait.” Stephanie
rested a hand on a hip and gestured with her handgun. “Didn’t we see Deadpool together and you loved it?”
    “No, that was
Troy. I went to The Force Awakens with Dad. Member?”
    “That explains it,”
Billy chuckled, running a hand back and forth across the dark peach fuzz
carpeting his head. “Black Stormtrooper, my ass, man.”
    Curtis frowned. “Wait,
that offended you, Montel ?”
    “All Stormtroopers
are cloned from Boba Fett’s dad, who, for the record, is white! So how is it even
possible that a black man…”
    “Put down the weapons
or we will shoot!”
    The sound of the
man’s voice made Paul’s heart leap into his throat. The man sounded scared and
desperate and open to mistakes. Wasting zero seconds, Paul spun around and
sprayed the snack bar with a barrage of bullets, barely seeing two people duck
down for cover as drywall rained down on their heads. He cringed each time the
buttstock hammered against his shoulder because this was his last magazine. To
top that off, Curtis lost his shotgun while saving Stephanie back at the house
but, outgunned or not, there was no way they were going down the Marvin and Jay
road again. Not today. Paul let up off the trigger. “Come on!” he said, darting
past the restrooms. Gunshots peppered the walls around him as he flew past the
office while Stephanie and Billy brought up the rear and returned fire.
Gripping the metal door’s cold knob, Paul prayed it wasn’t locked. Prayed it
didn’t lead to a dead end that would seal their fate. The knob turned in his
hand, flooding him with a burst of