Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home Read Free Page A

didn’t go home and just work even more after all the other interns finally gave in and went to the bar to unwind … all but Joseph, of course.
    Joseph decided he would stop by Ryan’s place when he finished work for the evening. Any other time and he probably wouldn’t have thought about checking on Ryan. He had found that Ryan was the kind of guy who preferred solitude.
    Joseph wouldn’t exactly call Ryan his friend, but as pale as Ryan had looked when he’d dragged himself out of the office, somebody needed to check on him. Since no one else in the office was even considering calling Ryan, it fell to Joseph, with his unbending sense of empathy to do it. He knew that if he did not do it … no one else would.
    Joseph spent the next three hours thinking of possible explanations for Ryan’s sudden sickness. Nothing he had ever heard of would make a person look that bad that fast. He almost hadn’t noticed when the office lights had dimmed to half for the night. He looked at what he had typed over the last three hours and realized it all amounted to trash.
    “Screw it,” he said and shut off his computer, killing the changes. He shoved his research and working materials in his well-worn satchel, flipped the lid shut, and walked out of the office.
    His ‘91 Honda CRX was one of ten cars that sat silently in the parking lot. Joseph pulled out his keys, ignoring the wail of police and ambulance sirens. It wasn’t a conscious decision to ignore the sirens, but as often as he heard them, they barely registered, not unlike the chirping of birds in a park.
    He opened the door, tossed his satchel into the passenger side, and slid into a plush bucket seat. The car may not have looked it on the outside, with minor dents dings and faded paint, but the interior was clean and comfortable. And more importantly, it was still “all good under the hood.”
    The engine purred to life at the turn of the key. The stereo popped on, and the volume automatically rolled up to where he had set it. Joseph immediately punched the power key. He was in no mood to listen to the same newscast about riots five times in the next ten minutes, like the ones they’d been broadcasting all day.
    He drove the twelve blocks to Ryan’s apartment in relative silence.
    Ryan lived on the second floor of the Brookridge apartments. They weren’t the slums, but they weren’t the Ritz either.
    Ryan answered the door in a sweat soaked T-shirt and shorts, looking vampire pale and using the doorframe for support.
    “Shit man, you look like hell,” Joseph said.
    “Damn. So I must look like I feel,” Ryan answered.
    Joseph noticed the blood soaked gauze on Ryan’s left wrist. “What happened there?” he asked, nodding at the bandage.
    “Some homeless fucker bit me on my way into work this morning,” Ryan said, letting his arm drop limply to his side.
    “Looks like it’s still bleeding. You should probably go see a doc, man. Who knows what kind of nasty infection that guy was carrying?”
    “I’m thinking about it. Right now, though, I just want to lay the fuck down,” Ryan said, pulling on the door as if to hold himself upright. “I’d invite you in and all, but I think I’m coming down with something, and it might be contagious.”
    “That’s alright,” Joseph said politely. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll give you a ride to work in the morning if you’re up to going in.”
    “Thanks man,” Ryan said, smiling a little. “I may take you up on that.”
    Joseph realized that Ryan wasn’t really any of the things people thought. Ryan just never had anybody show true concern, so he threw himself into his work; not that it helped his social life any. When he was working, he was on track and nothing short of a nuclear war could sidetrack him. People misinterpreted his brusqueness at work as some sort of asshole, predator aloofness.
    “Rest up. Tomorrow is gonna be hell,” Joseph said, stepping away from the door. “I’ll