Dead World (Book 2): Headed North Read Free Page A

light catches a box labeled chocolates and he grins. It’s not coloring books, but hell, a couple hundred pillow chocolates is better than nothing. He grabs them too and walks back out to the group.
    Valentine is leaning against the car. Sasha and Chloe are walking around a bit to stretch their legs as Isaiah loads the cans of gasoline back into the trunk.
    “Found some good stuff,” Daniel calls out, smiling as he walks up.
    “Are you ok?” Valentine asks as soon as he gets close. She is obviously afraid and Daniel berates himself mentally. He should have been more thoughtful
    “Yeah I’m OK,” he reassures her, “I just ran into one of them. I took care of it. I think from now on we stay in a group whenever we have to leave the car. That way we always have someone to watch our back. It will make it easier for us to deal with anything we come across.”
    “I was really worried when we heard that screech. What was that?” she asks.
    “I had to move a metal table. Someone had blocked off a door but I needed to get back there and find us some food.”
    “Wait so you knew that there was one of those things?” Isaiah asks, whistling between his teeth. “And you still went back there?”
    “Yes,” Daniel says flatly. He realizes how dumb it sounds now. But in the moment all he could think of was getting them food. “We aren’t going to find anywhere without those things. But we still need to eat. I took a risk because I only heard one of them on the other side of the door,” He says, trying to defend himself.
    Valentine crosses her arms over her chest and exhales.
    “Look we need to eat,” Daniel says again.
    “He’s right Valentine,” Isaiah backs him up. “It was dangerous and dumb, and no one goes out alone again, but we do need to eat and that was our best shot.”
    “I know,” Valentine says still scowling. “I was just nervous. I don’t know what I would do if…” she lets the though trail off as she looks at Chloe. “Just be careful next time.”
    “I will. I’m sorry,” Daniel says. All of their nerves are high and he should have thought before he just went for it. He can’t have them turning on each other. Not with everything else as bad as it is.
    “But look,” he says, holding the bag out in front of him. “I found chocolate.” Chloe smiles a big beautiful smile and lets out a little yelp of joy. “An entire box of the stuff they put on pillows.”
    Valentine grabs Daniel’s arm and gives it a squeeze.
    “See it’s not all bad,” Sasha says.
    “This isn’t going to be enough food though,” Isaiah says going through the bag and frowning at the cereal. “It’s something, but we are going to need more real soon”
    “You’re right,” Daniel concedes, “It’s all there was. Maybe we should try houses somewhere? See if there is canned food or something that won’t have spoiled.”
    “That’s probably going to be our best shot,” Isaiah says and Sasha nods.
    A moan carries across the wind. Followed by more and slowly they start to feel the low thrum of thousands of dead voices all moaning. Apparently their coming wasn’t unnoticed and all those dead closed in on them.
    “Well that settles it lets get a move on,” Isaiah says.
    “Wait one last thing,” Daniel says, “Let’s check if the cop still has his gun or any ammo.” He points to the husk of a police car.
    “Ok,” Isaiah says.
    The cop is a dozen yards away under a copse of trees. The mangled body of a little boy is nearby. His arm is missing from the forearm down on his left hand. And his body is covered in filth.
    They flip over the cop and see that he must have shot himself in the head. The back of his skull is missing. But the gun is lying next to him. The cop must have had to put the boy down. Then he took his own life.
    Daniel checks the body as quickly as he can. The smell is horrendous and he has to force himself not to gag. It only takes a moment before he locates a spare clip. Isaiah checks