Domain of the Dead Read Free Page A

everyone has to be sure what choice there is,” Ali said.
    People were looking into each other’s eyes, trying to measure what they thought. Slowly everybody started nodding.
    Watching the unspoken agreement spread, Sarah decided to take charge. “Okay, leave everything. Only carry a weapon. It’s not far to the square but there’s a lot of them and we’ll have to run the whole way.”
    She looked at Ryan’s toned figure. Unlike the rest of them, he had stuck to a regular workout regime. The lack of fat from the strict diet combined with his improvised weights gave him an athletic appearance. Even then Sarah knew there had been no space for a proper cardiovascular workout. None of them had regularly walked more than the length of the warehouse in years. A mad dash between a thousand infected corpses filled her with dread.
    But then so did starving to death.
    Adrenaline would have to see them through.
    “Nathan, Ryan, get all the Molotov cocktails we have left. Let’s try to thin them out,” Sarah said, her voice carrying a weight of confidence that surprised even her.
    She looked out over the street to the town square. It looked further away than it had just a few minutes ago.
     
    * * *
     
    Bates bobbed his head in time to the beat, holding his carbine like a guitar. His gloved left hand held the ribbed heat guard that sheathed the muzzle like it was the neck, whilst his right hand strummed on the collapsible stock. He stood in the midst of this dead town, singing along to a rock track like the last drunk at a student party. His dress didn’t match his actions, though; he was clad in a khaki uniform, most of which was obscured beneath protective armour. Overlapping his pristine black leather boots were matt black shin guards. Above them and made of the same dull man-made material were knee protectors. Strapped around his thighs was a holster and various pouches for holding ammunition, all made from the same black synthetic weave material. The tactical vest he wore was replete with ammo pouches and the various laced panels that ensured a tight fit gave the garment a certain fetish chic rather than a military look, sporting a high collar and shoulder protection which came well down past the bicep. The vest had obviously been developed to guard the wearer’s vulnerable areas against zombie attack. With the black helmet, elbow pads, gauntlets and his blond shadow of stubble, Bates looked more like a faint-hearted skateboarder than a soldier.
    He whipped the stubby black machine gun over and started singing into it like a microphone.
    He was used to places like this, familiar with them. In the years since the Rising he had visited a fair number of dead towns like this one. They were all the same lifeless husks. Broken down towns smashed by the panic of the outbreaks, then softened by years of weathering. The smashed shop windows. The abandoned rusting cars. The discarded edifice of life like a singular shoe, a broken pair of glasses or a child’s toy. Clumps of moss and grasses clinging impossibly to the stonework of buildings. Nature encroaching on concrete. All of this was commonplace in his life now. Even the skeletons lying bone naked all were mundane.
    This was a town like a dozen others he’d visited, like the whole world was like now. Bates was familiar with it, and even though his childish antics said otherwise, he knew he’d never be comfortable with it.
    His feet made an amateurish attempt to moonwalk across the cargo net spread over the tarmac beneath. The dance step hadn’t been spoiled by the impediment of his armour or the ground underfoot, it was purely Bates’ own ineptitude at dancing. He didn’t care. The only eyes watching him belonged to the dead and their palsied movement was far more awkward than his own.
    Suddenly Bates let out a scream in sync with the track booming out from the battered and duct-tape refurbished stereo. With his weapon taking the place of a mic stand, he stumbled through