Sometimes We Ran (Book 1) Read Free

limbs crawling on the ground to find their next meal. Others had the skin mostly peeled from their bodies, their skeletons exposed like a realistic Halloween costume. Sometimes, they’re burned or crushed beyond recognition, but still walking around and feeding. Then there were the dogs.
    Nobody figured that dogs could turn. They ate infected meat from the ones walking around, and then they turned into undead dogs. The turned dogs were always bad news. They’re a hell of a lot faster, and they work in groups. It’s good old-fashioned nightmare fuel. You must always avoid the dogs.
    I followed the little girl zombie for a few seconds, getting ready to blow her rotting brains out. I also looked around to see if she was alone. I didn’t want any of her undead buddies sneaking up on me. It was just her and me in this former gas station. A long time ago, people would stop here on the way to work to gas up their cars and continue on with their ordinary lives. Mom and Dad would fill up their coffee cups with inexpensive brew and the kids would buy their sugary snacks. Now the only remaining cars are the stripped hulks abandoned here when the fuel ran out. The coffee and sugary snacks are long gone. Mom and Dad and the kids are dead, or walking around feeding on the living as one big happy zombie family.
    It really hurts to think about the old world, before it all went bad.
    The little girl zombie stumbled, and fell at my feet. She reached for me in hunger. It might have been my imagination, but I almost saw her begging me to kill her and put her out of her misery. I put the gun up to her head. I wanted to tell her it would be okay, and that her perpetual nightmare was finally over. They are never grateful. They’re just animals, living only to feed. I pulled the trigger, and her head exploded like an overripe melon.
    Scratch another Yellow-Eye.
    I turned my attention to the gas station. I took a quick look around to see if there are any more nasty surprises inside. You can never be too careful. Not in this new world.
    The building was clear. The place, a virtual time capsule, was frozen at the exact time the stuff hit the fan. All the gas was, of course, gone. Also gone was most of the food and water. What was left was either spoiled and useless or spread on the ground. The floor was a macabre mixture of smashed food, garbage, and dried blood. A few spent shotgun shells were scattered on the black-and-white tiled floor. This place must have been a war zone when everybody tried to find safety. I could almost see the throng of people trying to buy or steal anything that wasn’t tied down. The first few days of the outbreak were pure hell. I didn’t find much: a few unopened bottles of water and a few batteries. Everything else was useless. The register was crammed full of old twenty dollar bills. Maybe someone could use them as toilet paper.
    I found a few unopened packages of beef jerky near the cash register. Beef jerky is not my favorite, but you can’t pass up a meal when it presents itself. I bit off a sizable portion, and started to chew. The dried meat was salty and felt a little like shoe leather in my mouth. I ignored the horrible taste, and swallowed. It went down hard, but the nourishment was welcome. I threw a few packages in my backpack. It might come in handy someday. I finished my little snack, and then started poking around the counter looking for more goodies.
    I heard a noise behind me. Without thinking, I turned around with my handgun already drawn. All these weeks on the road running from the undead have honed my skills to a fine point. The slightest noise gets me ready for battle.
    It’s only a cat. I’ve drawn my weapon on a skinny, little gray cat with a big round face trying to eat a bloated sugar doughnut on the floor. One of its paws was mangled beyond repair. Like me, this little guy has had to struggle a bit to survive.
    So far, all the cats that I have encountered have been normal. I bent down,