The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Weight Read Free Page B

said.
    Caught in his lie , Jimmy whined, “We were just having some fun. We weren’t gonna hurt you. I swear.”
    “Like you didn’t hurt those people we found shot in the back? ” Steve asked. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d say that hurt. Didn’t look like they had too much fun either.” Pointing to two dark torpedo shapes in the clear blue water and a dorsal fin that broke the surface a dozen feet away, he said to Brain, “Get us out of here. This piece of shit can swim, if he can make it.”
    To punctuate this, Sheila flipped Jimmy the bird.
    Brain reversed the engines and was starting to back up when Tick-Tock called out, “What the hell are you doing? We can’t leave him here. Those are sharks.”
    Everyone looked at him with astonishment.
    “It’s not right,” he said as he took the wheel and steered toward Jimmy. Passing him as the man held up his hands to be rescued, Tick-Tock idled the boat next to the piece of wreckage the dog stood on and called out, “Come on, boy. Up.”
    The dog scrunched his backside and wiggled it a couple times before leaping for the sail boat. Its claws scrambled on the gunwale as Heather grabbed it by the collar and hauled it in. When it hit the deck, it found its feet and shook vigorously, spraying everyone with drops of water.
    “Cindy’s going to love you to death,” Tick-Tock said as he pushed the throttle forward .
    Heading into the setting sun, no one paid attention as Jimmy’s screams of pain and horror filled the air.
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    Galveston:
    The wind shifted and they could smell Texas City and Galveston from where they had anchored offshore for the night. A thick, oily, burned smell filled the air, along with the scent of things incinerated and left to rot. Within seconds, everyone had covered their mouth and nose with a bandana or a t-shirt, but nothing could keep the stink from gagging them. Closing up the cabin and turning on the air conditioning filtered out some of the stench, but sleep was impossible. The horrific odor got so bad that their only choice was to move forward and make their way upwind or head back out into the Gulf. It was still an hour before sunrise when Steve pulled up the anchor and Tick-Tock steered The Usual Suspects through the shipping channel.
    Tick-T ock lifted his makeshift face covering and hacked up a wad of phlegm before spitting it over the side and saying, “I feel like I’m trying to breathe inside a truck muffler. There’s no smoke but that smell… Jesus, it’s enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon. The whole city must have burned.”
    Steve nodded in agreement. “Texas City was a n oil town. Once a fire got going, it would have been tough to stop.”
    “ No one to stop it either,” Tick-Tock said in a matter of fact way. “I remember hearing that Texas was one of the first states hit by the virus. If it was like everywhere else, then the emergency service people got wiped out first. I’m surprised it’s not still burning.”
    Pointing his binoculars toward the flat , black stretch of shore that used to be one of the most popular beaches in the world, Steve said, “Probably would be, but it looks like there’s nothing left to burn. All I can see is a seawall, and even that’s all busted up and cracked from the heat. Lots of wreckage, but I’d bet my top hat and my house cat that none of it’s standing over two feet high. When the refinery went up, it must’ve spilled burning oil and gas into the bay. The tide and the wind took over, and it flowed across to Galveston and torched everything.”
    Tick-Tock lifted his binoculars and scanned the area beyond the beach, “Looks like the city’s the same. I can see some twisted iron and shit , but nothing standing over two stories, and that’s just piles of rubble. There’s still a lot of gas and oil in the water, so go below and tell everyone there’s no smoking or cooking. I don’t know if the fumes are thick enough to catch fire