The Demented Z (Book 2): Desolation (Book 2) Read Free Page B

said, “Anything?”
    Whispering, Hank said, “Noises...grunts, snapping
branches...nothing close, but they’re definitely out there.”
    “Time?”
    “It’s nearing morning.”
    “Ahhh...I coulda took a longer watch.”
    “No worries, you need your beauty sleep way more than me.”
Hank said.
    After Hank got situated next to Rachael on a pile of pine
needles, Tom scooped up his AR and stood.  
The darkness was deep, only the vague silhouettes of trees were visible.
  Rather than straining his eyes in the dark,
Tom sat up against the base of a large pine, knowing his hearing would be a
much more reliable alarm. He had spent
many nights in these woods and knew the sounds they made.
    While listening, his thoughts went back to the helicopters
they had seen over the last couple days.  
Once he got Kelly and Sam back, they had to find a way to talk to the
pilots or crew. They knew something
about what was going on and maybe a way to stop it.
  How do
you get a helicopter to stop for a talk...probably not a hitchhiker’s thumb?
  He thought.
   After this, his mind wandered to Lincoln and
his gang. They would be in for a surprise when they returned to their school.   He had killed the one outside his shop, but
Lincoln, Mikey, and his dad still remained.   They would be pissed and looking
for revenge.   Tom figured a return
home was probably out of the question, other than a quick trip to gather more
guns and ammo from the safe. Tom thought
back to all of the supplies Lincoln had piled in the gymnasium.
  Not worth the risk he quickly decided.
  Sam...boy
I miss the little guy.   Tom was
having a difficult time picturing his face.   How could that happen so quickly?
    A branch snapped from somewhere behind Tom.
  Sitting still, he continued to listen
intently. A grunt.
  It was a ways off, maybe forty or fifty
feet. Not wanting to draw anything
closer to their camp, Tom stayed in his position, taking steady breaths.
  He knew whatever it was would never hear his
breathing, but in the near silence it sounded deafening to him.
  Another grunt.
  This one sounded closer.
  Tom slowly rose to his feet.
  He took a couple slow steps around to the
side of the tree.
    Peering into the darkness, he couldn’t see a thing.
  He tried using his peripheral vision and was
just able to make out the vague shapes of trees.
  He saw movement out of the corner of his
eye. Turning in that direction, he
focused hard, but saw nothing. Tom
cocked his head to the side, both listening intently and watching in his
periphery.   He heard a soft moan,
followed by a grunt, and then a branch breaking.
  It must be one of the infected, stumbling its
way through the dark.
    Tom slowly sat back down near the side of the tree, rested
the rifle in his lap, and kept an eye on the dark trees.
  Over the next thirty minutes or more, he
could hear low grunts and snapping branches, but they never got any closer, and
eventually faded into the distance.
      Just as the faint
light of pre-morning began making its way through the foliage, a thick fog settled
down between the trees. Conditions must
have been just right, because the fog formed a strange low lying layer, hanging
a foot off the ground and extending just a few feet above Tom’s head.
  It was a strange phenomenon, but not the
first time Tom had seen it in these woods.
    The silent stillness of morning was broken by a distant scream.
  Not an infected’s
scream, but the scream of a person...a child.
  Tom instantly knew it was Sam.
  Looking down, he saw Hank and Rachael were
already climbing to their feet.
    “Sam?”   Rachael asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “How far you think?”  
Hank asked.
    “Half mile maybe.”
  Tom said.
    Hank grabbed his rifle.  
“Let’s roll.”
    The three of them raced off through the dark fog, hurrying
as fast as they could in the near darkness.
    Tom listened as the screams continued.
  His stomach