The End: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller Read Free Page B

trapped. What was I supposed to do? Get attacked with him? They tore out his guts with their bare hands and ate that crap like it was spaghetti. That old man died before any of them even took the first bite, man. It was insane.”
    “Would you two please shut up? I’m trying to sleep over here.”
    “Yes, ma’am!” Kent said and shook his head. “Man, she gets bossy when she hasn’t had her beauty sleep.” He chuckled and blew smoke from his nose.
    “That’s right, and I’m trying to get it now. So turn off the generator, will ya? Let’s lie down for a bit. It isn’t like we have anything better to do, and I’m tired. Can’t sleep with that generator running all night. It shakes the bed too much. How you two aren’t tired is beyond me. We’ve been up forever, it seems.” Cynthia lay with her back turned to the rest of the room. “What sleep I’ve had so far is mostly from my body shutting down on its own.”
    *
    Cynthia laid there, thinking of life and how unexpected it could be. Less than a month prior, she lay in that same position in her apartment, an empty bottle of sleeping pills and over fourteen shots of Crown in her stomach. Her attempt at suicide only led to an embarrassing trip to the hospital, thanks to her roommate coming home from a trip one day early. What she found ironic in her current situation was how the tables had turned. There was surely nothing left to live for now. Everyone she knew had to be dying or dead and eating people, but now she somehow felt the need to survive. She found her second wind of purposeful hope. It made no sense.
    If anyone was going to make it out of this alive and live to tell the tale, she wanted more than anything for it to be her. And on the plus side, being stranded in a locked-up shelter, at least she was with a halfway decent-looking man. She thought of Kent and that scruffy, unkempt beard, his too cool for school aviators and attitude. So what if he was probably close to thirty and still dressed like a teenager. On him, it worked.
    He may not actually be a real rock star like he said he was, but he sure does play the part, Cynthia thought. And besides, she had been a girl long enough to tell when a man was hitting on you, even just a little.
    Above them in the backyard as they prepped for yet another night tucked away in the underground bunker, things weren’t getting any better. For the last two days, the number of living dead continued to increase. The constant moaning became louder and louder with each new member that joined the ranks, which brought others from even farther away.
     
    2
     
    “Can you guys make it around to the back? That’s the only place safe enough to let you in,” a man hollered from a building.
    “How do we get there?” George craned his head out the window, staring up at maybe his last hope of salvation.
    “The alley to the right—beside the building—it leads to the back. You’re going to have to ditch the truck. It won’t make it through there. I have most of the alley blocked off. You’re gonna have to run like hell!”
    The older gentleman flung the driver’s side door open and leaped out of the truck, pulling a young boy across the passenger seat and along the driver’s side, leading them both out of the vehicle’s safety, and into the parking lot surrounded by the madness of an approaching blood-hungry mob. Turning to the rear of the cab in a spastic frenzy, the old man opened the back door and grabbed a bag from the seat. When he turned around, the man that had been yelling from the second-floor window only moments before had vanished. Without hesitation, he bounded forward—snatching the boy along with him.
    There was no other choice than to chance this escape. The truck was practically out of gas, and George was getting worn down. Besides, this was the only radio station broadcasting he had been able to find in the last forty-eight hours, which meant that someone was alive, which meant that it was a safe