The Last Outbreak (Book 1): Awakening Read Free

pull away. “Last time, keep quiet! You’re the reason we’re stuck in here. I’m not going to ask you again.”
     
    “Oh yeah I forgot, you’re the big shot with the uniform and the badge. So tell me, what’s your plan—huh?”
     
    Ethan began to answer, but was cut short as the man continued. “You do realize that I just followed you and the others in here. And with those—those things outside the door, you’re all real lucky I even thought to shut it behind us. If I hadn’t, you’d all be dead or worse,” Mr. Outspoken said, pointing at David. “You’d be just like him.”
     
    Turning away, he again focused on his friend. Sliding the pistol to David’s forehead, he dropped to one knee, grabbed the back of his head, and pulled him in tight. “You don’t deserve this. It should’ve been me.” Ethan leaned in and placed his mouth just outside his friend’s bloodstained ear. “I will get to Carly. I will get her somewhere safe. I promise you that.”
     
    His friend’s body began to go rigid. Ethan felt David beginning to struggle. Leaning away and starting to stand, what little remained of his friend was now gone. The wounds along his right triceps oozed a yellowish-orange fluid that leaked out into the pool of coagulated blood surrounding their feet.
     
    Peering into David’s eyes, they were nearly unrecognizable as human. His once sapphire-blue eyes had faded into something just shy of translucent and were now obscured by a milky white haze. What lay behind the thick film was no longer the man with whom Ethan had spent the better part of his life. The fragments of his friend that still remained were quickly losing the battle with what had taken hold.
     
    Beginning to growl, the beast now inching toward Ethan wore his friend’s face, but most certainly was not him. Tugging at his makeshift restraints, the thing that David had become fought to free itself as the group collectively took a step back. Twisting against the weakened audio cable, his left arm, the less injured of the two, gave way.
     
    The ensuing sound of bone on bone reverberated through the cramped vault. However, the realization that his friend had just broken his own arm in an attempt to free himself hung in the air with a bit more weight. What appeared to put an exclamation on the moment was the fact that David hadn’t even flinched. Not in the slightest. He didn’t look at the injury and only stared across the room at the five unbelieving individuals.
     
    Turning from the others as he again raised the weapon, Ethan heard their gasps only just before he realized his friend was loose. With his hands now free, David shot forward as if out of a cannon. He slammed face-first into Ethan’s chest, sending both men to the blood-soaked concrete floor, and Ethan’s nine millimeter sliding into the corner.
     
    Shielding himself from David’s snapping jaws, Ethan drew his legs back into his chest and kicked straight up. He drove what used to be his friend’s body back into the row of safety deposit boxes and twisted right in hopes of retrieving the weapon he’d just dropped. No luck—the only thing in his inverted field of view were the men and women now scrambling to either side.
     
    As Ethan slid up and onto his knees, scanning the vault for his weapon, David shot forward yet again. Reflexively turning away, Ethan held out his right hand in hopes of deflecting the initial blow. He expected to be hit dead on and assumed that shortly following the collision he’d be flat on his back yet again. He envisioned his own demise, his friend tearing him apart without even the most remote chance of defending himself. This is where his life would end.
     
    Clenching his jaw, he twisted to the right as David lunged forward yet again. The two bodies slammed into one another like wet bags of sand, sending Ethan back and into the bottom row of safety deposit boxes, the top of his head making contact first. Blinking through the pain, he