The Mortis Desolation (Book 1): Mortis Read Free Page A

down the water. I felt energized and ready to go. “I’m finished!” I shouted out the open door. Rachel came in from her office and took my tray away.
    “Alright, I’ll bring Pike in, but I’m going to be changing your bandage while he talks.”
    I nodded. “Yeah, okay, that’s fine.”
    She exited out the room once more, and in came Pike.
    Pike’s long black hair was unusually disheveled, and his face dirty. Still, he smiled when he saw me. “How you feeling, man?”
    “Like part of The Wall fell on me,” I said, giving a sideways glance to Rachel, who rolled her eyes.
    “I hear ya. Listen, I know you’re not feeling too good right now, but we could really use you.”
    Rachel began unwrapping my bandage, and I winced in pain as the gauze stuck to my oozing wound. “Yeah, this is nothing major. I can help.”
    “Okay, good. Me, you, John, and Julia are going to go scout out where we can find some supplies to begin rebuilding part of The Wall. We’re planning on leaving later today.”
    The fact that Rachel wasn’t protesting made me worried. She knew that they needed all the help they could get.
    “What’s going on out there?” I asked.
    Pike sighed and shook his head. “Things got insane after you went out. It was just a wall of zombies, but thankfully we were able to keep them contained. Some of them got onto the grounds, but none of them made it into the bank. There’s only a few coming every hour or so, so it’s not bad. We just need to get The Wall back up as soon as possible. They’re already clearing the debris so we can start once we have the supplies, and they’re working double time getting the trench dug deep. There’s just a lot of zombie corpses in there that we have to clean out.
    “Truth is, if we have another night like last night…” Pike didn’t even have to finish.
    Rachel began wrapping new gauze around my head, and the fresh, tight, clean bandage felt amazing.
    “What about the Xenomortis?” I asked.
    “I don’t know where the hell that thing came from. I’ve never even seen one in person!”
    I nodded. “Yeah, they’re mostly up around the Northeast, where most of the Xenos were.”
    “I wonder what one was doing all the way down here, then?”
    I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there were some in Dallas and it finally found its way out. I’ve actually seen a couple of them before, back at the beginning, but it’s been years since I’ve seen another. I figured they were mostly dead or gone somewhere else.”
    Pike stood there, thinking. He was clearly shaken, which worried me. If he was going to lead our squad, he needed to have nerves of steel. Then again, we were talking about Xenomortises here, creatures a hundred times worse than a regular zombie.
    “Okay, well, I should go. The Board is having an impromptu Q&A in about thirty. After that, we’ll leave.”
    I nodded my head. “Sounds good. I’ll be there.”
    Pike smiled and exited the room.
    “I’m guessing you’re going to the Q&A?” Rachel asked me as she packed up the bandages.
    “I have to,” I said as I swung my feet off the bed. “I’m one of the founders, I can’t look weak now.”
    “Well, it doesn’t change the fact that you are, so try taking it easy, alright?”
    “I’ll try, Rachel, but I doubt things are going to get easy just yet.”

Chapter Four
    I walked into Common Room , where the Q&A was to take place. In front, there were seven chairs lined up. Just seven. At the beginning there were fifteen, and just a few days ago, eight. But now with Ashley’s death, her chair was removed. As I walked to the front, I fought back the emotions that began to come to me. The thought of serving on the board without Ashley was frightening. She was my shoulder to lean on. She always had my back. And now she was gone.
    I sat down in my chair on the far right (left to the audience), and waited for it to start. I didn’t want to speak to anybody. I was just there for show. But then Daniel, a