Free The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse by Peter Meredith

twenty at a moment's notice.
    “ Did you hear?” she asked her daughter as soon as Sarah set her bat beside the door. Sarah had 'heard' much though what was true and what wasn't she had no idea. She gave a shrug and her mother said in a whisper, “Rossville was burned to the ground last night. It was looters out of Chicago.”
    Sarah 's anxiety, a thing that she had lived with for the last couple of weeks, grew inside of her. Rossville was only twenty miles north of them. “Looters? As if we don't have enough problems. Have you heard anything from out east?”
    The main of her anxiety stemmed from the fact that her daughter was in the New York Q-zone and no one had heard thing one about it for days. Truly no one had heard much of anything for days. To keep panic in check the President had ordered the phone companies “Nationalized”, meaning they were shut down until further notice. The same was true with the internet, newspapers, radio, and television stations. The people were in the dark, both figuratively and in most cases literally.
    The power in Danville went out on the seventeenth—to preserve precious recourses it was said and the people demurred, because this was understandable and reasonable, and people in small towns were generally both.
    “I've hear nothing same as you,” Denise replied. “Same as everybody.”
    “ Not me,” Mrs. Farnsworth said, from her seat at the table. She had pudgy, wrinkled hands and these she had folded daintily on her lap. “My boy, Henry told me that some refugees from Indianapolis came west yesterday. You know Henry volunteered to stand out east at the Lynch Spur road, which is fast becoming dangerous work.” Mrs. Farnsworth took a long breath; she liked to be the center of attention and frequently dragged out stories if no one spoke over her. “Anyway, the refugees coming this way tells him that Indianapolis doesn't have a human left in it.”
    “ And the perimeter?” Sarah asked. She hated the idea of zombies wandering around autumnal farmlands of Illinois. To the west of Danville was the North Fork River, and to the south was the Middle Fork Vermilion River, however to the east the land was wide-open farm country.
    “ Gone,” Mrs. Farnsworth answered importantly. “No one knows what happened to the army there. Killed or run off I suppose.”
    Denise raised her brows to her daughter, but Sarah ignored the look and asked, “What about south of the city? Why didn't the refugees head that way?”
    “ They didn't say. Why do you ask?”
    Sarah only shrugged but her mother replied, “Because my daughter has a fool idea about going east to find Brittany.”
    All the women traded looks and Mrs. Farnsworth said, “She's in New York. You have to know what that means.”
    More than anybody, Sarah knew. “It doesn't mean anything. She's actually on Long Island and would it really matter where she is? What sort of mother would I be if I didn't do anything?”
    “ A smart mother!” Denise said, banging the table lightly. “If you go out there it'll be the same as if you killed your...” Denise bit back her words suddenly and licked her lips. One of the ladies in the room, Mrs. Allen, had lost her son to suicide a few days before—there had been a rash of them in town. “I mean it would be very dangerous,” Denise finished, lamely.
    The near mention of the word suicide, coupled with Sarah 's apparent death wish left a pall on the room and in the silence a bell could be heard. “Gary!” Denise yelled as she hurried to the doorway that lead to the hall. “It's the emergency bell. It's coming from the north.” This she added to reassure Mrs. Farnsworth who had turned white at the news.
    “ Sweet Jesus,” Gary muttered, heading out the door with the other men. They weren't the only ones. All over the neighborhood, men grabbed their hunting rifles or their shotguns and went quickly toward the sound of the incessant ringing.
    The women sat around pensively, their ears