Free The Walking Dead: Invasion by Robert Kirkman Page B

slowly. He can feel his pulse racing. He hadn’t bargained for this little turn of events, and at first it had merely ignited his bloodlust, his need for vengeance. These are the people who vanquished him from the Kingdom of Heaven. These folks ripped apart his dreams, shat on his destiny, kicked him out of the Garden. But the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that this fortuitous event is actually part of the grand scheme of things. The forces of darkness are aligning against him. He is the angel of light, the last Christian warrior of the Rapture. He will do far more than merely avenge the wrongs inflicted upon him by these people. With his masterpiece nearing fruition, his theories becoming reality, he will turn their minds to dust. He will grind their souls into the dirt and make their world a living hell.
    He will take them apart and bury them alive and salt the earth for eternity.
    â€œAll right then,” he murmurs to himself with a cheerful little smile. “Let’s get to it.”
    *   *   *
    Reese and Stephen spend the first part of their search in the fields out behind the dairy farm, and over those two days are forced to repel several waves of walkers drifting up from the deep woods along the river. At night, they camp on the high ground and use their infrareds. But they detect no signs of Lilly Caul or any of her people.
    On the third day, they run low on ammo and retreat back to their truck, which is parked along Highway 19. They have enough food and water for maybe a week, but the dearth of ammo could easily bring their search to an ignominious end. They investigate the next town east—a ghost ship of a village once known as McCallister—and in a boarded smoke shop they find a drawer filled with cartons of Glaser 9mm safety slugs that fit Stephen’s Glock.
    The next day they decide to start circling Woodbury in an ever-increasing diameter sweep—according to their paper map—keeping an eye on the adjacent tobacco fields, where many farmhouses and barns still stand in one piece, empty and rotting from the inside out, drowning in kudzu, but still full of treasures and refuge for wandering survivors. Reese thinks that Lilly and the kid might be hunkered down in one of the outbuildings.
    Neither Reese nor Stephen gives a thought to the underground labyrinth—which had been discovered during their brief stay in Woodbury—until the fifth day, when Stephen sees something out of the ordinary along the tree line about a half a mile west of the town.
    â€œWhoa! WHOA!” Stephen sits up straighter on the passenger side, pointing out the window at the blot of red that just blurred past them on their right. The day is overcast but bright, and the flat gray light penetrates the woods at least fifty yards or so on either side of them before the shadows of birches and pines swallow everything. The air smells of mildew and fetid earth. Rains are in the offing. “Slow down! GO BACK!”
    Behind the wheel of the Escalade, Reese jerks nervously before applying the brakes. “What is it? You see something? What is it, Brother?”
    â€œBack up!”
    Reese stands on the brakes, sending both men lunging forward, causing a wet cloud of particulate to flume up from the rear of the SUV. The Escalade slams to a stop, the gears shrieking as Reese yanks the shift lever into reverse. The vehicle screams backward and screeches to a halt in front of a broken-down mile marker. “What did you see?” Reese demands as he peers out the window.
    â€œThere!” Stephen points. “About thirty or forty yards that way, right next to that huge oak—see it? It’s like a red flag or marker—about twenty feet up! See it? Shit, man, open your eyes!”
    Reese finally sees the flag. Barely visible in the shadows of tree boughs and power lines, it looks like a bandanna or red cloth one might see tied to the end of an especially long timber