Free Thicker than Blood by Madeline Sheehan Page A

shrugged my
shoulders again. “We don’t even know if anyone is there, Lei. And
we need supplies. We’re not going to make it much farther with what
we have.”
    “We’re going to need gas,” Alex said,
glancing toward the fuel gauge. “Soon.”
    “ Eve!” Leisel whispered harshly, grabbing
for my hand and squeezing it hard.
    I knew what she was afraid of; I was afraid
of the same thing. Running into people much like the ones in
Fredericksville, who thought themselves entitled to whatever the
infection had left behind.
    Or worse. And when it came to worse, the
possibilities were endless.
    “It could be abandoned,” I continued. “Maybe
some infected roaming around, but nothing we won’t be able to take
care of.”
    At least, I was hoping that was all we would
run into. A few infected would be easy enough to get rid of. Unless
the town was overrun.
    “There’s too many possibilities,” she said,
homing in on my thoughts.
    “We need to make a decision.” Alex pointed
toward the sky. “We’re running out of daylight.”
    Scowling at him, I turned back to Leisel. For
someone who’d been so uncommonly helpful, he was largely
insensitive to Leisel’s fears.
    “Let’s check it out,” I said, not entirely
sure of my decision, but needing to make one regardless. And Alex
was right, night was coming and we needed somewhere to spend it.
Somewhere safe, and a car with no gas was not a safe place to
be.
    “ Please, no! Eve, please.”
    Leisel was crying again, and I felt like shit
that I was the one who had caused her tears. But I was doing this
to protect her, to get us somewhere safe. Pulling her into a hug, I
planted a kiss on the top of her head.
    “We’ll be fine. I promise,” I said, with far
more reassurance than I should have been allowed to dole out.
    Nodding against me, she attempted to stop her
tears, but I was still left feeling awful. Leisel had known nothing
but fear for the past four years, and I would do anything to ensure
she’d never have to feel unsafe again.
    Alex drove on. As we drew closer and the
small town came into view, the niggle of worry already fluttering
inside my stomach only worsened. There was no movement, nothing
alive or dead that I could see, but looks were always
deceiving.
    Take Lawrence Whitney, for example. The
threat that lay behind closed doors, lurking in the shadows, was
always far more deadly than the danger in plain sight.

Chapter Nine
    Leisel
    The town of Covey was small, even smaller than
Fredericksville, and it appeared to be utterly abandoned. As Alex
turned slowly down what was probably once the main drag, I stared
out the window in shock at what I was sure was once a quaint little
village. Mom-and-Pop-type shops lined the street, a wooden sign
boasting an apothecary hung haphazardly from a broken post, and
there was an honest-to-God barber shop, complete with a
candy-cane-striped pole.
    I continued staring, trying to imagine
what this place had looked like back before the infection,
picturing happy people strolling the sidewalks. It was a place I
would have gladly visited. I would have forced Evelyn to come along
with me, dragging her into shop after shop, smiling as she laughed
at my purchases and good-naturedly teased me for being so easily
amused by simple things.
    But that was then and this was now. And
the now was a cracked and overgrown street, the earth beneath the
pavement reclaiming the land and everything man had built on it.
The stores were mere shells of their former selves with broken
windows, missing doors, faded and cracked paint, and the
ever-present aura of death.
    It was a ghost town, a graveyard without
headstones, a forgotten and decaying museum of what life used to
be. And if life went on this way, if the infection continued to
rage, eventually there would be no one left, the human race would
soon be gone. In time, so would all of our towns and with them, any
last shred of proof that we ever existed at all.
    “Looks clear,” Evelyn