Free As The World Dies Untold Tales Volume 3 by Rhiannon Frater Page A

of the ghosts, Rune aimed the bike up the dirt road and gunned it. It hadn’t rained in weeks and the ground was cracked and dry. Thick plumes of dust rose behind him as he zoomed along the winding road. Through the thick copse of trees lining the road he caught an occasional glimpse of a startled deer. Birds chirped in the boughs, occasionally giving flight when Rune rode beneath their roost. The world around him felt peaceful. It was rather unnerving.
    Rune hit the main road nearly an hour later and directed his bike toward the country road the old timer had told him about. After splitting off from Tito, Rune had hidden himself from the world. He’d seen enough during the first day of the fall of humankind. Now the remains of that world were sad memorials. A burned out farmhouse sat in the wake of a downed private jet. Cars were discarded on the side of the road, their interiors smeared with dried blood and viscera. Decaying bodies littered the shoulder, vultures picking at the remains. Rune spotted one or two houses off the road, the windows boarded up with the only sign of movement being the zombies shambling along the exteriors. Spray painted messages, already fading in the harsh Texas sunlight, decorated signs, trees, and even the asphalt.
    It was clear that he had missed the final, intense death throes of a human population seeking sanctuary. He shivered despite the heat of the day and the sun hovering high overhead. In the past few weeks , Rune had lived with the guilt of his passivity. His vow to his daughter to avoid San Antonio was one he held sacred, yet he felt he had abandoned Tito and his family. It had been weeks now with no spectral appearance by Tito, and Rune hoped that meant he had been successful in his rescue mission. Now, as he cruised past the remains of the desperate escape of attempts of so many, he wondered if he should have stayed out on the open road. Could he have saved some of those who now lay dead, or wandered the world as mindless creatures?
    The bike soared up the winding road, cresting a hill, and the valley below came into breathtaking view. The trees were lush with green foliage and the golden wild grass swayed in the wind. The tall sign to a gas station hovered over the tree line. Rune wasn’t well acquainted with the route he was taking and he tried to remember if the gas station was near a populated area. Rune was just bringing the bike to a stop so he could take a moment to weigh his options when he heard the harsh crack of a rifle being fired. The startled squawks of birds rising out of the trees filled the air while their shadows dotted the road, adding an otherworldly feel to his surroundings.
    Again the rifle fired.
    Rune remembered the words of the old timer. “Okay, this must be what I’m supposed to do.” Tugging one of his Glocks out of its holster, he accelerated forward.
    Another curve in the road brought him closer to the gas station. He surveyed the area thoroughly as he hurtled toward his destination. There were small houses and trailers (also known as manufactured homes to the city folk) tucked behind a thick line of trees that bordered the property of the gas station. A few of the undead fuckers were caught in the barbed wire fence strung along the back of the parking lot, but there was a large crowd gathered around a monster truck parked under the canopy. The zombies crowded the bed of the pickup, three deep, grasping and clawing at someone standing over them wielding a baseball bat like a mace. Over and over again the person smashed in the heads of the zombies, chunks of brain, bone, and blood flying into the air. A discarded rifle sat on the roof of the cab, the butt and strap partially visible where it hung over the edge. The truck was lifted high enough that the zombies were only able to slap their hands against the sides, but it was rocking enough to pose a real hazard to their prey.
    As Rune drew closer he noted that the person was actually a woman. Dark