Free The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 3) by Luke Duffy

the place had been abandoned and locked tight before the infected overran the country.
    She could not detect any movement within the room but until she had physically checked, she could not be sure. Reluctantly and carefully, she inched her way through the darkness, her light dancing from one shadowy recess to the next as she nervously made her way towards the far side of the food preparation area. There she found a heavy fire door that she presumed led out into an alleyway at the rear of the restaurant. She leaned in close and pressed her ear to the hard cold surface. At first she could detect no sound, but after a few seconds, she began to hear the faint noises of something moving around on the other side. It sounded like scraping footsteps, occasionally joined with the clunk and thud of something heavy colliding with a solid object.
    Melanie stepped back and studied the door for a moment. There were no windows, so there was no way of knowing exactly what was on the other side. However, she had heard enough and decided that the fire escape would remain shut. Considering it as a way of escape was out of the question. She could see that it was secure and undamaged, and she wasted no time in making her retreat back into the main room of the restaurant and onto familiar ground, closing the kitchen door behind her.
    More rooms were cleared and secured. As she left the manager’s office and headed back towards the crumpled helicopter, she began to feel safer in her surroundings. There was one more door that needed to be checked. Beyond it, she presumed to be the restaurant’s main entrance.
    “We need to find a way up to the roof, Mike,” she whispered loudly. “I’m moving to the front. Watch my back, will you?”
    “You got it,” Mike replied out of the gloom with assuredness.
    She walked to the front of the helicopter and headed towards the large heavy wooden barrier that was decorated with ornate golden artwork, depicting oriental flowers and fire breathing dragons that intricately intertwined with one another and gave no indication of where one began and the other ended.
    She came to a sudden stop as something to her right caught her eye, illuminated by the light for just a fraction of a second. She took a step closer and then realised what the red pulpy mass was. She recognised the boots first and then the scraps of a torn and blood soaked army uniform amongst the piles of rubble and contorted steel framework. It was the remains of the soldier they had tried to rescue. The unfortunate man had been decapitated by the rotor, his body being beaten and crushed while the helicopter and tons of masonry fell down upon him as they all tumbled through the collapsing building. She looked away and shuddered before continuing forward.
    At the door, she paused and looked back at the room around her, sweeping her light from side to side and letting it linger for a moment on the remains of the helicopter. She could not see him, but she was sure that Mike was staring back at her, holding his pistol at the ready in his weak and shaking hands.
    Pressing her ear to the door, she listened for a few moments. Muffled thuds, sounding distant, could be heard from beyond the thick wooden barrier. Holding her breath, Melanie tried hard to distinguish whether or not the noises were coming from the next room or if they were from beyond the outer walls. With her head still throbbing and her mind continuing its slow spin from the crash, it was impossible for her to tell. She was caught in a dilemma. She could choose to leave the door sealed and retreat to the main room, praying for a rescue that may never come or she could risk moving into the reception area in the hope of finding a set of stairs that would enable them to reach the roof and signal any aircraft that were searching for them. She knew that staying hidden beneath the collapsed roof was not an option. Any helicopter circling overhead could easily miss the building and the wreckage of