Free The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors by Peter Meredith

the threat of the gun still wasn’t striking home. “I already told you,” he said. “I’m after a girl…a young woman of about nineteen, named Cassie. She’s around five and half feet, 135 pounds, African-American with a dark complexion. She’s a murderer. She killed a woman named Julia with an axe. That’s why I’m here.”
    The older man stood above Ram and stared down; he wore an old Phillies baseball cap with a sweat stained bill. He took it off and scratched his bald pate. “And you think she’s with us? Is that what the Blacks told you?”
    “The Blacks ? If you’re talking about black people, then no. You guys are the first people I’ve seen since I got here,” Ram said. “I just came up from the CDC in Atlanta.”
    A man lying across Ram’s chest pulled back slightly and said with some excitement, “The CDC? Is there any news of a cure? Or a vaccine? A free one I mean?”
    Scott stepped on the man’s shoulder, forcing him back down onto Ram. “Don’t be an idiot, Herm. This guy’s not from the CDC, he’s from North Philly. You can make book on that.”
    “You’d lose that bet,” Ram said in a muffled voice. Herm had been heavy to begin with, but now that Scott was resting his foot on his back the weight across Ram felt doubled. “I’m from Los Angeles. Whoever took my wallet can check.”
    “He is,” someone said in a quiet , guilty voice. “And he was a DEA agent.”
    There was a murmuring and the men began to get off Ram one after another and now it was Scott who looked puzzled and uncertain. “What are you guys doing?” he asked. “We aren’t going to let him go. He’s one of them, damn it!”
    “One of who?” Ram asked, though he had a gut feeling he knew already.
    Some of the men toed the dirt, while others gave a glance to a flock of birds that were mere dashes in the blue sky they were so high up. The older man stroked his beard and told a story that had Ram shaking his head.
    “Philly is not a good place these days,” he said quietly. “When the zombies came, those that survived sort of clumped together, you know? There were a lot of white people out here in the suburbs and most of us came here when we heard that the walls were holding. And in South Philly there was a big trucking company that ran out of this warehouse. It had been almost a fortress to begin with and supposedly it was chock full of food and fuel. That’s where the blacks went.
    “No one knows where the Latinos first congregated, but it was in North Philly someplace, but it turned out to be too close to the blacks. They quarreled over territory and b efore we knew it there was full-fledged war going on. That was about two months ago.”
    “A race war? Really?” Ram asked with disgust in his voice. “This is the thing about humans I just don’t get. We have plenty of enemies all around us, yet we insist on fighting ourselves. So how did you guys get involved?”
    “ We're not really sure. Maybe because we were trading with both sides,” the man said. His name was John. Ram gave him a sharp look and he grew defensive. “We have fourteen hundred people to look after and trading is the best way to get what we need in bulk. It benefits both sides, you know.”
    Ram gave him a little shrug, “I suppose…sorry.”
    “It’s ok. In retrospect I wish we hadn’t traded with either of them. Both the Latinos and the Blacks demanded that we stop trading with their enemy and when we didn’t bad blood turned into spilt blood. Ever since it’s been constant strife. We keep to our side of the river, but that doesn’t seem good enough and there isn’t a one of us who hasn’t lost someone close.”
    All the men, including Scott, nodded along at this. Now that they were no longer pointing their weapons at him they seemed to be just a normal group of guys.
    “Maybe I can help you,” Ram offered. “I have to go into Philly. If I live long enough maybe I can get the Blacks the message that you want a