Free The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) by Luke Duffy Page B

watching the concentrated expression on his weathered and heavily lined face, and feeling the hairs on the back of her neck beginning to prickle. If Ron was starting to worry, then that was a sure indication that the rest of them should begin to panic. The old man was always a mile behind everyone else with his emotions and reactions, and now she could see that he was steadily growing more anxious.
    “Well?” she asked, hoping that she was just misreading the situation and that Ron was somehow going through an uncharacteristic moment. “Anything?”
    Ron glanced back at her as he took a long drag from the cigarette without removing it from his lips. He squinted as the plumes of smoke curled up over his face, and exhaled loudly. He shook his head, and then turned back to the radio.
    “Al, Tommy, this is zero, comms check, over.” He tried again and again, but there was never any reply. It had been the same story for hours.
    “When did you last hear from them?” she asked.
    “Just before they left,” Ron replied with a grunt. “We did the usual checks, and their comms seemed to be working fine.”
    The night watch along the wall had reported the sound of gunfire during the early hours and what they believed to be a detonation of high-explosives. No signature had been seen, but they were sure that it could have only come from the city. Everyone was doing their own math on the matter. Outside of the FOB there were very few people left alive, especially within the urban areas. It would be highly unlikely that there would be anyone else other than Al and Tommy out there, and with the lack of radio communications people naturally began to suspect the worst.
    Tina could physically feel the dread knotting her stomach, forming a solid, cold ball that grew within her abdomen. She was pacing now, wringing her hands, and constantly watching over Ron’s shoulder. The two men should have returned by now. It was early morning, and not a sign or signal had been received from them. She knew their mission and the route that they had intended to take, and she was already considering going out after them.
    “Keep trying,” she ordered the radio operators.
    She left the cabin and raced towards the steps, taking the rungs two at a time, and bounding up towards the top of the wall. By now it was light enough for her to see the ghostly buildings of the city in the distance, and the land appeared to be shrouded in a blue haze as the morning mist slowly lifted. Raising her binoculars she scanned the skyline, hoping to see something that would give her an indication of where her men were. There was no smoke, no tracer, and no flares. The urban area was as eerie and desolate as ever with no indication of anything having happened during the hours of darkness.
    There was, however, something different about this particular morning. Out in no-man’s-land, she could see the tell-tale jerky movements of a number of corpses. All around the perimeter, the guards were seeing and reporting the same thing. Shadowy forms lumbering across the debris cluttered ground, tripping through the wire, and squelching in the mud. It was not yet a full on advance, but there was no doubt about it; after years of keeping their distance, the dead were on the move.
    “You said you heard an explosion?” Tina called out to her left along the wall to one of the sentries.
    “Not me,” the man shouted back from the nearest of the machinegun positions that overlooked the wasteland. “It was Denise from the night shift. It was her who reported it.”
    Within minutes a dishevelled and sleepy looking woman arrived on the walkway. It was Denise who had been dragged from her sleep to report first-hand to Tina on what she had seen and heard. She yawned and rubbed at her eyes, looking irritated at being forced away from her rest period. She looked up at Tina and saw the aggravated expression on her face and the intense look in her eyes. Denise instantly snapped out of her