Free Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay by Jason Borrego Page A

pain. The infection—Sam couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like. Huge drops of salty sweat poured down his face. His attention flittered between Sam and the surroundings.
    “Resist it,” Sam said as if it were that easy.
    His balance wavered as he nearly fell over twice. Then, he turned his attention to Sam. “You did this,” he muttered, using the smooth walls to climb to his feet. “You set me up.”
    “What?” Sam was frightened. “I saved you.”
    “Saved me? I’m already dead. I don’t want to live as one of those things, you stupid bitch.” He fumbled toward Sam like a drunk after dark. “Who told you?”
    “Told me what?” Sam rushed into the smothering darkness of the maintenance bay. She wasn’t going to let him near.
    “Bob, he wanted you for himself.”
    Her mind darkened as her heart surged. “I don’t understand.”
    “Don’t play stupid. I brought you out here to keep you as our little pet. I was going to return and tell that old man you died. You were going to be our slave. That way nobody got hurt.”
    Except me, she thought. She’d spent too long as Rictor’s prisoner, and there was no way she was going back to that sort of life. Her fists tingled as she drew her eyes toward the stumbling brute. Her soul was screaming for revenge. “Why me?” she asked, wanting to move, pace, anything to keep her mind from settling.
    “You think those people you’re traveling with care about you? Abraham would sell you for a chance at finding his family. In fact, he practically did, sending you out here. Bob thought about asking fuel for you. But this was easier. Abraham and Bob used to serve in the military back in the day. I bet those two are working together.”
    She faced Scott. The striking man was a thug, a low life and a no good piece of human trash. “Did Tyrell come through your town?”
    “Ah, I see Bob didn’t tell you everything. That black boy came through and it was a bloody war.”
    Sam’s trembling fingers fumbled at the trigger of the crossbow. Her breathing was shallow. After several heart beats, she managed to build the courage. “Did you kill him?”
    “The black boy, no, but I will have you before I turn.” He slipped his hand to the floor and picked up his makeshift weapon. He scooted along the wall, half awake. “Was it Bob? Or was it one of the others? Did you they promise you something for killing me?”
    “It was Bob,” Sam said, knowing the lie would hurt him. The palm of her finger pressed the trigger back as she grinded her teeth. The crossbow bolt sailed out across the space at the same time Scott charged.
    Excruciating pressure was released in his head as the tip of the bolt pierced his skull. “You son of a bitch,” she muttered. The bolt bent as it shattered his cranium.
    How long had she been alone in life, Sam no longer knew.  She paced around the dead body of Scott Mahoney, chewing her fingernails to a nub. Reality seemed to shift into something she no longer understood. “I killed him.” It felt good to say.
    Deep in the trenches of thought, she wondered if she would forever be haunted by this memory. This group of mechanics planned on keeping her as a slave and Abraham might have signed off on that deal. He would never… But she really didn’t know him.
    The things they would have done to her, the nightmare she would have experienced. Would she ever trust a man again? “Hell no,” she blurted. Her time in the darkness allowed her to think, and thinking brought her to the conclusion that everything was Tyrell’s fault. If he never left me, she told herself, shedding stinging tears.

VI
     
     
     
    Abraham knew Bob Hatchet was plotting something under his phony smile. The felonious man was less than honest with him during the Winter War, yet he had no choice but to tolerate Bob’s plan at this point. Abraham saw through his old war buddy, but Sam seemed smitten, almost obsessed with Bob and his band of mechanics. Sam was a smart