Free This is the End (Book 2): Not Dead Yet by Lisa Biesiada Page A

walked.
     
     
     
     
     
    “Hey, I see lights!” Ty’s excited words pulled me from my thoughts and I was suddenly smack dab back in reality.
    I had no idea how much time had passed, but we’d apparently made it to the end of the woods and I stopped next to Ty to see what he was pointing at.  Just up ahead there was a house with boards over the windows, but you could still make out a faint light around the cracks.
    “Should we risk it?  We don’t know who’s in there.” The concern in my voice was echoed by the expression on Chloe’s face.  She obviously didn’t trust people any more than I did these days.  Smart kid.
    I looked up at Jack, waiting for him to weigh in on the situation.  He took a final drag off the cigarette that had been dangling from his lips and stomped it into the dirt below.  He looked at me, looked at the house, then the ground.  Too bad one of my super powers wasn’t telepathy because I’d sell major organs for the chance to read his mind.
    We were standing on the edge of a small cul-de-sac, staring at the neat little row of houses on the edge of the woods we were using for cover.  The sun had sank and there was just enough light to make out the light coming from the largest house on the end. 
    “I say we keep going,” I said, determined to avoid civilization at all cost.  I didn’t want to risk anything else happening to one of us or anyone else learning that I’d been bit; that was a great recipe for a bullet in my brain.
    Ty looked at me, and for a moment I could see the man struggling to find his place in the world from behind the eyes of the boy in front of me.  “No.  We need to eat and rest,” looking back to the house, “Besides, there can’t be too many people in there and we could take them if we needed to.”
    “Easy for you to say,” I muttered, resigning myself to yet another terrible idea.  But I wasn’t going to argue as my bladder decided to inform me I’d need to find a bathroom, and soon.
    Jack pulled us into a semi-circle before anyone could rush off full force. “Fine, let’s see if they’ll let us crash for the night.  But if anything even remotely seems off, we’re out.” That was all he said and we all nodded in agreement.  No one wanted to fight anymore and I could hear every belly in the group arguing over whose was the most empty; we needed to eat.
    Looking across the street, I counted at least 5 dead wandering aimlessly; body parts dangling and various bodily fluids left in their wake.  They didn’t seem to notice the lights on in the house we were focused on, and didn’t seem to notice us either.
    Pulling my sword from my sheath I whispered, “No bullets.  Let’s keep this quiet.  We don’t want to cause anyone to rain bullets down on us in a panic.” My answer was the sound of various blades being pulled from various holsters as we fanned out into the street, picking our targets.
    I crept up behind a young guy in a dirty red fleece hoodie, shorts and sandals.  A chill made its way all the way down my body until I was sure every hair I had was standing straight up.  He was missing half his face but the glinting of twilight in his blond hair reminded me so much of the guy Sarah had stabbed in the alley that I was worried for a moment it was the same guy.
    Hearing my footsteps, he turned and snarled, starting to lunge at me.  It wasn’t the same guy and I felt nothing but the steel slide through his neck as I jammed my blade then turned it sharply until his eyes rolled back and he started to fall.
    Wiping the blood off on his sleeve, I crept over to the grandmother in a paper thin night gown that had seen the kid fall and felt the need to investigate.  She jumped at me, gnarled fingers curled and spit and blood running down her chin; features twisted into blind rage.
    Without so much as a blink, I stuck my foot out when she got close enough, tripping her and rammed my sword into the back of her skull when she hit the