Free Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) by S.P. Durnin

paracord from her survival bracelet—it wouldn’t do to have
good liquor float away, now would it?—and had prepped her camping
spot for the night.
    Now, half-reclined on a large river rock as
she watched the sunset, Sara sipped easily at her vodka, wishing
absently for a good book to read, and thought about ice cream. She
pouted briefly at the thought of never tasting that sweet, creamy,
chocolaty goodness, since all of it was surely long sour and smelly
by now –much like the rotten things walking through the cities. She
went back to her vodka.
    That reminded her. She wanted to keep an eye
out for an army-navy surplus store. Sara intended to find a gas
mask, post haste. Partially to help her avoid infection in case any
zombie goop got on her face—no apocalyptic facials for her, thank
you very much—but mostly because the zombies really smelled of
poo…

-Chapter
Three-
     
    Dawn came, valiantly attempting to burn of
the healthy fog that had risen in the wee hours of the morning.
They had almost cleared the city limits when Cho's “Kitty-sense”
began tingling.
    She and Jake were huddled together behind a
charred mobile home, now no more than some wreckage and the trailer
on which the shelter had rested, when she felt the first tickle in
her back-brain that something was off. O'Connor had been noticeably
withdrawn since they'd found that house full of corpses, real ones,
not the ones still walking about the landscaped, and Kat wished
he'd talk to her. She'd been about to broach a conversation with
him about something they both enjoyed, namely Anime, when she got
the feeling they were no longer alone. Thoughts of Super Saiyans
and the benefits of Veritech Fighters verses those of Gundam Armor
were shunted aside as Kat went into assassin mode.
    She hadn't actually seen anything. The street
they followed was as empty as a lawyer's soul, and even the number
of scattered zombies had dwindled down to zero over the last hours.
There was something amiss though.
    “What's up?” Jake mumbled, crouched close
enough that she could feel the ambient heat radiating from his
skin.
    Kat shook her head and held up one hand,
silently asking for a moment. Jake trusted her instincts, so he
pressed his back against the mobile home's seared frame and stayed
silent. Looking around, Kat took in the immediate area carefully.
It seemed a fire had begun inside one of the cookie-cutter homes to
the west. Without a Fire Department to battle the initial blaze,
thanks to an unscheduled apocalypse, the prevailing winds had
fanned the flames into a conflagration that burned its way eastward
for miles. Cho and O'Connor had moved stealthily through the
charred wreckage of long-immolated neighborhoods for nearly
forty-five minutes now without seeing any movement whatsoever.
Maybe the quiet desolation was simply making her jumpy? No, that
wasn't it. There was something. Something out of place.
    Kat extended her awareness and went still.
Most people couldn't do so. It took years of training to turn off
your intellect, quiet your personality, shut down and just
experience . The trick was to not only use your eyes or ears,
but all five senses at once without contaminating your surroundings
with random thoughts or assumptions. Kat had practiced daily for
years before developing the ability, and it gave her a finely tuned
“street sense” as some called it. Basically, the ability to
precisely locate everything in the nearby environment and its
location, even other people seeking to hide from her. That was the
reason, to Laurel's dismay, she could never surprise her roommate
with prearranged birthday celebrations. Kat always knew in advance
when and where everyone would leap from, even in public places,
joyfully yelling 'Surprise!' It was an extremely annoying trait
that served her well over the years, and she used it to her
absolute advantage now.
    Her mind quieted. While Jake and the mobile
home didn't fade out of her awareness, the rest of the world