Free The Effacing (Book 1.5): Valley's End by T. Anwar Clark Page A

door, the survivors of Valley’s End with guns, raised them.  The knocking resumed.
       “It’s me!” shouted Rebekah, from the other side.
       “Open the door!” Neshia repeated.
       The grinding woods screeched as two Centre City hoods quickly moved the barricade. Ann rushed to the door and opened it.
       Rebekah thundered inside just as the lightning lit up the area behind her, the tapping noise followed her in, turned into the dragging of amenities. “I got the greatest little Idea!” she said, out of breath. “I need three volunteers!”
       Thunder rumbled the ground.

CHAPTER 21
     
     
       Neshia stood amongst the crowd in Rebekah’s poncho, holding a silenced 9mm given to her by a Valley’s End survivor in exchange for the MTAR she’d swapped out for Rebekah’s XDM. Brea and Chase stood on each of her sides. Baker found his place with the rest of the children – for the time being – deep within the crowd without a sound, his head down, eyes shut, ears open. It seemed as if he and Itchy had finally taken a chill pill. Itchy, down off his high, up on his attentiveness – a little paranoid – eyeing around the room as if keeping track of everyone’s movements. Jim and Girder regrouped with their Centre City A-alike brethren, their hardened faces revealed they were not in cahoots with the meantime truce that was established, guns ready-to-go on the first Valley’s End survivor to give an erroneous glance in their menacing direction. Maria stood motionless, hand on her holstered sidearm, side-by-side with the lumberjack biker, not even two feet away from her dearest cousin and the fearless heroine – the mysterious and dangerously interesting – Rebekah Morgan, who seemed to have everything under control.  
       “How did you manage that one?” Ann asked Rebekah, who now sported an enemy uniform, riot helmet cupped underneath her arm and ribcage, reunited with her twin XDMs held in their proper places.
       As the enemy earpiece that buzzed of static – and the in-and-out transmissions she’d chosen not to divulge to the group – Rebekah looked to the China Cabinet Boys and the baggy attired Oakland A’s fan, all outfitted in black camouflage under BPVs, assault rifles in hands, and lightly expressed her amusement, “They were all average.”
      Ann didn’t get it. She did. “Err… yeah… sure thing.”
       But what was the fate of the uniforms original owners?
     

CHAPTER 22
     
     
       It wasn’t long before the group gathered up and departed the cozy dupe into the perfidious city streets they once trusted not too long ago. The rain had slimmed even more, the only lights on Fiche – the Road at the edge of the implosion – was from car fires, random reflections, and the flashlight attachments on the assault rifles. The plan was to walk the street as if the group were escorted prisoners of Sworn’s henchmen, if spotted, handle the situation accordingly, and if the infected were to rise up, put them completely out of their bizarre night-terror-stricken misery.
       For certain Sworn and his entourage had begun moving through the city – and away from the implosion site – Rebekah led the survivors toward Maison, prepping the mock troops for the next stage of her plan before they were spotted and approached by the enemy’s transportation, two black Ford E150 vans.
       The Oakland A’s fan turned out being extremely useful when it came to assisting Rebekah, confronting and dragging the unsuspecting driver out of his comfortable, black leather bucket seat, quickly seizing the vehicle while Rebekah carjacked the other. But there was no telling if they called in reinforcements – considering Rebekah never spoke on the earpiece communications.
       After stripping the drivers down to their crusty undergarments, tying their wrists and bare feet together, hands behind the back, all with their own bootlaces – in loops, coils, knots and twists – Rebekah