Free The Mortis Desolation (Book 1): Mortis by Logan Rutherford Page A

exit wound, so there was no bullet inside of her. The wound on my leg was a clear example of that.
    I pulled up my pants’ leg and inspected the gauze and bandage that wrapped around my calf. A mixture of browns and reds had soaked through the bandage and dried. I would need a clean wrapping before we left, as long as there was enough left over once Julia’s bandages were taken care of. I rolled my pants’ leg back down and stood up.
    Peter was the first person I made eye contact with. He smiled at me, his face glazed over. “Morning,” he mumbled.
    I chuckled. “Morning, Peter.”
    Peter chuckled to himself, and then returned to his own little world.
    Rachel walked up beside me and laughed. “He’s so out of it.”
    I nodded my head. “You give him some of the painkillers?”
    “Yeah, I figured it might be a bumpy ride, so without the meds he’d be in a lot of pain.”
    I looked at the splint that Rachel made for his arm. She broke some office chairs and then taped them around his arm so he’d keep it straight. Then, using one of the extra T-shirts Daniel brought, she’d made a sling for him to put his arm in. I was impressed with Rachel’s ingenuity.
    “Is everybody almost ready?” I asked.
    Daniel put his backpack on and nodded his head, while John was putting the last of his things away.
    “My Range Rover is out back,” Mila said as she put her bag over her shoulder. “We should be able to fit everybody in there.”
    I quickly grabbed my bags and made sure my assault rifle was loaded and ready, just in case we ran into any problems. “Okay,” I said once I was ready.
    “Let’s go,” Mila said before I could get the chance to. She walked past me, moved my chair out of the way, opened the door, and disappeared out the hallway.
    I rolled my eyes. “Let’s go,” I said, somewhat defeated.
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    T he car bumped up and down as we drove over some of the many potholes that littered the highway on the way toward Brinn.
    “The roads are better the closer we get to Brinn. We do our best to keep those maintained, we just don’t have supplies to take care of all these roads,” Mila said.
    I sat in the front seat, gripping the handle that sat above the window. My seatbelt stretched tight across me, keeping me from bumping up and down. I said nothing in response to Mila, I just kept my gaze straight ahead, trying to ignore the painful headache that racked my brain. Each bump sent another jolt of pain shooting through my head like an arrow.
    We drove by a pack of zombies that congregated around the corpse of a dead deer, tearing its flesh apart. Some of them turned to look at us as we went by, but turned back to their meal.
    “You get many zombies around here?” I asked.
    “There’s been an uptick recently, but not usually, no. It’s nothing we can’t handle,” Mila responded, her face staying as stone cold as her voice.
    “What do you do to keep them away? Shoot them?” John asked.
    I winced. Bad question, John, I thought to myself.
    “Well,” she began, venom injecting into her voice. “We would if we had enough ammunition. However, since our neighbors are hoarders, we have to get creative. Besides, we have two fences surrounding us.”
    I rolled my eyes and turned my head to look out the window. I ignored her passive-aggressive jabs, as they were pointless. If Brinn had the most weapons and ammunitions, they’d want to keep it to themselves too. She couldn’t blame us. Besides, Jefferson Memorial was much closer to Dallas then Brinn, which meant more zombies. Of course, I didn’t argue with her, though. It would’ve been pointless, as I wouldn’t be able to change her mind, and thanks to my headache I didn’t feel like talking, much less arguing.
    We continued driving, and the roads did get smoother like Mila said they would. I noticed more and more zombies wandering around the sides of the road, walking in the direction we were driving.
    “Looks like they’re headed the same place we