Free Dead Life Book 5 by D Harrison Schleicher Page A

they had hit the front of the horde too hard. It was like hitting a deer in the middle of the road late at night. They aren’t that big but one deer can total your vehicle in a second. And these guys hadn’t hit one little deer. They had hit dozens of zombies. We passed the crashed truck. Radiator fluid dripped from its ruined front-end. Trapped bodies struggled to free themselves from under its wheels. When we were far enough past the wreckage that I felt we would be clear of the blast I threw a few grenades at the truck. The explosions were enough that they ruptured the gas tank and set the truck on fire. I hoped the fire would keep the horde occupied long enough that we could make it back to the road that would lead us to where Al and Gina awaited our return. If it didn’t keep them from following us everything we had just been through would have been for nothing.
                  We got past the horde in a few minutes and the road in front of us was blessedly clear. Cindy ramped it up to eighty miles an hour and had us back to the gravel road in no time. Cindy stopped the truck and sat staring ahead.
                  “What’s wrong?”
                  “I don’t want to do this again.”
                  “What do you mean?”
                  “Look at the road,” she said, crushed and severely damaged bodies withered and crawled everywhere. “You drive.”
                  Getting out of the truck wasn’t the best option, zombies were crawling out onto the main road, so I slid under as she went over. I put the truck in four wheel drive and started down the road. I could understand why Cindy didn’t want to drive, it was a sickening sensation, you could feel the tires slipping and sliding through the bodies that covered the road. Though there were more bodies than I cared to count crushed in the road no zombies came at us from the trees. Not long after we’d turned onto the gravel road the U-Haul came into view. Al and Gina were gone from the roof of the truck.
                  “I don’t see them,” Cindy said, a panicked tone in her voice. “Do you see them?”
                  I tried to stay calm. “They’re probably in the truck,” I lied. If they weren’t on top of the truck they were either gone or dead. There was no way Al would have come down from there and left these zombies wandering around. They would have finished the few zombies left then gone to work on trying to get the truck out. This wasn’t looking too good.
                  “What do we do now?” Cindy asked.
                  “We go down there with our swords, kill the rest of those zombies, and see if they’re in the truck.”
                  “Can’t we just honk the horn? That would get Al’s attention.”
                  I couldn’t believe it “You’re kidding me, right? Why don’t I just ring the dinner bell?”
                  “If they’re down there all we have to do is drive down and pick them up. It doesn’t matter how much noise we make.”
                  “If they’re down there Cindy, and that’s a big if. There is no way we’re walking away from all those supplies in the back of that truck.”
                  “You don’t think Al’s there?”
                  “Honestly, no. At the very least they would have been watching for us from the cab. They would have flashed the lights or something. They’re gone.”
                  A look of horror came over Cindy’s face and the tears began to flow.
                  “They’re not dead. There’s no way. I refuse to believe that. They hiked out of here. We’ll look around and as soon as we confirm that they’re not in the truck we’ll drive back out to the main road and wait for them.”
                  “Then why do we have