Free Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse by Nicholas Ryan

until we had passed four houses, moving at some kind of a n angle to the site of the helicopter crash.
    The strain was unrelenting. There was not a single moment when I didn’t feel like I was one step away from death or danger. By the time we had passed two more houses I was a wreck of nerves to the po int where I felt physically ill, and I knew I couldn’t go on much further.
    I lifted my head. We were crouched in the dark shadow of a huge tree in the corner of a front yard. I could see the outline of an old car tire suspended from a low branch and swinging from the end of a rope. I glanced towards the house, but it was simply too dark to tell anything other than it seemed to be high – maybe two stories. I went towards the shape of the building carefully.
    As I got closer, small details began to fill in. It was brick. I could see the dark shape of a window, and then I stumbled into a garden – and walked into the side of a low cement wall. It was as high as my knee. I tried to clamber over it, and then realized it was a verandah. I stepped up into sudden shelter from the wind and the rain – and the abrupt silence was ominous and eerie.
    I waited for the others, and as I did I took tentative steps along the porch. It was good to feel solid ground beneath my feet. We had sloshed in mud and grass for so long the muscles in my calves and thighs were burning. A full-length dark rectangle loomed out of the night as a pitch black shape.
    “The door has been left wide open,” I said in a whisper, and stepped cautiously towards the dark breach.
    I smacked my face hard against cold glass.
    I had walked into a window – not a door. It felt like I had broken my nose, and my eyes watered.
    I heard Jed stifle a snigger.
    The front door was a few feet further along.
    It was locked.
    Jed forced it open.

Chapter Three.
     
    We stood in a small entry area and Harrigan quietly closed the door behind us. We were in a tight phalanx, with Jed and I at the front, Glocks drawn, and the man right behind us, his pistol thrusting out beside Jed. The girl was wedged between Harrigan and the man – and we stood frozen like that for long seconds, expecting and anticipating the night to come alive with dark vicious shapes.
    The air was stale and thick with the stench of rotting decompositi on. The taste of it painted the back of my throat like a coat of tar.
    My hands were shaking – I was shivering from the cold , and trembling from a new surge of nervous adrenalin. I fumbled in my pocket with my free hand and flicked on the cigarette lighter. I had two candles in the nylon bag on my back, but I daren’t light them. Not yet.
    The lighter threw out a surprisingly bright glow that illuminated the area around us and gave me a chance to get my bearings.
    We were in a small living room. There were a couple of recliner sofa chairs arranged around a blank television screen, and there were framed photos hanging on the wall beside us. There was the dark squat shape of an open fireplace in a nearby corner. The rest of the room faded off into dark gloom.
    We stood, shivering and trembling, and dripping water onto the carpet for perhaps a minute before I took the first tentative steps into the room. I went sideways – to the full-length window – and dragged the drapes across to shut out the light. The noise was loud in the silence and I felt myself wincing. The cigarette lighter went out. I quickly flicked it back on and turned to study the room proper. On the far side of the room was a narrow hallway, leading deeper into darkness. There were thick rugs on the floor, and a low timber side-table beside one of the chairs. The table was littered with tiny plastic bottles and a scatter of small colored tablets. There were more tablets spilled across the floor.
    Sitting in the chair , with her head thrown back against the padded upholstery, and her mouth wide open, was an elderly woman. I took three steps towards the sofa, my shoes sodden and