Free MZS: D. C. (Metropolitan Zombie Survivors Book 4) by K. D. McAdams Page A

be uncomfortable because of something I didn’t know.
    Tonight I have no idea where we are going to sleep. I don’t know how long we are going to drive or where we are going to go tomorrow.
    It feels so good.
    The death and the gore—oh my god, poor Jaden—are heart-wrenching. There are things that I have seen in the last twenty-four hours that will haunt my closed eyes for the rest of my life. Still, I feel at peace.
    From the time that I walked out on Jason with no idea where I was going, my actions have been pure. I’m not just talking honesty, either, I’m talking satisfaction. I believe that if I were forced to relive the same time period, I would be comfortable taking the same actions again.
    While working to achieve a specific well-defined goal, all of my actions were trade-offs. An extra hour on one project was an hour taken from a different project. I could leave for an early dinner if I made myself work on Saturday.
    Today I learned to fire a gun, a big-ass scary gun. There was no trade-off; it was just fire and help us survive or don’t and see what happens. Weighing pluses and minuses of shooting and destroying formerly living beings never entered my mind.
    “Terri, how long have you been sitting in the Humvee?” Tucker asks from way in the back.
    “Long enough that I can’t feel my fucking toes,” she growls back.
    “Pat-O, do we need diesel? I kind of need to take a dump. If there’s a gas station clear, do you think we could stop?” Cupcake asks bashfully.
    “We still have a quarter of a tank, but I suppose it make sense to start looking before it becomes an emergency. I’m not sure if there is going to be power on at any of these places, so we may need to siphon again,” Patrick responds.
    Part of me wants to interject and suggest a plan: wait for a sign indicating a service station, pull over, check it out, proceed with caution. But a bigger part of me wants to just accomplish the task at hand. Stop when we see a gas station, pull up to the pumps, and get fuel.
    “Weren’t you guys in a gas station after you got out of Boston?” I ask no one in particular.
    “Sort of. It was really run-down, basically abandoned. There wasn’t any gas or anything,” Cupcake says.
    “But it worked well, right? You felt safe spending the night?” I follow up.
    “Yeah, it seemed pretty secure. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere so there were no hordes to close us in,” he explains.
    “Do you think we should spend the night if we find a service station with a garage bay that can fit the Humvee?” I ask while looking out the window up into the sky.
    “Can it, princess. There’s some radio chatter,” Terri snipes from the front.
    The whole truck goes silent and I listen intently. At first there is nothing. I’m ready to start calling her out for the bullshit. We have no proof that she really did what she is claiming to have done before the outbreak. She hears things, sees things, and “knows” things that I don’t believe.
    The static-filled voice comes across loudly. “USP Beaumont. Renegade is on lockdown. Repeat, this is USP Beaumont, we have Renegade and he is on lockdown. Perimeter is secure, resources are available.”
    Silence.
    I need to think analytically to understand the message. It was not plain English, which means that there is an obvious component and a subtle component. What are the parts that I can identify?
    Lockdown is a security setting. This renegade thing is being protected.
    Perimeter is the area around something. They have a safe place surrounded with defenses.
    Resources are food water and shelter. They may have bullets and bombs available, too. The message feels like it’s coming from the military.
    “‘Renegade’ is the code name for the president,” Terri says. “I’m searching for Beaumont and USP, but the Internet is getting real spotty.” She sounds nicest when she is searching for something.
    “USP is a United States Penitentiary. Some of my mom’s