Free Wake the Dead 2 (Wake The Dead Series) by Gary F. Vanucci Page A

Alex said, looking back to a shrugging Selina who nodded.
    “Probably right,” she admitted, before looking curiously to Bryan “But how we gonna get it?”
    “Okay, hear me out,” he began explaining as everyone moved in to listen.
    ***
    “Alex thought the plan was not bad as he and Selina waited in the brush. Bryan and Alexis stood from their circle, everyone in agreement and began to make their way south again toward the road.
    “Bryan,” Alex called to him softly, stopping him in his tracks. He turned back and looked questioningly at Alex. “You’re gonna need these,” he said, dangling and shaking the keys in his hand and smiling at the fuzzy-haired man who came back to him.
    “Thanks, jack-ass,” Bryan teased.
    As Bryan got up to rejoin Alexis, they heard a gun go off again. They collectively regarded Alexis, her own pistol out in front of her pointed toward the brush, and they all raced to her side to join her.
    Lying on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot wound, was a buck. It was dying, but not dead. In its death thralls, its head was jerking back and forth.
    “Goddammit,” Alex said under his breath. He strode purposefully over to Alexis, grabbed the gun from her shaking hand and benevolently placed a slug in the dying animal’s brain. It ceased moving immediately. Wordlessly, he strode right back over to her and handed her the gun back, then rejoined Selina.
    “I…I’m so sorry!” Alexis said in a tizzy. “I didn’t mean to—“
    “Hey, shit happens,” Bryan said, trying to comfort the woman.
    “I thought it was one of them again,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks, making clean streaks down her soiled cheeks.
    “I understand,” he said, hugging her tightly and looking back toward them. Alex shrugged and gestured for him to take his time, using open palms held out before him and nodding. Bryan recognized the gesture and allowed her to weep uncontrollably for a few minutes before holding her out at arm’s length for inspection.
    “Hey, we have a job to do, so are you okay? You ready?” he asked her. She nodded and the two of them walked off, Bryan looking back at Alex briefly over his shoulder before heading off.
    “Shit, I hope they don’t fuck this up,” Alex said.
    “C’mon, man. You never made a mistake?” Selina asked him in an analyzing tone.
    “Of course I have. We all have. I'm not judging her, just hoping that she can work through it. An’ quick, ya know,” he said, holding her scrutinizing gaze for a moment until she softened, then smirked and nodded at him. “Our whole plan depends on it!”
    “They’ll be fine. C’mon, they did it before once. Don’t you have faith?”
    “I do,” Alex lied, thinking that in this very moment, he did not trust that they would execute the plan well as he stared after them, watching them disappear around the corner.
    The next five minutes were excruciating, as Alex and Selina exited the tree line and fell to their hands and knees, crawling ever so slowly toward the back gate. Inside that gate was the ambulance they desperately needed. Or rather, they were willing to risk life and limb in the hopes that it would have the supplies they needed.
    Alex was not very concerned about the keys not being in it— IF —they were able to make it to the vehicle without dying. Ambulances had the keys in them most of the time as the EMT’s were usually in a hurry. The real question was, is there a zombie inside the vehicle?
    “There’s a pretty good chance that someone is inside that rig,” Alex said aloud what he was thinking. “Or some- thing , rather.”
    “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Selina said, crawling up beside him. They were not far from the fence now and Alex could see a gate with a chain wrapped around it. The chain link was pretty solid and the top had a few strands of barbed wire to keep the public from thinking twice before trying to cross the boundary.
    “You have bolt-cutters?” Selina