Free Suicide Run (The Infected Book 5) by Justin Gowland Page B

to him. Creeping forward, he got close enough to sniff my fingers. Taking a few sniffs he crept further forward and I leaned forward and gave his head a gentle stroke and was rewarded with a quick lick in return. He squeezed through the gap between Chris and myself disappearing inside the building.
    “I miss Jay.” I said, standing up.
    Chris chuckled “He would have loved the idea of blowing up an oil rig.”
    I could just imagine the gleam in Jay’s eye at the idea.
    “Let’s get inside.” I said.
    I followed Chris back inside and back to the kitchen. There was a lantern lit that was giving the small room a warm glow. Amy was busy laying out her sleeping bag on one of the couches. Spirit was lying asleep at the end of the couch with the pup curled up next to her.
    Amy looked up at us as we entered and said “David said that Chris is welcome to sleep on the lifeboat with him and Mike. They thought that Marc and I would prefer to sleep in here.”
    Chris walked over and picked up his rucksack and headed back to where the lifeboat was “That gives me someone to talk to.” he said walking out of the room.
    I grabbed my rucksack and pulled out my sleeping bag and laid it out on the other couch. Sitting down, I started to pull my boots off.
    “Marc, I don’t want us to do this.” Amy said.
    I lay down on my side and looked over at her before answering “Amy, this needs to be done otherwise this whole mess is going to get worse and may never get better.”
    She sighed.
    “Benton will just make every survivor's life a living hell and I can’t have it on my conscience.” I said, lying back and looking up at the ceiling.
    She turned the lamp down and I heard her settle into her sleeping bag. Moonlight filtered in through the small window and my eyes slowly got used to the dark. Pulling open my sleeping bag, I climbed inside and zipped it closed.
    “Marc, I think it might be best if I head back to the Bunker in the morning.” Amy whispered in the dark.
    That shocked me and I turned over to look in her direction.
    “Why?”
    “I can’t see anyway that you and the others are going to survive this and I don’t want to be there to see you die.”
    “Who says that any of us are going to die?”
    “It’s an oil rig in the middle of the sea. How are you going to escape it? Let alone how the hell are you supposed to get on board?”
    Tell you the truth, I hadn’t thought of that oil rigs were huge platforms that were in the middle of the North Sea. They rested on huge legs. That the platform and machinery rested on. Then a thought came to me out of the blue.
    “Who says we need to get on board?” I said.
    “What do you mean?” Amy asked.
    “Let me think some of this through. I might have an idea that might save us having to get on the platform.” I said, smiling in the
                  darkness.

Chapter Twelve
     
     
    I didn’t know if it was Amy or Spirit but there was a huffing sound and then silence from the other couch. I lay there considering as many of the angles of the mad plan that I could think of. If we managed to pull it off, then we might actually survive. During the night I had the first nightmare of my adult life. I had been running on the sand outside of the lifeboat station. A large shadow was cast over me and I knew that if I stopped, the creature the shadow belonged to would grab me and drag me to the floor and devour me. As the dream carried on Chris, David and Mike ran past me, and as they did they shouted out encouragement. The longer I ran, the softer the sand got and the harder it was for me to lift my feet out of it.
    This carried on till I was wading through the sand and I could feel warm breath on my neck. It smelled of rotten flesh and decay. I screamed when the first fingers felt for my neck. Bursting from the sand, I ran so hard that my heart felt like it was trying to burst free. It was then the soft moan of the infected reached my ears. The sweat was streaming into