Free Fear the Dead 2 by Jack Lewis Page B

gun
was a box with the relevant ammo calibre written on a white label.
     
    My blood pulsed so fast I thought I
was going to faint.
     
    “Holy shit!” said Dan, and laughed.
He walked over to the rack, picked up a shotgun. It was a pump action, double
barrelled death stick. It looked too big in his hands, and he held it in the
air like Rambo.
     
    “How good is this?” said Justin. He
ran his finger along the handle of a bolt-action rifle. Most of them gleamed
like they’d never been used.
     
    For a minute, I was at a loss. Over
the last sixteen years the world had shit on me at every available opportunity.
Tonight, though, it seemed like Karma was finally rocking in my favour. Guns
were rare in Britain, because pre-outbreak you needed a gun license. I had a
revolver once, but since firing the six bullets in the chamber, I hadn’t found
any more ammo. Now we had enough firepower to take down an army.
     
    I turned to Faizel. “We need to take
this stuff down straight away,” I said. “If something happens, and we need to
go, I’m not leaving it behind.”
     
    “I’ll help, “said Faizel, and stepped
into the room.
     
    I nodded. “Good. Dan, since you’re
already in love, you can take down the shotguns. But for God’s sake don’t load
any of them.”
     
    Alice took a step forward. “I want to
help,” she said.
     
    “Don’t you need to look after Ben?”
     
    She looked at the bump on my forehead
from where she’d hit me. “I think I owe you a little help.”
     
    I put my hand to my chin. “Okay. Me,
you, Dan and Faizel will take down the guns and whatever else is in that room.
Justin, you keep an eye on Ben.”
     
    Justin frowned. He stepped into the
doorframe, a rifle slung over his shoulder. “Why me?”
     
    “Just do it.”
     
    He tutted, put the rifle on the floor
and walked over to Ben. He leant down to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s go downstairs buddy.”
     
    Ben looked over to his mother. His
eyes always looked like they were going to start leaking tears down his young
face. Alice smiled at him.
     
    ”I’d rather they stayed up here,” she
said.
     
    I nodded. “No problem.”
     
    Justin and Ben sat on the edge of the
bed. Ben wouldn’t take his eyes off his mother.
     
    “Okay everyone,” I said. “It’s our
lucky day. Let’s take stock of what we have and then get it downstairs.”
     
    Alice stepped into the room, and as
she walked past me I got a whiff of what I was sure was men’s deodorant.
Anything beat the smell of grime the wilds gave you, I guessed. I followed her.
     
    The minute I stepped into the room, I
heard a snapping sound and the door started to shut behind us. I span round and
stuck out my hand, but it was too late. The door slid into place with a thud.
The door obviously had some kind of mechanism that made it shut automatically.
     
    This didn’t make sense. How had
Justin opened it? Or had it already been open when he found it? If so, why
hadn’t the automatic mechanism already shut it? Maybe it was triggered when you
stepped into the room.
     
    Dan turned round. He had a shotgun in
each hand. “What was that?”
     
    “Doors shut,” I said, looking for the
handle. “Can’t find where to open it though.”
     
    Faizel put his hands to his chin. He
stroked his goatee and stared at the door. He put his hand to it and traced his
way along where the edges had been, but it was almost as if it had disappeared. What the hell was this place?
     
    “There’s no handle,” he said. “But
here’s a keyhole.”
     
    “Where’s the key?” said Alice, her
voice level.
     
    I thought she would be worried about
Ben, but she seemed calmer than I was. My heart hammered and my hands were
fidgety. I didn’t like being shut in, and I had the irrational idea that the
air supply would start to thin out.
     
    Faizel moved away from the door.
“Hopefully the key will be somewhere in here, because there’s no other way to
open it.”
     
    Dan