Castroville: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 7 Read Online Free Page B

of justice.
         But by God, he’d take a lot of them with him.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
      -5-
     
         Robbie crawled from his sleeping bag and restarted the tiny campfire he’d killed just before last light the night before.
         He’d wanted to burn it through the night, to help him stay warm. But it was too risky.
         The little bit of smoke it put off during the day dissipated quickly, before it could be seen and identified as such. But at night, even a fire as small as this one could be seen from some distance.
         A cop looking out of a window in one of the high-rise apartment buildings surrounding the zoo might catch a glimpse of light between the trees.
         Might wonder why someone was living in the abandoned zoo.
         Might be curious enough to investigate.
         Robbie cooked a can of spaghetti for his breakfast.
         It was almost a year out of date, but he wasn’t concerned. He’d eaten old canned goods before, and the only time he’d had a problem was the one time he’d felt a slight tinge of indigestion at the pit of his stomach. But it went as quickly as it came and he was fine.
         The worst part of eating out of date canned spaghetti was that it tasted like the can. But it still gave him a sense of the past, and can taste or not he savored every bite.
         He was getting antsy. He’d have to go on a resupply mission soon. Probably tonight if there wasn’t a full moon.
         Three nights before he’d killed three preppers. A man, his wife, and their young son.
         Killing came easy to Robbie now, and by his own count he’d racked up nine bodies. It should have been ten, but that bastard John Castro cheated Lady Luck and survived Robbie’s assault.
         The preppers and their boy weren’t so lucky.
         They’d made a common prepper mistake. They’d wanted to prepare for Armageddon, because they’d seen all those shows on the cable channels about stocking up on food and water. But their resources were limited, as they were for a lot of preppers on the low end of middle class.
         So they blundered, as many others had.
         They put all their effort, all their extra money, into canning and collecting and drying out food to feed their bellies for years to come.
         And they put no effort or money into a security system to protect it.
         Killing his latest victims was easy. He’d merely snuck up behind the husband when he went outside to gather firewood. Grabbed his face with his left hand and placed a hand over the man’s mouth. Then, in a swift and fluid motion, slashed his neck with a Bowie knife.
         He went down like a shot.
         The wife was even easier, for by the time she’d very stupidly come outside looking for her husband it had become pitch dark.
         Robbie just stood there, watching her approach him, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and hers not.
         By the time she finally saw him, she was right upon him. It was nothing for him to swing the two by four and make it connect with the side of her head.
         For a minute he knelt beside her, debating whether to rape her or just put her out of her misery.
         She was of above average looks. Pretty, but not beautiful. Certainly not the same caliber as Robbie’s sweet Hannah.
         He missed Hannah. He needed to see her again. He knew that was almost certainly no longer possible. He wanted to try, but John most likely had taken precautions to protect her from him. He probably spirited her away to God-only-knew where. Probably to stay with friends, until Robbie was caught and either killed or locked away.
         He laughed. Locked away. His new world was a world of cages. Animal cages of various sizes and types, sure. But many would hold a man and limit his movements.
         The difference was, this was his new home. This was where he chose to stay. If he were ever caught, and