DEAD (Book 12): End Read Online Free Page B

differences. This is about some delusional twat who wasn’t breast fed long enough and now fancies himself as some sort of leader who can rule any way he sees fit. It would be splendid if everybody could simply live and let live, but human beings always find a way to muck up the pudding.”
    “Muck up the pudding?” Paddy snorted. Vix shot him a nasty glare and he made a gesture of locking his lips and tossing away the key.
    “All in favor?” Gable said with a shrug.
    Everybody raised their hands after a brief pause during which Paddy appeared to be warring with his decision. Once it was settled, they returned to their own camp and packed up everything. An hour later, the group was headed west to London.
    Each day passed with a surprising lack of the undead until Algernon reminded them that it had seemed like most of them were part of that massive mob that had taken out Vix and Chaaya’s old home.
    By the second day, they were doubting their decision as they had yet to encounter a single living person either. It was late in the morning part of the group’s hike when one of them spied a curl of smoke that melded with the gray sky full of low hanging clouds that had kept up a steady misting since just after they had broken camp.
    The group angled their direction towards that sign of life. It proved to be farther than they had originally thought as it seemed that the landscape was a continuous sea of rolling hills that could not be avoided.
    It took until just before dusk—a condition hastened by the blanket of dark clouds that were now dumping buckets of water on the group—but at last, the palisades of the settlement came into view. As was the custom when they approached an unknown settlement, the group held back and sent only a small envoy detachment.
    Randi, Gable, and Vix were chosen for this encounter. Vix was more than a little surprised. After all, she and Chaaya were the newest additions. Paddy had pulled her aside to tell her of the decision and its reason.
    “You believe in this. Most of us are still on the fence. If we want to recruit others, then we need to send in the people who truly believe that this is the right course of action.
    That was good enough for Vix. And so, as a series of lanterns were lit up on the distant wall, whether simply to ward off the night, or to signal the arrival of her and the others, Vix marched towards the massive and gated entrance of this settlement.
    For the first time in a while, she felt like a hero in one of her stories. She was about to try and spearhead a campaign against a force of evil that had reared up in the zombie apocalypse. She only wished she had a flair for words so that she might jot it down for future generations.
    Easy, old girl , she thought. It has not yet even begun…much less ended with a positive outcome.
     
    ***
     
    Chad moved through the house with a smile on his face. They had been in the same place now for several months. His daughter seemed happy, and the two of them were getting along better than ever. Today was a shining example of that as she would be showing up any time now for their little vacation excursion.
    Just the thought of it made him laugh. Here it was, over a decade since the zombie apocalypse had jumped out of mainstream fiction and wiped out most of humanity, and he was planning a vacation!
    After they’d taken that first one, his relationship with his daughter had grown and become so much deeper. Of course he had scored even more points when he had assured his daughter that this trip would still be just the two of them.
    He’d recently begun seeing a woman named Monica Wu. It was getting serious, but the woman had been very understanding about this trip just being Chad and his daughter. Ronni was still getting to know Monica and had not yet become entirely comfortable with the situation.
    “Dad?” a voice called from the tiny living room of his one-bedroom apartment. “Are you almost ready?”
    Chad stuck his head out of