Death and Biker Gangs Read Online Free

Vibeke. I stitched you up.”
    “Stitched me up?” He still couldn’t really move, but his gaze darted around in alarm. “What happened to me? And why does my ass hurt?”
    Oh, this was about to get awkward.

TWO
    “Good morning, Midlands Cluster,” Gloria Fey murmured through my headphones two days later. “Sorry for the long silence, but we ran into some unpleasant sorts while looking for fuel. Looks like our local brigands have increased their territory…”
    She might as well have renamed her program Bad News with Gloria Fey. No one knew how she continually pushed through her transmissions; with all the crap in the air, even the military installations had trouble hearing each other. 
    But Gloria Fey, former entertainment reporter for the nightly news, had somehow gotten her hands on some high-end transmitting equipment, and seemingly overnight had transformed herself into the go-to girl for all of our daily post-apocalyptic goodness. Twice a day, every day, she told everyone with a working radio how bad things were, where to go for help, and other interesting (and often classified) findings compiled by her scouts. 
    She did not, however, talk about people outside the blast radius reanimating. Apparently that was still a well-kept secret.
    General Hammond ground his teeth every time someone mentioned her, but he seemed to put up with her existence. What else could he do? She was as much a link to better times as she was a harbinger of what might be a very dark future. And besides, she had a lot of intel on where the local troublemakers were hanging out, which made life easier for our scavenging groups.
    Listening to Gloria had become a sort of morning ritual for me in the days and weeks after we arrived in Elderwood, and she filled me in on all the bad news in the world as I shimmied into my jeans, two layers of socks, and boots. “Those crazy brigands,” I muttered, looking around for my tank top and thermal shirt.
    My tentmate, a former teacher named Augusta, grumbled and rolled away from me, pulling the blankets up over her head. I would have apologized, but we went through this every morning. 
    Augusta and I got along pretty well. During our rare downtime, she taught me random self-defense moves and I tried to teach her how to shoot straight, but we usually worked opposite shifts. On a daily basis, I got up early and dressed quietly, but all efforts at being polite went out the window when Tony showed up to walk me to work.
    She hadn’t tried to strangle me yet. I figured it was only a matter of time.
    Gloria began rattling off the last known positions of local brigands. She’d been talking about them since I’d gotten to Elderwood, and it had taken me a few days to figure out she was using the new PC term for  roving biker gangs , which had become all the rage since the apocalypse hit. Gloria droned on while I rummaged around for my shirt under the bed.  Where did I drop that thing?
    “I’m heading out,” Tony announced, barging into my tent.
    I screeched and snatched up a blanket, covering myself as much as I could manage. 
    Augusta sat up with a gasp, fumbling around for the bat she kept near her cot. “What? What is it?”
    “It’s just Tony.” I scowled at him over the blanket and yanked my headphones down around my neck. “What do you want?”
    “Hastings stopped reporting. I’m going to see if they’re still around.” His gaze dropped to the blanket, and that old sardonic smirk found its way to his face. “Aren’t we past this?”
    “In what universe are we past this?” Yeah, the dead walked and Facebook was a distant memory, but that didn’t mean Tony was getting a free show.
    What did he say about Hastings?  I stood up a little straighter. As far as I knew, Hastings was the only city that still talked to us. “Hastings stopped reporting?”
    Augusta must have realized that sleeping in wasn’t on the agenda. She sat up with a groan, pushed her dreadlocks back from her face,