Mass Extinction Event (Book 2): Days 9-16 Read Online Free Page B

climb out and then, keeping the gun pointing straight ahead, I hurry over to the truck.
    "Fuck!" Joe says, reaching up and trying to grab something from the other side of the flat-bed shelf.
    "Hey!" I call out, as I realize that Joe must have been the cause of the noise I heard. "Are you awake?"
    "Give me that!" he mutters, trying to get hold of a small wood ax that's resting in the back of the truck. "Are you fucking deaf? Give it to me!"
    Climbing onto the back of the truck, I reach out to grab the ax, before turning to Joe. "What do you want it for?" I ask.
    "What do you think?" he replies breathlessly.
    "I don't know," I say.
    "Just fucking give it to me," he splutters, "and then drag me out a bit into the woods."
    "Why?" I ask.
    "Do I have to fucking spell it out to you?" he shouts, before coughing up a small amount of blood. "Look at me," he continues. "I'm dying. There's no fucking point trying to pretend I'm not."
    "You're not gonna kill yourself," I tell him, feeling a cold chill pass through my body.
    "Fuck you," he says, trying but failing to grab the ax from my hand.
    "No way," I say, moving away from him. "You're gonna get better."
    "It hurts!" he shouts, his bloodshot eyes filled with anger and fear. Reaching his shoulder, he pulls away the sheets that have been covering him, revealing the full extent of his injuries. One entire side of his upper chest has been badly crushed, with fresh blood seeping from wounds that have started to turn a kind of yellowy-black color. "Look at it!" he continues. "This is so fucking far beyond anything, Thomas! It's infected and shit!"
    "I'm gonna get you to a hospital," I tell him.
    "There's no fucking hospital," he continues. "There's no fucking anything." He tries to get up, but the pain is clearly too much and he lets out an agonized scream as he falls back to the floor.
    "You can't give up," I say, terrified of the thought that I might lose him.
    "Please," he whispers, with tears in his eyes. "Do you have any fucking idea how much it hurts to die like this?"
    I shake my head.
    "You know it's gonna happen," he continues. "You're not a fucking doctor, you fucking dip-shit. Even if you try to keep me alive, it's just gonna be one, two days max of fucking agony. Fuck, I'm sweating already. And what if..." He pauses. "What if I've got whatever turned those other people into..." His voice trails off for a moment. "You need to save yourself," he adds eventually. "I've never given a damn about anyone else, but right now, I want you to save yourself. You're the only one of us left, so just leave me here and get going. If you haven't got the guts to kill me, just leave me behind with an ax and drive off, and I'll sort myself out. But I don't want you dying just 'cause you think you can save me. You can't."
    "I'm not leaving you," I tell him.
    "Are you really that fucking stupid?" he asks.
    "I'm not leaving you," I say again, tossing some food at him before I grab one of our last bottles of water and roll it toward him; he pushes it all back to me.
    "Don't waste that shit on me," he says firmly. "Come on, Thomas. You're not this dumb. I know it."
    I stare at him for a moment, trying to decide what to do, and then finally I make a decision. Shuffling off the back of the truck, I start walking toward the house.
    "Thomas!" Joe calls after me. "Get back here! Thomas!"

Elizabeth
     
    New York
     
    "Okay," I say, stopping and leaning against the barrier that runs along the side of the road, "I need to take a break." Having been walking more or less non-stop since the middle of the night, I'm starting to realize that maybe I'm not in very good shape, and it's not as if I'm exactly well-nourished right now. It's been a couple of days since I ate anything that would really count as a full meal, and I'm starting to feel weak. For the first time, I'm actually starting to wonder whether I can manage this four hundred mile walk.
    Looking back the way we came, I see that Dawn has stopped nearby. I