Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) Read Online Free

bedroom and Pete was scrambling to get up, to get away from whatever was coming. His hands and feet kept sliding on what turned out to be his wife’s guts on the hardwood floor. Just as Jake was about to advance and help the damned idiot who had gotten him into this mess, he heard another sound from below: a fellow zombie answering his sister’s call.
    Jake whirled at the top of the stairs to see two deadheads waiting at the bottom, hands outstretched and jaws snapping. He turned back to yell at Pete, ask him if there was another way out of the house, but it was too late. The missus was already having a word with him. Jake holstered his pistol and ran down the stairs, no longer thinking by this time, simply reacting. He grabbed the railing halfway down and hurled himself over it. Jake hit the floor harder than he expected, the force of the impact driving him into the wall.
    For a moment he thought he was unconscious, sure he had been knocked out, because the next thing he knew one of the deadheads had their hands around his leg and was tearing at his pants. He kicked at it with his free leg as hard as he could, then realized with horror that it was also pinned down, not by the hands of the other zombie, but by its teeth. He screamed as he watched the two rip his pant legs open and begin gnawing on his flesh. He tried to get away, clawing at the bare floor with his fingernails, thrashing with his legs. It was no use. Deadhead number one had already squirmed its way along his body and had started gutting him, tugging and jerking on his small intestines until they were free of his abdomen.
    Jake woke with a violent start, bolting upright and thrusting his hands out in front of him. The fire crackled beside him and the night was quiet except for his harsh breathing.
    Was I screaming?
    He ran his hands over his face, then down each arm, across his chest and abdomen, then along his legs. Yep, everything was where it should be. Jake looked around the campsite, wondering if anyone had witnessed his little fit of terror. Everyone was still asleep. Well, everyone but Kasey, who was on watch duty. He stared hard into the darkness surrounding the camp, but couldn’t see her. He knew she was there. Jake hoped that since he couldn’t see her, then she couldn’t see him.
    He lay back against the ground, snuggled down into his sleeping bag, and thought about what had really happened at Pete’s. Of course he hadn’t been attacked by zombies. That was only the subconscious fears he carried every day rising to the surface. However they had found Pete’s undead wife. She’d gone after her husband, Jake had run from the house, abandoning the first in a long line of people. Pete, Tommy, Ben…oh Ben. Jake silently scolded himself for not seeing the signs of Kyra’s twisted and hateful plans. No, that wasn’t right either. He saw them, but hadn’t listened to his gut. Had simply ignored it. Now Ben was dead because of it.
    On their final trip into Matias before setting out on this little adventure, Jake had personally gone back to the three houses Kyra had supposedly searched the night they’d looked for antibiotics. All winter the one thought that wouldn’t leave his mind was the way Kyra had been acting once the search was over and they’d all met up at the store. She’d been acting suspicious. Ben hadn’t noticed. Jake had. At the time he assumed it was nothing more than Kyra attempting to cover up her joy over not finding the medicine. He figured she’d be happy to see Mia die, seeing as how the woman was Kasey’s best friend, and Kasey herself had knocked Kyra on her ass and made a fool out of her in front of everyone. The more he thought about it during their stay at Crousley’s, the more he wondered if there was much more to it than that.
    He’d torn those three houses apart looking for anything that would tell him what Kyra had been up to. Zack and Mia had joined him that day, and they were busy loading Crousley’s