Resurrection: A Zombie Novel Read Online Free Page B

island-studded inlet extending hundreds of miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. From there he planned to take a boat to the San Juan Islands just shy of the Canadian border. That was a plan that made sense. Those things couldn’t get to him on an island.
    Carol stepped out of the walk-in cooler with a broom in her hand. She’d been in there sweeping the floor again. A now-dry meltwater stain spread out from under the door. The walk-in cooler wasn’t cold anymore and would never be cold again, or at least not any colder than the rest of the store once winter set in. They decided they’d use it as their fallback position if those things ever got past their defenses at the windows and doors. There was only one way in and out. As long as they had enough bullets—or cartridges, as Hughes and Parker liked to call them—they could shoot those things one at a time as they came in.
    “How you doin’, kiddo?” Kyle said to Carol.
    “I’ll feel better when Hughes and Frank get back.”
    “They should be back pretty soon. They must have found some good stuff.”
    Parker ignored them. He was all-consumed by his guns.
    Kyle wasn’t sure what kind of guns they were and he wasn’t going to ask. He knew his own weapon was a Glock 17. That’s what Hughes had called it when he gave it to him. And Kyle knew how to use it. Using a handgun isn’t hard. He always thought it was strange when a character in a movie asks another character if they know how to use one. What’s to know? Flick off the safety, point it at whatever you want to splatter, and squeeze the trigger.
    Kyle heard something outside. Carol and Parker heard it too. Parker turned his ears toward the noise and Carol took a step back. Kyle heard it again. It sounded like soft padding footsteps. It wasn’t one of those things, then. A dog, most likely, though it could have been just about anything. Kyle had seen deer and even a bear in urban environments in the past couple of weeks. He figured it was only a matter of time before he saw mountain lions.
    “I’m with Kyle,” Carol said, her voice shaking. “It’s not safe here. We should head to the islands. I don’t think I can stay here for three months. Look at us. Even you two get jumpy when it’s only a dog outside the door.”
    Kyle felt sorry for Carol. The poor thing would be scared out of her mind whether or not they stayed hunkered down in their fortified grocery store. Carol would be jumpy in an underground government bunker. She dealt with it by keeping herself busy with obsessive-compulsive cleaning. She cleaned everything in the store over and over again. She kept scrubbing down the meat and produce trays even though the meat and produce were long gone, spoiled and reeking and thrown out the back where the stench could waft away. It didn’t entirely waft away, of course. The store still smelled like a garbage can. Everything but the air, though, was as clean as it could possibly be, thanks to Carol’s nervous habit. She even made several rounds down the aisles straightening every cereal box, every bottle of olive oil, and every box of macaroni and cheese, but it was all rather pointless. Once things were straightened, they stayed straightened. You could mop a clean floor, but you couldn’t make straight boxes of macaroni and cheese any straighter.
    “How exactly do you two expect to get to a boat from here?” Parker said. “We’re at least fifteen miles away from the water. We’d have to walk. You’ve seen the roads. We sure as hell aren’t getting there in a car.”
    “We can take bicycles,” Kyle said. “We can weave around the abandoned cars, and we can ride faster than those things can run.”
    “But we can’t carry supplies,” Parker said. “All this food will be wasted.”
    “That will be true whether we go now or wait,” Kyle said.
    “But if we wait,” Parker said, “we won’t have wasted the food. And there will be fewer of those things running around.”
    “Maybe,”