Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland Read Online Free Page B

cold of a mortal wound. I began to pull myself along, faster and faster. I was surprised to find that as my hands pulled at the branches and weeds dragging me closer to the next wall of the maze, my legs and feet started kicking out, pushing me along. I was sure I'd been shot but, somehow, I was still alive. Everything still worked, and though it ached to breathe, I knew I wasn't going to die. Not then, not yet.
     
    At the next hedgerow I crawled along it a dozen feet, before forcing a path through, and this time I didn't rush. Fighting my instincts, I forced myself to carefully brush the branches out of my way, trying to make the hedge move as little as possible. When I heard a bullet whistling through the leaves, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was nowhere near me, they didn't know where I was.
    I kept crawling, my hands constantly searching out for gaps through which I could squeeze. Then I heard the sound of a body hitting gravel. The undead must have reached the grounds and the snipers must have seen Them. Perhaps they thought I was dead, perhaps they hoped the undead heading towards the maze would flush me out. Either way I knew I was no longer the focus of their attention. I waited until I heard another body thump to the ground, then I stood up and half dived, half fell through that hedge and the next and the next, until I fell flat on cool grass.
    I picked myself up and hurried across the parched meadow that had once been a manicured lawn. I kept my eyes fixed on the house, holding my breath, gritting my teeth against the pain I knew must come when the bullet hit. But it didn't. I made it to the wall.
    Standing with my back against it, I listened. I heard more gravel scatter, as another body fell. I gave a silent cheer. I was safe. Relatively speaking, of course. It sounded as if the undead were approaching from the same direction I had left my bike, which meant that I was leaving the Manor on foot. It dawned on me that with my pike broken, still wrapped in my jacket at the centre of the maze, I would also be leaving virtually unarmed.
    I checked my belt. I had my hatchet and chisel and an empty water bottle. I was still wearing my pack, with a day's worth of food left, the laptop, the hard drive, the first volume of my journal, a rope and a few other essential supplies. All in all it wasn't much, but it was enough. I could find another bicycle, I could find more tools and make another weapon, I just had to get away.
     
    I crept along the wall, listening carefully now to the noises around me, expecting at any moment to hear the sound of the approaching undead. When I heard a soft scratching sound, it took me a moment to realise it was coming from inside the Manor, from a room just a few windows away. I slowed as I got closer, and I saw that one set of windows was boarded up, not from the inside like the others, but from the outside.
    Someone, or something, was trying to lever a window open. One of the undead, perhaps, trapped in the room for some macabre purpose. It had heard my approach and was now scrabbling at the glass, scraping at the paintwork, trying to get out. Except, what zombie would do that? Wouldn't it just hit at the glass until it broke? It made no sense. Then I heard a more familiar sound. The undead were coming. They were close.
    I stopped a couple of yards away from the window. The sounds inside ceased but the sounds of the approaching zombies were getting closer. Whatever was inside, I didn't want to know. I was more than half way around the building, in a spot as good as any other. I braced myself and got ready to dash to the tree-line. It was, I judged, less than two hundred yards away, if I could just...
    “Hello?” a voice called from inside the room. A woman's voice. I paused. “Hi.” The voice came again, slightly louder this time.
    “Hi?” I replied and then closed my mouth, unsure what to say next, uncertain even how to say it.
    “Can you help me?” the woman asked.
    “You were