The Dying of the Light (Book 3): Beginning Read Online Free

reached the doorway, but he made it outside. He propped himself into a seated position against the main door. Less than hopeful, he tried the radio once more as he took his rifle in the other hand, pointing it back into the bunker.
    He could hear them coming. He could hear their weird hoots and hollers, their cries that promised nothing but pain and slow, horrible death… or a quick turning. The mutated prion would spread through his system and render him nigh-immortal in mere moments if he let it. He could always off himself first. No way was he going to go out like Airman Cockrell. Lucky for him, his injuries thus far had been from claws, not teeth, so he wasn’t infected yet. Still, he would never walk again.
    “I’ll never do much of anything again,” he muttered as his radio squealed to life.
    “Whiskey Five to anyone. Can you read me?”
    “This is Worm, Fayde,” he replied, laughing to himself as he used the hated nickname. Of course he did, now. “They’re dead.”
    “What? Who’s dead? What’s going on? Talk to me!”
    “Everyone,” he said. “They’re all dead. Those walkers got them. It was quiet at first, like that one that you shot was alone or something…” He coughed, noticing but not caring about the blood that sprayed across his uniform. It didn’t matter now anyway. “They’re coming for me too, Brandy. I can hear them. They’re coming…”
    “Just get out of there! Blow the charges. I’ll cover you!”
    He laughed, then coughed again. More blood. “I’m not going anywhere. Tell them… Tell them not to come back. Just leave us all down here. Forever. Never come back.”
    “What? No, Worm, you have to get out of there!”
    “You tell them, Fayde. We can’t let these things out. They’re not like regular walkers. You tell them! Tell them the colonel said ‘Never come back.’” He glanced up as he saw a hand come out of the shadows in front of him, dragging something behind it on the floor. He didn’t need to see the rest of the body to know it was Cockrell, awake now and ravenous. He ripped off the NVD, turning to look out the open door as he pulled the remote detonator from his pocket. It was a shame that such a pretty day had to be so soul-crushingly hot.
    The last thing Leland Wormwood saw was the bright blue sky of that Mississippi afternoon in July.

     
    The explosion was deafening and collapsed who-knew-how-much earth and rock. The blast had the side effect of starting a landslide on the mountain, causing even more rubble to cover the massive metal doors.
    Soon, it was impossible to find any trace of the bunker. Only a few outlying fences and the aerials at the mountain’s summit marked the location.
    “Yankee Actual, Whiskey Five.”
    “Go ahead, Whiskey Five.”
    “Sir… they’re dead. They’re all dead.” Even the Ice Queen’s cold façade sounded haunted by the events of the day, and her voice cracked a bit.
    “Dead? How? What the hell happened?”
    “It’ll be in my report, sir. Corporal Wormwood passed along a message from Colonel Monterrey, sir.”
    “What message?”
    “Sir, the message was ‘Never come back.’”
    “I see. Was that it?”
    “Yes, sir,” she said. “That was it. For what it’s worth, I’d listen.”
    “I’ll take that under advisement, Captain. Return to base.”
    “Yes, sir.” Brandy Fayde packed up her .50-cal Barrett sniper rifle and climbed down from her perch in the red maple tree. The sap’s pungent odor rose as she scraped her way down and headed for the chopper waiting just over the hill. She glanced once over her shoulder at the mound of freshly turned earth that had been the entrance to Bunker Nine. “I hope they listen this time.”

     
    New Atlantic Fleet
Naval Station Norfolk
Z-Day + 19 years (Two Years Later)
     
    The reconstruction of the Atlantic fleet was taking much longer than Jeremiah Graves had planned. There were many ships in the harbor and in the surrounding areas, but most weren’t