Euphoria-Z by Luke Ahearn

Author:Luke Ahearn
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Zombies
ISBN: 9781497497382
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2014-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

23.

Cooper woke with a start and was glad he’d used his belt as a safety harness. It stopped him from rolling off the platform. From twenty-five feet up he could see far. The ditch was filled with the dead, and none seemed to have escaped. They completely filled the ditch for as far as he could see. He climbed down and headed north.

He covered many miles nonstop in the day, making it all the way to where the 101 met the 85. He was tired, but today was actually an easy one. He was just south of the most populated area, and from here on it would be hard to move safely. There were likely very large groups of the dead just north of where he was. He wanted to rest as best he could tonight in preparation for the coming challenges, find food and water as well.

The sun was almost down as he headed to a housing development off the highway. It looked new, as it wasn’t too large and was surrounded by a vast open area. As the population grew, new houses were built on the edges of the city and this was the southernmost edge of the city. He had just walked through miles of nothing to get to this point. It felt like the edge of civilization. He left the highway, cautiously looking around.

The wall that should close off the subdivision was unfinished and stopped a few houses from where he was. The houses were mostly unfinished, and there were no lights on in them or on the streets. As the sun dropped lower, he could see just how dark this area would become. Already the deepening shadows made it hard not to stumble and trip at every step.

As Cooper walked, the sun continued to fall, the wind picked up, and the world began to cool down. By the time he made it to the edge of the development, the sun was behind the distant mountains and the cold night was upon him. He cautiously walked between houses, the darkness making it very hard to move. Construction sites were always littered with trash and debris. He pictured boards with rusty nails protruding underfoot, or worse, tripping on the uneven ground and falling on one. Who knew what else lay in the darkness just waiting to injure him.

He tried the doors, and the first one opened and in fact had no doorknob. He wanted to find a house that had a knob, one that was locked, with windows, and was unoccupied. Toward the center of the development the houses were more complete; windows were open on the second floors but not the lower, and the doors were shut.

He continued on to the northern end of the street and stopped suddenly to listen. It wasn’t sight or sound that stopped him in his tracks; it was the smell that hit him like a rock in the face. The stench of decay and putrid rot filled his nose almost as if it were a solid wall.

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