The Apocalypse (The Undead World Series Book 1) by Meredith Peter

Author:Meredith, Peter [Meredith, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

Sarah

The Island

Sarah was all cried out and her insides felt hollow. She clung to the tree, hardly able to keep her head up. Below, the zombies ate their fill of what used to be her father. When they finished, most went back to the river to be washed on to their next slaughter, but seventy or eighty remained, hanging about, mindlessly milling. They were too many for Sarah to consider taking on with her limited ammunition.

"I know what you did," Denise said in a choked voice. For hours on end they had sat on dreadful thin perches, which threatened to give way at any moment as the wind swung the tree back and forth with a fearful creaking. During all that time her mother had been silent.

"I had to," Sarah replied, unable to look at her. She hadn't once glanced Denise's way. Not once in all the long night. Now with the sun threatening to reveal the scene of Gary Rivers' murder, Sarah chose to shut her eyes.

Denise let out a hacking cough and said through rattling lungs, "You were right to do what you did. You kept him from pain. You kept him from becoming one of them. And I know you'll do the same for me."

Sarah's eyes were red and they burned and she wished for tears to relieve them but they did not come. "I will if I have too," she finally spat out.

"It's time, now."

"No. We're not going to just give up," Sarah said with anger and harshness in her words. "I didn't give up on you before, despite what they wanted me to do and I'm not..."

Her mother interrupted in a tired voice, "I'm not giving up. It's time. The fever has run its course." With a start, Sarah now looked up to see her mother's face alive with the heat that baked her from the inside out. "One of them got me," she whispered. "Just a scratch, I barely even felt it with all the excitement."

"No," Sarah said, breathlessly. "Maybe it's something else. Maybe it's tetanus, or a normal flu. We've been up here all night. It's only a cold."

"It burns like fire. It's the virus, I know the symptoms. Harry Jenkins got bit, remember? It's the same, and now it's coming on worse. Please don't let me go through this just so you won't have to feel bad about killing me. It's what I want."

"Mom..."

"I love you," Denise Rivers said. "Now come up above me. And please don't make me beg. It hurts too much."

Sarah climbed with numb hands and without care. If she fell she didn't think she would mind a bit, in fact it would be an act of mercy. She climbed and couldn't look at her mother as she passed, and Denise wouldn't look at her. The older woman stared at the bark of the tree with a look of dread and fear on her face.

"I love you so much," she said again with more life. Her wrinkled hands gripped the trunk with all her might so that little chips of it fell away.

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