The Dead Survive by Whitwam Lori

Author:Whitwam, Lori [Whitwam, Lori]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Limitless Publishing LLC
Published: 2014-12-30T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

I tried again to avoid Quinn, but I was conflicted. He made me nervous, as all men did, but this nervousness felt different. It wasn’t fight or flight waiting for something to set it off. It was more intrigue, and a roiling confusion in the pit of my stomach.

I saw him during his shifts on the wall, or hauling wood when I was working in the gardens. Whenever he seemed about to approach me, I fled. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. In the time before, Mason would have been a harmless character on the periphery of my life, zombies would never exist, and Quinn would have been the monster who murdered me in my bed. But everything was inside out now, and I no longer knew what was real.

Melissa still hadn’t spoken. I wondered if she’d had emotional problems even before being captured, but doubted it. I’d heard whispers from some of the other former captives that her mother had been killed the same day she was taken. I wondered if her mother’s dying cries were the only reason Mason had known her name.

She performed simple tasks around the house we shared with a few other women, and I tried to spend as much time with her as possible. There were some books left in one of the bedrooms, and I read her Anne of Green Gables and Island of the Blue Dolphins. The latter had some interesting parallels to our own survival situation. She no longer looked quite as haunted, but she still couldn’t bear to be in the presence of men, and her silence dragged on.

One night, I was heading home after organizing a new stash of books on herbal remedies, and I passed by the gardens. Melissa rarely went out, but our housemate, Bethany, had apparently decided they needed some fresh air. I saw Bethany on the far side of the garden, talking to a man, while Melissa stood with her back against a storage shed, three teenage boys in a semi-circle in front of her, like a pimply pack of wolves. Her arms were drawn to her chest, her head down, and she was clearly terrified.

“Get away from her, you little bastards!” I shouted, starting off in their direction. I could hear their taunts, things like “retarded” and “dumb” and “only good for one thing.” When I heard that last comment, a red haze clouded my vision, and I began to run. Before I could reach her, though, two of the boys were scrambling away, and the third was hoisted off the ground by a very large, very strong hand. Quinn.

I skidded to a stop on the loose dirt, frightened by the scene before me. Quinn held the struggling boy, looking like some dark avenging angel. The wildness brimming in his eyes chilled my blood. He held his adolescent prisoner by the collar, almost strangling him. His other hand was clenched in a massive, potentially deadly fist. I went to Melissa and put an arm around her before turning my attention back to Quinn.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.