Life After The Undead (Book 2): Death to the Undead (4 page)

“There
are
two
thousand
and
eleven
people
in North
Platte.” I
couldn’t
raise
my
voice
over a
whisper.
“Where
are
they
going
to
go?”

Quinn
pinched
the
bridge
of his nose
between
his
thumb
and
forefinger
and
shook his
head.
“I
don’t
know.
All
I
know is they
can’t
stay
here.”

“What
about
Liet?
What
are
we
going
to do
with
him?”

Quinn didn’t
have
the opportunity
to answer.
“Everything
all
right
over
there?”
Pam
asked.
We
faced
her.

“No.
I
don’t
think it is,”
Quinn
responded.

“Well,
maybe
you’d
like
to fill the
rest
of us in.”

Quinn
glanced
at
me
for a
second,
then
back
at
Pam.
“I
think
you
need to call a
town
meeting.”

“For
what?”

“Just do it!” I
didn’t mean to
yell
at
her, but
I
had
no
control
over
my
emotions. The
room
spun
and
breathing
was
difficult,
it just
slipped
out.

Pam
hurried
out of the room, and
I
sank
to
my
knees.

I
lowered
my
head
and
closed
my
eyes.
I
felt light-
headed
and
nauseous.
I
couldn’t
believe
it
was
this
hard.
It
wasn’t supposed to be
this
hard.
I
felt
Quinn’s
hand
on
m
y
b
a
c
k.

“You
all
right?”

I
looked
up
at
him.
“I’ll
be
fine.
Just
give
me
a
second.”

Tanya
moved so she
stood in
front
of
me.
Her
knees
popped
as
she
knelt
down.

“What
are
we
going
to
do
now?
Everything
has
been
ruined.”
She
lowered
her
gaze.
“I
ruined it. I
can’t believe
I
was so stupid to believe
you
would have
sent
zombies!”

I
took a
deep
breath
and
stared
at
her
face
for
several
moments. Anger
clenched
my
chest. I
wanted
to tell
her
it
was
her
fault,
that she
should have
known
we
would
never
do
anything
so devious, but it wouldn’t
get
us
anywhere.
Her
eyes
were red
rimmed
and
her
shoulders
slumped
forward.
She probably
didn’t stop
traveling
until
she
made
it to the
city.
Rage
kept
her
moving.
Her
desire
to see
me
dead
or
maimed
fueled
her
journey. After
she
found
out the
truth,
rage
was
replaced
with sheer
exhaustion.
Sadly,
her journey
wasn’t
even
close
to being
over.

Besides,
I
wasn’t
mad
at
her,
I
was angry
at
the
universe.
I
was upset that
my
luck
had
run
out.
The
same
rage
that
kept
her moving
was
going
to have
to sustain
me.
We
still
had
a
job to
do, we
just
had
to rethink it.

“You
didn’t
ruin it,”
I
told
her. “You
were
just
reacting
to a
situation
you
thought
we
created. It’s
understandable.”

She
placed
her
hands
on
the
floor
and
leaned
forward.
“I
want to
help
you
fix
it.
Please
tell me
what
I
can
do.”

“First
of
all,
we’ve
got
to
get
the
people to
safety. Then,
we’re
going
to
disappear.”

“And
go
where?”

“The
only
place
we
have
left.
The
West.”

CHAPTER
2

I
hated
speaking
in public. Especially
when
I
thought
the
crowd
would turn into a
lynch
mob and
scream
for
my
head.
Quinn tried to make
me
feel
better.
He
told me the
people
of
North
Platte knew
what
they
were
getting
into
when
they
rebelled,
and
in
the
back
of
my
mind,
I
knew
he
was
right. But
he
wasn’t
the
one
on
the podium.
He
wasn’t
the one
delivering the
bad
news.
The
one
thing I
hoped
was
that with
my
arm
still in a
sling,
the
workers
would
feel
sorry
for
me.

The
crowd
gathered
in the
high
school
gym.
I
stood
on a
soap
box
in the
middle
of
the
basketball
court,
facing
the
bleachers
with
a
bullhorn
in
my
hand.
As
I
stared
at
the
crowd,
I
tried to pinpoint the
men
and
women
I
thought
would rush me first. I
cleared
my
throat
and
brought
the
bullhorn
to
my
mouth.

“First
of
all,
I
would like
to
thank
you
all
for
coming.”
My
voice
cracked
through
the
mouthpiece.
Thankfully,
the
horn
covered
the majority
of
my
face.

My
cheeks
and
ears turned
red.
“As
I’m
sure
some
of
you
are
aware,
we
had a
visit
from
Florida
within the
past
few
weeks.”
I
expected
the
crowd
to burst into
hushed
whispers
amongst
themselves,
but
I
was
met with
silence.

I
carried
on. “We
have
reason
to
believe
they
are planning
an
attack.
Perhaps
planning
on
wiping
us
off
the
face
of
the
earth.”
I
paused
and
flinched,
expecting
angry
roars
from the
crowd. Again,
I
was
met with
silence.

“We
think the
safest
course
of
action
is to
leave
North
Platte.
We
think we
should
head
into the
West.”
I
lowered
the bullhorn.
It
was
out now.
If
they
were going
to
get
angry,
I
couldn’t
stop it.

Quinn
sat
in the
front
row,
and
I
found
his
gaze.
He
nodded
and
gave
me a
thumbs up. I
turned
my
attention
back
to the
crowd, a
knot
developed
in
my
stomach. I
would
have preferred
them angry
and
yelling
at
me.
At
least
then
they
would have
reacted. All
of them sitting
there
in
silence
made
me
nervous. Was
I
supposed to
give
them
more
information?
Were
they
expecting
something
else
from
me?

“Is
there
any way
we
can
be
sure
they
are
coming
here
to destroy
us?”
A
voice
spoke
from
the
crowd.

I
looked
up to
see
a
woman,
probably
in her
mid-
twenties,
with a
blond-haired,
blue-eyed
boy
on her
lap.

I
shook
my
head.
“No. Unfortunately,
it’s
all
speculation
at this point.”

“Then
why
should we
leave
on speculation?”
It
was
an
older
man, close
to 60, who
wore
a
plaid shirt and
sat
with his
arms
crossed
over his
chest.

I
shrugged. “That
choice
is up to
you. I’m
just
telling
you
what
we
know.
Or
what
we
think we know.
After
the
group
from
Florida left
here,
Tanya,”
she
sat
next to Quinn
and
I
pointed
her
out, “came here
to
tell us
about
a zombie
infestation.”
I
told them the story
about
the
zombies
in the
truck
and
how they
attacked
in
the
storage
yard.
After
I
finished,
I
was
met with silence
again,
but the
crowd
looked
at
one
another,
searching
each
other’s
faces
for
an
answer
or
more
information.

Quinn stood
from
his seat and
faced
them.
“What
Krista
is
saying
is
that
it’s better
to be
safe
than
dead.
We
don’t know
for
sure
that they
are
coming
to destroy
us, but we
have
to
plan
for the
worst-case scenario.
Would
any
of
you
put it past The
Families
to
see
you
dead?”

Members
of
the
crowd
shook their
heads.

“They
sent
you
here
for a
reason,”
Quinn continued.
“And
now
you
are
a
threat to their
power
and
means of
control.
They
have
already
tried
to rein in
the
people of
Florida,
to
keep
them
afraid,
what
do
you
think their
next
logical
step
is
going
to
be?”

“Why
the West?”
the
woman
with
the
child
asked.
“Why
not somewhere
further
east? Maybe
up north?”

“You
know,”
I
said,
“anywhere
you
choose
to
go
outside
of
North
Platte
will
be
safer. But
if
Florida
realizes
you’re
gone and
wants
to hunt
you
down,
they
probably
won’t
stop looking
for
you
in the
east
or
up
north.
I’m
pretty
sure
they’ll
hesitate coming
after
you
in
the
West.”

“Where
are
we
going
to
go
in
the West?”
A
teenager
with stringy
brown
hair asked.
“There
are
thousands of
us.”

“And
there
are
completely
abandoned
cities,”
Quinn
interjected.

“But
they’ve
been overrun with zombies.”
The
teenager’s
voice
squeaked.
“How
are
we
going
to
defend
against
that?”