Read Outbreak: A Survival Thriller for Free Online

deafening. They spring toward me with surprising agility and tackle me
to the ground.
    The gun slips out of my hand. I
would pick it back up, but all four of my limbs are suddenly occupied in the
struggle to fend them off. On my left side, the man struggles to bite into my
raised forearm, but the coverall’s fabric keeps me protected. The woman is more
vicious and tries to claw at my face. I resist using my right arm and slam my
leg into her side with enough force to roll her off.
    The man’s teeth snap above my
face. A line of drool swings from his cracked lower lip. If a single fleck
enters my mouth or one of my eyes, I’m toast.
    The woman scrambles to get back
up. When she finally does, I manage to locate the pistol lying next to me. I
sweep my arm over it and slide it closer to my hip, where I can finally grab
it. The woman readies herself to pounce, and I use the opportunity to aim at
her chest.
    As I’m about to shoot, a strange
thing happens.
    Her head jerks forward as if
she’s been punched. When she lifts it again, I see an arrow that wasn’t there
before. It entered through the back and impaled her left eye as it emerged
through the front, destroying enough of her brain to drop her. Who could have
shot that thing so perfectly?
    I can’t let the mystery of the
arrow distract me, not with my left side pinned beneath the man’s weight. His
mouth is leaking spit like a faucet. A gob of it lands next to my head, and I
catch the cheesy smell coming from his rotten, yellow tongue.
    The Glock. I need to use the Glock.
    I push him away at an angle to
distance myself from his toxic saliva. There’s just enough space between us now
that I can press the Glock’s barrel to his ribcage.
    The shot sends a jolt through my
entire body, but it’s nothing compared to what it does to the man. He jolts
upright with a gasp, paws at the wound, and starts to spin, his mouth gaping
open in a silent scream.
    I put another bullet in his
skull. Then I do the same to the woman, though it’s clear she isn’t getting
back up again. Another glimpse of the arrow sticking through her head reminds
me I’m not alone in the room.
    I swing around, pistol raised,
and fall instinctively to one knee in the case the archer has loosed another
arrow at me. But this mystery archer is actually a young woman, and though she
aims what appears to be an expensive bow at me, I can tell by the guarded,
fearful look in her eyes that she doesn’t want to shoot.
    I lower the pistol. The room goes
quiet except for the sound of our breaths. I’m sure every infected within a
hundred yards heard the gunfire and is making a beeline toward the SuperMart. The
girl’s eyes lock with mine, and I know she’s thinking the same thing.
    And yet, despite the urgency of
our situation, all we can do is stare at each other. I don’t know what to
think. Armed with a small pack, an arrow quiver, and a utility belt, she wears
a coverall almost identical to mine, except hers is Navy Blue whereas mine is
black. There’s no doubt she’s a trained survivalist, but the way her nostrils
flare with each breath, and the unblinking fear in her eyes tell me she’s
having trouble accepting this situation.
    “Kip?” she says. “Is that really
you?”
    I’m stunned.
    “How—how do you—”
    The words catch in my throat.
Suddenly I’m convinced this is some sort of trick. I’ve heard stories over the
years—at first on the radio and then from my father—of raiders who
enlist or force young women to lure unsuspecting survivors into traps.
    But even if that’s the case, how in
the hell does she know my name?
    “Relax,” the girl says. “We went
to school together.”
    I loosen up a bit. Maybe if she
wasn’t so grimy, I would have been able to recognize her. Now that I think
about it, I’ve seen her face before, only it looks
slightly different because of the weight she’s lost in the past several years.
Her name is Marie or something like it.
    “Peltham High