Read Blog of the Dead (Book 1): Sophie for Free Online Page B

window.
    We crunched our way round into Sandgate Road where it looked like the floor had been paved with glass, glistening in the unseasonable sun. I couldn’t see an intact shop front at all. Bodies lay among the shards of glass. Quite a few. Zombies, I presumed. Some fucker – or most likely, many fuckers – had done the town over. Every shop had been looted. Wilkos had been cleaned out of any thing useful. All the food gone.
    We crunched our way further up the road. Even places like Bonmarche, the Oxfam bookshop, Waterstones and Clarks had been trashed. So, taking this into consideration, I guessed we were on the look out for a gang of literate middle aged women in comfy shoes.
    Boots had been looted, as well as the bakers, and the jewellery shops. We stopped when we got to the corner by Shoe Zone, but I could see that the destruction carried on up Sandgate Road: BrightHouse, Superdrug, Debenhams ...
    The three of us turned when we heard the sound of running feet coming from Bouverie Place shopping centre where Asda is. I got my claw hammer and knife ready as the two figures ran in our direction. One, I could see, was covered in blood from a head wound. I heard Polly unleash a roar as she charged, weapons raised towards the figures.
    ‘Polly, stop!’ I shouted. Alarm bells rang in my head as the figures sprinted towards us. Zombies don’t sprint.‘Polly!’
    I ran at her and shoved her sideways into Costa to stop her from committing murder. She slammed into the wall with a grunt and a scream of, ‘What do you think you’re doing, you crazy mother fucking bitch?’ just as the two figures reached us. A young guy, a bit beefy, and a girl in a baggy jumper, both no more than about twenty, and definitely human. Polly refused to lower her weapons though.
    ‘What happened to you?’ Sam asked the new comers.
    ‘Take my advice, guys, and don’t go down there,’ said the guy, wiping blood out of his eyes, while nodding his head down towards Asda. He held onto the girl with one arm around her shoulders. His grip was firm and I could see how skinny she was under her baggy jumper.
    ‘Zombies?’ said Sam.
    ‘No. People with baseball bats and iron bars.’ The guy pointed to the nasty gash on his head.
    ‘So, you haven’t been bitten?’ asked Polly.
    ‘No. Hit.’
    ‘So … who are these people with baseball bats and iron bars?’ I asked.
    ‘Well, I didn’t get a formal introduction,’ said the guy in a smarmy tone. ‘But I think they’re the new proprietors of Asda.’
    ‘ What ?’ said Sam.
    ‘They’ve taken the place over,’ said the guy still holding onto the girl like a ventriloquist holds their dummy. Though this ventriloquist didn’t appear to let his dummy speak.
    ‘So … you’ve not been bitten,’ said Polly.
    ‘No he hasn’t,’ I said. She finally lowered her weapons. But she didn’t take her eyes off the guy.
    ‘No fucking way,’ said Sam. ‘They can’t take over Asda!’
    ‘It must be the same people who’ve trashed the town,’ I said.
    ‘You think?’ said Sam. ‘But they’re not going to get away with it.’ He marched off towards Bouverie Place.
    ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ said the guy, smiling in a you’ll be sorry kind of way, but he didn’t do anything more to stop him. I ran after Sam and leapt out in front of him. Polly joined me, but Sam ploughed right through us.
    ‘I’m not letting them get away with this,’ said Sam, his weapons held at his sides. ‘That’s our only means of survival in that store.’
    I almost didn’t even notice the girl. She appeared like a wisp of smoke and tugged on Sam’s arm at the same moment I heard the guy call out from the end of the street, ‘Come back here, Leanne. Now! Don’t get involved.’ But she ignored him.
    ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Seriously. Don’t. They said they’d kill us if they saw us again.’
    Just then I heard a shout, a big booming shout, from the direction of Asda, ‘Oi! Fucking