Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) for Free Online Page B

away. “Okay.”
     
    “He’s touched,” a woman offered, not unkind, pointing at her own head with a forefinger.
     
    “He’s insane,” the dark-eyed man answered matter-of-factly, judgment absent from his voice. “A little worse than some of us, a lot worse than most of us.”
     
    “In other words, he’s fucking nuts,” the yellow-skinned man’s voice was bitter as he spoke, his contempt obvious. “We should have done him and ourselves a favor and put him out of his misery a long time ago.”
     
    “How long have you been holed up in this town?” Nadjia inquired of the man.
     
    “How long?” He thought it over. “What does time mean anymore?” He threw his hands up. “Here we are.”
     
    “It’s hard…hard to remember,” offered the dark-eyed man. “It can’t be forever, but it feels like it.”
     
    “There were millions of them in the streets,” a woman said.
     
    “Last winter was so cold.”
     
    Nadjia couldn’t tell if the cadaverous person who spoke was man or woman.
     
    “…seemed like millions.”
     
    “What’s your name?” She asked the dark-eyed man.
     
    “Kevin.”
     
    “Kevin, listen to me. You and your people—”
     
    The jaundiced man interrupted her. “He doesn’t speak for all of us lady.”
     
    “We didn’t come here to argue. All of you need to listen to me. You’ve got to destroy these bodies. All of them. Figure out a way to burn them and start to do it now.”
     
    “Hey lady. Thanks for saving us and all. Don’t take this the fucking wrong way, but who are you to start telling us what to do?”
     
    She ignored the yellow man but shifted her position on the crate so the 9mm on her hip was within easier reach.
     
    “There will be more of these things. You’re all going to have to be ready for them when they show up.”
     
    “Do you have any food?” the woman with the two children asked.
     
    “…only three men could wear the armor intended for this son of Thetis, his beloved Patroclus, his nemesis, Hektor—betrayed by the god in the guise of his fallen brother—and the great runner himself…”
     
    “We have some we’ll share with you, back on our truck.” Nadjia motioned with her head over her shoulder towards the bridge. Their view was blocked by the bodies stacked higher than a tall man. “You have to organize yourselves. Some of you help unload the supplies and carry them back into town. Others need to dispose of…” She nodded towards the crumpled figures of the putrid dead.
     
    The wild man ran off down the street, hopping from piles of bodies to piles of bodies, screaming, “Secure the gate! He has come. He is upon us! He has outrun the torrents of Scamander…”
     
    “So this is what you two do?” an older man inquired.
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “You travel from town to town and city to city killing zombies?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “And how many cities have you cleared so far?”
     
    Nadjia thought about it. “A few. Our work is just beginning.”
     
    “You gotta be shitting me,” said the bitter yellowed man. “You don’t really think you’re gonna kill off all these fuckers, do you?”
     
    She looked down at her feet. When she looked up she asked, “What’s the alternative?”
     
    “You’re crazy. Just as fucking nuts as the windbag over there.”
     
    Nadjia gestured towards the river. “I follow him.”
     
    “Well, then, he’s fucking crazy too.”
     
    The wild man had rejoined the group and he was mumbling “the jester leaps across the tightrope walker and alighting on the wire beyond he goes unrecognized for what he is amongst the citizenry of Mad Cow…”
     
    “You, him,” Kevin spoke. “You can’t destroy them all.”
     
    “He doesn’t fight because he thinks we can win,” Nadjia said.
     
    “Then why?” demanded the bitter man.
     
    “He fights because they’re zombies.”
     
    “One must imagine Sissyphus happy,” offered the wild man.
     
    Kevin thought about what Nadjia