Read Dead Air (Book One of The Dead Series) for Free Online Page B

handle and pulled, surprised when it opened. With a shrug, he went inside. The first thing that struck him was the lack of noise. Once in the building he realized that normally he could hear the sound of balls rolling down the alley and crashing into pins when he was ten feet from the door, but tonight the sounds were muted even inside the building. Seeing that only five of the lanes were occupied explained everything though.
    At a loss as to why the bowling alley was deserted, Steve consoled himself with the fact that at least he wouldn't have to wait for a lane to open up. From the look of things, he could have his pick. He called out a greeting to one of the regular bowlers he had gotten to know over the past few months then headed for the counter to secure an end lane before anyone else came in.
    As he approached the shoe rental area, he found himself glancing around for Heather, the regular attendant. Besides looking forward to bowling on Thursday nights, he also looked forward to the time he got to spend with her. There was nothing going on between the two of them beyond friendship, but for Steve that was enough. He had spent so much time on the job since moving to Clearwater six months ago to work at KLAM that he hadn't had the time to meet anyone outside of his co-workers.
    Steve was surprised when a younger guy with a pierced nose and gauge earrings came out of the back room to wait on him. He vaguely remembered the kid's name as Jax or something like that from when Heather had introduced them once before.
    " Where’s Heather?" Steve asked, trying not to let the disappointment show in his voice.
    "She got called into work tonight," Jax replied. "They're calling in all the off duty deputies."
    Steve nodded. Heather only worked at the bowling alley part-time to help pay off her student loans. Her full-time, day job was as a Deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office.
    "Something going on?" He asked.
    Jax waved his hand in the air, "Everyone's worried about this munchin' madness spreading down here. They got a couple of cases reported in Georgia so now everyone's all paranoid."
    Steve had been following the news reports and the stories on the Internet and knew that munchin' madness was what they were calling the disease that had first popped up in Little Rock a few days ago. He remembered reading about it when it first happened. How a patient had gone crazy and started biting the hospital staff, and how the virus was now rumored to be spread by being bitten by an infected individual. Follow up stories had reported that the disease was breaking out across the country, but with AIDS, the Hantavirus and other communicable diseases so widespread, it seemed no one was paying much attention.
    Maybe that's changed, Steve thought. If people are hiding in their homes, maybe this is worse than the media is reporting.
    Steve had seen some items on the Web that stated the virus was causing people to go crazy and actually try to eat each other but he passed it off as hype. And like the song says; don't believe the hype.
    He was about to ask for more details when Jax leaned over the counter and said in a conspiratorial voice, "The Internet is saying that it's a Government virus that got loose from one of their secret labs. They say it's a variety of mad cow disease."
    Steve raised an eyebrow at this and felt the urge to let out a long 'mooo', but instead said, "Like the X-files."
    Jax leaned back with a satisfied expression on his face and said, "Exactly."
    Steve smiled. He trusted the mainstream media, and the Internet news services and blogs, about as far as he could spit a dead rat. He knew that each only gave out a small bit of useful information , so if he sifted through both sources carefully with a little bit of common sense, he would come up a good idea of what was really going on.
    From watching the news over the past few days, he’d seen the local and cable stations reporting that the problem was an isolated one,