Read DEAD (Book 12): End for Free Online Page B

went over to grab George’s lifeless corpse and drag it around to the side of the house.
    “He went to your place to keep an eye on things.”
    “I thought that is what I asked you to do.”
    “Yeah, I was never good at the whole following orders thing.”
    Once the area was at least clean of the dead bodies, although plenty of dark stains marred the area and were drawing flies, Jody returned to the man with the bolt in his leg.
    “Where?” Jody hissed as he knelt in close to the man’s face.
    Obviously, this guy saw something in the eyes of Jody Rafe that made it clear there would not be a second chance. He began talking right away, giving directions on how to reach his settlement. If this person was telling the truth, there were only around fifty people staying there.
    “Around fifty?” Jody asked with a raised eyebrow.
    “Yeah, something like that,” the man said between clenched teeth.
    “Okay.” With that, Jody whipped out his military blade and slit the man’s throat.
    “Jesus, Rafe!” Danny yelped, trying to get clear of the blood spray that jetted from the cleanly sliced neck. “What the fuck, over?”
    “He was lying,” Jody said flatly as he rose.
    Without being asked, Gable moved in and gripped the body under the arms and dragged the still kicking but soon-to-be-dead body of the man to the side of the house with the others. Danny glared at Jody, a look of disbelief on his face. Sure, he had just killed that woman, but she had executed a bunch of children. This man, as far as Danny had seen, had answered every question and shown no signs that he would be a problem.
    “Around fifty?” Jody said slowly.
    Danny waited for the man to continue, but it was obvious that he wasn’t going to so he pressed the issue. “What is wrong with fifty? Hell, I thought you might be glad it ain’t some fucking army.”
    “If we only had around fifty, not only would we know them each by name, but we would know exactly how many people we had in our compound,” Jody said.
    Danny stood there for a minute until what Jody was saying finally lined up and made sense. He nodded and then scowled. “See, that is why they named you sergeant. You always were the smart one.”
     
    ***
     
    The following is an excerpt of a diary found in an abandoned cabin on the banks of Spirit Lake near the base of Mount Saint Helens.
     
    Entry One—
    Evil comes in all shapes and sizes. I have learned never to judge a book by its cover; nor will I dismiss the potential for horrible acts of violence based on gender…or age. Maybe we just forgot about things like gangs after the zombies. Street gangs were a real problem in some of the bigger cites way back in the Old World.
    I guess that is why I was not surprised when I arrived at a small trading outpost as I made my way up into the lush forests that surround Mount Saint Helens. I made the decision to come here simply because I had never seen an active volcano before. This one has been blowing ash into the air for a few weeks and when I first saw it, I mistook the ash cloud for a nuclear warhead detonation.
    The cloud rose way up into the sky and had that mushroom shape that you would usually associate with a bomb. Of course I initially turned away and intended to put as much distance between me and the cloud as I could. After all, I didn’t want to turn into a human glow-stick.
    I came upon a small village and was corrected when the locals explained to me that it was “just the mountain blowing off some steam.” Once I heard that, I decided to go take a look for myself. It is not like I have anything else going on in my life.
    I had come close enough that I was able to experience a few ground tremors. That made for something else that I could check off my bucket list. Sure, they were nothing like those earthquakes from the many times California tried to break away from the continent, but it was still sort of a thrill for me since I had never actually experienced a real,