Read DeadEarth: Mr. 44 Magnum for Free Online Page B

the last thing she wanted was to be killed when
she had every intention of leaving peacefully.
    With two guns pointed at their backs, both
girls were escorted out into the front yard. It was dark. The air
was thick with moisture and the scent of ozone, making it difficult
to breathe. The sky was overcast with rumbling black clouds that
occasionally came to life with the flicker and crack of lightening.
Shade looked up at the coming storm, and then down when the dry,
coarse grass crunched underfoot. As she feared, the earth was still
dead, and the rain would bring no life to it.
    “You know where to go,” Jen said. “So let’s
make this quick. Hands on your head and march.”
    Shade and Rikka slung their back packs over
their shoulders and interlocked their fingers on top of their
heads. They started down the mile and a half long driveway that
emptied out onto a wooded side road that led into town. As they
made the trek in silence, Shade stared into the lifeless forest
that stretched the entire length of the driveway. Once upon a time,
it was alive with deer, rabbits, and chipmunks eating and
skittering about just on the other side of the tree line. The too
wit too woo of owls, the scurrying of squirrels, and the chirp of a
million different insects was once the pulse that the trees swayed
to.
    Now it was utterly silent. Flatlined.
    Gnarled and naked branches poked out from the
black and grey forest. Every now and again, when lightning
illuminated the world, Shade was able to see the extent of the vast
dead earth before her. It was like something out of a nightmare.
Something too terrifying to be true. But it was true. That fact was
accentuated with the crack and rustle of dead grass and leaves
every time she took a step.
    “I don’t know where you two came from, but
when we get off the property, I suggest you travel east and stay
off the roads,” Jen offered. “West will take you into town, and
trust me when I say that’s the last place you want to end up.”
    “Why,” Rikka asked. “What’s going on in
town?”
    Jen took a deep breath before she pressed on.
“It’s chaos. Every supermarket is barren. People are starving and
turning to the only food source left—each other. There’s a pack of
wolves roaming around,” she shook her head, “and… there’s something
else out there.” She started to say more but swallowed her words
instead.
    When it was clear she was going to let the
obvious question linger in the air unanswered, Rikka stopped
walking and turned to face her. Visibly startled by the sudden
maneuver, Jen and Daniel raised their weapons at both sisters. When
Shade turned around, she found herself staring down the barrel of a
gun for the second time in as many hours.
    “We’re not going to try anything,” Rikka
said, her fingers still interlocked on top of her head. “But we
need to know what’s going on.”
    Their captors glanced at each other before
cautiously lowering their weapons. “Fine. It’s only right,” Daniel
said. He slipped his gun into the waistband of his pants, and then
silently gestured for Jen to do the same. She was a bit more
hesitant—less trusting—but she followed her son’s lead
nonetheless.
    As a show of good faith, Rikka carefully
removed her book bag and tossed it over to Daniel. Taking her cue,
Shade did the same.
    “About two weeks before we found this place,”
Daniel began, “we were camping out in the woods, living off peanuts
and Slim Jims. It was rough, but we made do. We slept in rotation.
There were always at least three people awake, keeping an eye out.
But every so often, someone in our camp would just…” he shrugged,
“disappear.
    “At first we thought they just snuck off,
thinking they’d fare better alone. But then another person
vanished. They didn’t take their belongings, there were no
footprints. No one even heard them leave. We lost three people
before we realized the pattern. Someone or something was taking a
member of our group