Read Escape for Free Online

and she dug her nails into the back of his shirt, as if Dan were the last anchor to her sanity.
    He scoured the roof, looking for an escape route. Jumping was out of the question; that was for sure. Other than that, the only other way out that he could see was back through the door they’d come in.
    “Dammit!” he yelled.
    The creatures were almost upon them, ten feet and closing, and he fired off two shots, felling the two closest to them. No sooner had they fallen than two more emerged to take their place, biting and clawing the air in front of them.
    He fixed his eyes on one in particular, which appeared to have been a woman with long dark hair and blue eyes. The creature’s face held the same shape and curves as Julie’s, and before he knew it, he’d replaced the image with that of his dead wife’s.
    His heart swelled with despair.
    Would he be joining her soon?
    Get ahold of yourself, Dan.
    The sound of a car door slamming jolted him back to reality.
    He looked back over the roof’s edge, just in time to see his daughter racing from the station wagon and into the bank.
    “Quinn! No!” he shouted.
    But he was too late.
    His daughter had already entered the building.

5
    M eredith faltered back down the hallway, unable to believe what she was seeing. The man coming toward her was pale and disheveled, his eyes rabid and roving. He looked nothing like Ben. His hands raked the air, fingers bloody, and he emitted a low hiss through clenched teeth.
    If he recognized Meredith, he showed no outward signs of it. This was not the neighbor she’d known for five years.
    This was a different person entirely.
    Even still, could she shoot him?
    She aimed the rifle at his mid-section, her hands shaking, and wondered if she’d have the courage to pull the trigger.
    To be fair, Meredith had known about the infection. She’d seen the details on the news, and she’d even seen footage of the infected. Knowing that things could escalate, that her town could be next, she’d done her best to prepare for the worst. But as she quickly realized, seeing something on the television and seeing it right in front of you were two different things.
    There was no way to prepare for something like this.
    Ben—or whatever Ben had become—advanced toward her without hesitation, paying little mind to the gun she was carrying, and she backed up several steps until she was next to the stairwell. Her foot slid from the landing onto the first step.
    Ben’s eyes had stopped roaming, and his gaze locked on her face.
    “Ben!” she screamed. “It’s me, Meredith!”
    But her words were useless. She may as well have been speaking in a foreign language.
    She heard a bang from downstairs and her heart leapt in her chest.
    “Sheila? Where are you?” she screamed. But there was no answer from the old woman.
    Ben took a swing at her, and she moved to the side, narrowly avoiding him. She moved down another stair and clenched the trigger of the rifle. If she were to run, the man would be upon her in no time; given his size, he’d overtake her in seconds.
    Meredith raised her gun; swallowed the lump in her throat.
    I’m sorry, Ben.
    She squeezed the trigger. The resultant blast knocked her back a step, and she watched as the man stumbled back into the hallway. He hunched over, head tilted to the side, but he did not retreat.
    She’d struck him in the arm, and the wound gushed a red spray: a mixture of blood and something else she couldn’t identify. Despite the injury, he made no sound, no outward indication that he felt any pain. Instead, he took another plodding step toward her.
    Meredith ran.
    She took the steps two at a time, her feet sliding across the carpet, listening to Ben chasing after her. She heard a crash, as if he’d hit the wall, then a series of thuds as his feet hit the stairs.
    When she reached the ground floor, she veered right into the kitchen. There was no sign of Sheila, but the phone was lying on the floor. Next to it was a