Read Hunting The Snark: An Alice in Deadland Adventure (Alice, No. 4) for Free Online Page B

paused and that gave Alice the time to
kneel and fire a three-round burst. The bullets caught the man in the neck, and
he went down.
    His friend ran into the bushes, and while Cynthia and the
others fired, he was soon lost in the dense undergrowth. Alice got up to look
at their dead attacker. The man was reed-thin, as if he had not eaten in days,
and was wearing a tattered t-shirt which had the words ‘U.S.A.’ emblazoned on
it.
    Alice asked Vince as he joined her, ‘Were they crazy to
attack such an obviously heavily armed target?’
    Vince crossed himself as he knelt beside the man.
    ‘Not crazy, Alice. Just desperate. This was no bandit, just
a man who has no food and still does not want to sell his freedom to Zeus.
Sorry, brother, if you had asked, we would have helped you.’
    When Alice walked back to the SUV, her new companions looked
at her strangely. Josh said what was on all their minds.
    ‘That was a crazy stunt you pulled there. Who runs into
automatic weapons fire like that?’
    Alice answered, without missing a beat.
    ‘Someone who is half Biter and knows a bullet wound won’t
hurt unless it’s to the head.’
    Josh laughed and slapped Larry on the shoulder.
    ‘Hey, Butcher Boy, and we thought you were the crazy one in
our bunch. I think you have competition.’
    As they resumed their journey, Bunny Ears began to tense up
and soon he was emitting a low-pitched howl.
    ‘What’s with him? I’ve never seen him this way.’
    Alice replied to Vince that she had no idea. That was when
she caught a glimpse of what Bunny Ears had spotted. John saw it too and
stopped the SUV.
    Bunny Ears was now howling loudly and Alice reached over,
putting a reassuring arm on his shoulder.
    ‘Bunny Ears, it’s okay. We’re with friends.’
    Even as she said the words, Alice knew how hollow they were.
She had grown up in a land where men and Biters had been locked in mortal
combat, and only her discovery of the truth behind The Rising and her meeting
the Queen of the Biters had led her to restore some degree of peace between
them. However, she had never seen the kind of brutality in front of her eyes
now, even during the worst of the fighting in the Deadland.
    All along the road to their right, Biters hung from tree
trunks. Their heads had been blown open and then their bodies had been set on
fire. As the SUV proceeded, Alice sat back, thinking. Men loved fanciful tales
of monsters and villains, but was there anything to compete with the savagery
that man himself was capable of?
     
    ***
     
    ‘Where the hell can they be? Don’t tell me that on top of
all her other supposed superpowers, this freak can now disappear at will?’
    Hugh Covey kept his head down, trying not to meet Sam King’s
eyes as he continued to rave and rant about the lack of success in tracking
Alice down. He had served as Sam’s Intelligence Head for more than five years
and knew his boss well. Soon, he would calm down and then Hugh could get some
real work done.
    The news that Alice was in the Homeland had come as a shock,
and as Sam rubbed his throbbing head, he cursed her for arriving at the worst
possible time. Just the previous evening, he had sent a report to the Baron and
the Executive Committee that the leaders of the Deadland had agreed in
principle to the terms he had dictated. The Baron had made some soothing noises
about how the shareholders were positively predisposed and how it looked very
likely that Sam’s performance appraisal would get him and his family another
year at the retreat in the Cheyenne Mountains.
    Now, at one stroke, all of that was under threat. Shouting
at Hugh was not going to solve anything, but he was terrified at how the Baron
would react. Alice was in the Homeland! Some vagabond had been blabbering about
a half-Biter girl shooting her way through an ambush in Oregon. If Sam had any
doubts, they were laid to rest when the rumors spoke of a bunny-eared Biter
accompanying the girl. Sam took a deep breath and poured