Read Last Man Standing (Book 1): Hunger for Free Online Page A

myself for neglecting to prepare for this shit. I can't believe I allowed myself to become so fucking complacent. I don't even have a basic bug out bag. No real weapons. No water filter. Not even a bag of trail mix to keep me going. What the fuck was I thinking? I had such big plans. I was going to become a real man, one of those guys who takes the apocalypse in his stride. I wanted to be Daryl from The Walking Dead, a badass tracker with a crossbow slung across his back. Right now I wouldn't even make it to the end of the first episode.
     
    OK, time to go, Tom. Get out of your damned head. Be careful. Pay attention. Don't do anything dumb.
     
    I turn out of the room and walk down the hall, trailing the bat behind me across the wooden floor. I reach the front door of the apartment, grip the doorknob, take a deep breath and...
     
    " Jesus , Tom," I sigh, slapping my mitt against my forehead in disbelief at my own stupidity. "Put on some fucking shoes, you moron."

 
     
    Distant gunfire echoes through the otherwise silent street. It sounds like it's coming from all directions, shifting with the wind. Most of it sounds like it's way off, but every dozen steps I flinch as a shot rings out dangerously close.
     
    I pause at the end of the street, peering timidly around the corner to the main road. Empty. Silent. About half a block away a Prius sits in the middle of the road facing in my direction, blocking the street between both banks of parked cars. The front driver's door hangs open, but there's nobody to be seen.
     
    I lean back against the wall and take a mental inventory to calm myself. I look down at my feet, starting from the ground up. A pair of thick, scuffed Alden boots, a hangover from the days I liked to pretend I was Indiana Jones while I tooled around the Mongolian countryside. Heavyweight jeans, the thickest I own. I've no idea if they'll help if some infected fucker tries to take a bite out of me, but it won't make me an easy meal.
     
    I move further up. Two plain gray t-shirts, layered one over the other in case I need spare cotton for... I don't know, bandages? Might come in handy. Onto my coat, a vintage Belstaff Trialmaster motorcycle jacket. I'm pleased with this one. The thick waxed cotton might offer my some bite protection, but the really useful thing is the detachable belt. Could come in handy as a tourniquet, if it comes to it.
     
    I pat my pockets. Cigarettes, because fuck it. If the world is about to end at least I don't have to worry about cancer any more. Two disposable lighters, and a freshly filled Zippo that still stinks of lighter fluid. 
     
    In my right jeans pockets I feel the outline of my house key, looped to a tiny little three inch Victorinox pen knife with a blade so blunt it'd struggle to open a letter, and in my left my iPhone, complete with documentary evidence that I'm just the shittiest of shitty boyfriends, sleeping off too many Friday night beers while my girlfriend pleaded for help.
     
    I've been thinking about that final message since I saw it, and even now at the worst possible time I hear it repeating over and over in my head. I love you so much . Beneath the fear and dread twisting my hungover stomach I feel the unpleasant grip of... guilt, I guess? Shame? I don't know what it is, exactly, but a pretty big part of me wants to turn around and run in the opposite direction.
     
    I don't love Kate. I don't know how else to put it. I just don't love her, and I never said I did. I like her a whole bunch. I love spending time with her - that old dodge - but I'm not in love with her. It was probably a bad idea to ask her to move in with me, but it just felt right at the time. It felt like the adult thing to do, and a good way to rescue myself from the pit I'd fallen down.
     
    And now I'm walking through Brooklyn with a flimsy aluminum baseball bat trying to rescue her, because again that's the grown up thing to do. It's the thing Paul McQueen didn't do, and even with my