Read Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed for Free Online Page A

thought as he slid the door shut and
found himself once again staring at his aged visage.
    After flipping his scraggly bearded reflection the bird, he
called Max and retraced his steps through the house and stopped before the
closed door leading into the attached garage.

Chapter 4
     
     
    In the span of a couple of minutes, less time than it takes
to boil an egg soft, the man and his blade had reduced all of the zombies
within sight to motionless forms, their blood black and pooling on the pristine
blanket of white. Here and there a severed head or arm or leg lay where it had
fallen after meeting ancestral steel.
    With a grim look on his face, the man ran a scrap of oiled
cloth up one side of the blade and down the other. Satisfied, he dropped the
sullied rag to the ground, where it landed with a soft squelch and left a
vibrant halo of red on the virgin patch of snow. Acting on the assumption that
the main column of dead was well out of earshot, he shrugged off the gilded
scabbard and slipped the edged weapon home. He stowed it behind the driver’s
seat and clambered into the SUV. Wanting to spend as little time as possible
exposed on the open stretch of road, he quickly turned the engine over. Working
the wheel hand-over-hand, he turned a tight right and eventually had the rig
crawling eastbound up the winding, snow-covered drive toward the house and big
red barn.
    The diesel engine growled and chugged, fighting both the
incline and the semi-worn tires’ inability to maintain traction in the slushy
muddy mixture churned up by them. Passing by on the left were the remains of
what once were beautiful animals. Reduced to bones and tufts of fur by the
hungry birds, the carcasses looked ghostly wearing the fresh layer of snow.
    The man’s only reason for driving this tired old war wagon
was its familiarity to the handful of survivors still residing in the border
area between Wyoming and Utah. Its official-looking appearance carried with it
a certain psychological edge. But why in the world his new son-in-law favored
this throwback to the Cold War over all of the newer unmanned vehicles standing
silent sentry over failed roadblocks on the Interstates and State Routes leading
into and out of Salt Lake City was a mystery never to be solved, he conceded
after a moment’s thought. And he supposed so was his daughter Lena’s decision
to pick the man as her husband from the pool of dozens of worthy candidates she
had grown up alongside.
    He heard the transmission slipping as the truck made the
final turn and the two-story house and looming red and white barn door filled
the mud-spattered windshield. He wheeled the SUV around a rusted piece of
antique farm machinery partially blocking the drive and pulled to a halt, nose
in to the fence surrounding the massive pasture now devoid of anything living.
    The man stilled the engine, shifted his gaze to the front
porch and, just like clockwork, the silver-haired old man was emerging from the
screen door with a long-gun held at a low ready.
    The driver again unfolded his considerable frame from behind
the wheel. Without acknowledging the older man, he hinged the driver’s seat
forward and reached in and came out with a large white cylindrical object. Set
it on the snow-covered gravel and reached in and withdrew a second identical
item. Unarmed, the man walked the distance from his SUV to the porch, one
cumbersome propane cylinder swinging from each of his baseball-mitt-sized
hands. “Ray,” he said, forcing a smile. “And Helen’s upstairs with the
crosshairs on my head, I presume.”
    Squinting against the snow glare, the man on the elevated
and covered porch lowered his shotgun and, with one arm outstretched, beckoned
for the monster of a man to join him on the porch. “Alexander Dregan, propane
baron, scholar and a gentleman.” Switzerland , thought Ray in direct
opposition to his words. He went on, “Helen and I weren’t expecting another
visit from you until … week after