Read The Living Dead Series (Book 2): World Without End for Free Online

thought she heard dragging footsteps behind her but she saw no one. She crossed the street and soon walked beside a chiseled, granite wall.
    After their mother left, Bea and Brian continued to live in the subsidized housing complex until her sophomore year at Towson when she was awarded a scholarship and transferred to Georgetown. Between her jobs, the scholarship and student loans she had just enough money to rent the pool house of a rundown Georgetown estate close to the C&O Canal. It only had one bedroom and the canal smelled in summer but they were allowed to use the pool in season and the rent was not unreasonable since she agreed to mow the grass as needed. She enrolled Brian at the Foggy Bottom magnet school.
    Trying not to crunch on the snow and ice she approached carefully, remembering the man Brian said was at the gate. No one was there now but the snow was heavily trampled. She walked around the corner, lifted the heavy fall of English ivy, and slipped in through the narrow break in the wall.
    Light shone from the windows in the back of the small columned building, flickering, moving lights from the television. The main house was purely Georgian in design but the pool house had been built as a tiny, Greek temple, complete with myrtles lining cracked, marble steps that were treacherously icy-slick tonight. She clomped carefully to the top and, propping the iron fence rail against the wall, opened the unlocked back door that led directly into the kitchen.
    “So this is what you call being locked up? Brian, anyone could have walked right in here!” She was annoyed and forgot how worried she had been. Unwinding the foul-smelling scarf from around her neck she hung it on the doorknob to let it air out then washed her hands.
    “Oh, I forgot about that door. Thanks, Bea. I’ll lock it next time,” he called unconcernedly from the front room that served as both their living room and Bea’s bedroom. “Did you get the pizza?”
    He had unfolded her futon and sat cross-legged watching as a newscaster pinpointed areas on a map that were under threat from an expected tsunami. New Orleans seemed to be their main focus but all of the Florida panhandle and other coastal areas were in danger.
    The light from the television both highlighted and shadowed a face that was changing seemingly overnight. Her brother still had the thinness of childhood and was small for his age. His neck grew weedily through the collar of his slightly too large tee shirt but his arms and legs were growing longer, coltish. He looked over at her and smiled. She noticed that he needed a haircut.
    “No pizza. Everything was too crowded. The cupboards are full though. Couldn’t you find anything here?”
    He held up an empty chip bag and carton of milk. “Pizza just sounded good, you know? I ate the rest of the turkey and made macaroni and cheese. There’s still some on the stove if you want it.”
    “Maybe later. What are they saying about the flu?”
    “They stopped talking about it. Now they’re just talking about evacuating everyone from New Orleans. They’re pretty sure the levees will fail again. Did they call you?”
    “Did who call me? New Orleans?”
    “No. The school.” He changed subjects with dizzying rapidity lately. “They said they were going to call you for a conference.”
    Her heart sank. “Brian, what did you do?”
    He was going through a phase right now of testing everyone and everything in his life. The guidance counselor suggested it might be due to the lack of a strong male role model at home or it might be that he was a very intelligent boy exploring his boundaries. She couldn’t do anything about either of those situations.
    “It wasn’t really bad, Bea. I left after fifth period yesterday. With Deshawn. It wasn’t like we were doing anything in that class anyway, just reviewing for the test. I knew all of it already. I bet you I made a hundred on it.”
    He probably had but that wasn’t the issue. “Where did