Read The Walking Dead: Invasion for Free Online

started raving to Norma about this magical caravan that he had heard about from Pastor Helms. Norma hadn’t believed a word of it—Reverend Helms had been known to tip a few now and again—and after the walkers had gotten to the minister, there was nobody left to confirm these tall tales. But young Miles had been such a believer that he had finally decided to set out in his beat-up muscle car to find the Travelers. Norma had always believed that one day he would return to save her.
    But that day had never come.
    Now she is putting all her chips down on the hopes that Miles hadn’t been crazy and he’s still alive and the caravan is real.
    â€œThat sign back there … said ‘Cross City 12 Miles.’” Norma glances up from the map and gazes out the side window at the stewing darkness of Dixie County, Florida. “I got a feeling we’re getting close.”
    The vast patchwork of wetlands passes in a blur on either side of them, the land oozing a low blanket of methane, as gray as mold and clinging to the shadows of pine thickets and gullies like dirty lace. The air smells briny and rotten with dead fish. Every few miles they pass the ruins of a small town or a wreckage-strewn trailer park. No signs of survivors in these parts, though, only the occasional silhouette of an upright corpse shambling through the trees, its eyes like twin yellow reflectors in the darkness.
    â€œWe can’t just keep burning gas all night,” Stephen says from the backseat, his voice all cranked up with pain and panic. “And we can’t just go on feelings.”
    â€œWe’re in the right ballpark,” Norma persists. “Believe me, gonna be hard to miss ’em.”
    â€œDo we know exactly what we’re looking for, though?” Jeremiah grips the steering wheel with his huge hands, his jaw working overtime on a piece of gum, snapping and chewing compulsively as he drives. “For instance, how many vehicles they got in this convoy?”
    â€œNo idea … but it’s quite a few, I can tell ya that for sure.”
    â€œThat’s pretty general.”
    â€œThey’ll be easy to spot,” Norma says, gazing out at the darkness. “Our best bet is to just to follow the coast. They like to keep close to the water.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    She shrugs. “According to Miles, they keep their eyes peeled for ships … or any possible way they might get their asses the hell outta this place. Most of the big boats around here been destroyed in the hurricane that hit a couple years ago, so it’s a long shot they’re gonna find anything.”
    Reese speaks up from the back. “Why didn’t this Miles dude come back for you?”
    Norma glances down at the floor mats. “We had a little bit of a falling-out.” She wipes her mouth. “It was my fault, and I ain’t too proud of it.”
    After a pause, Reese says, “But why didn’t you try and find these people yourself?”
    She glances over her shoulder at him. “Travel alone in this god-awful back country crawling with dead folks?”
    Silence returns to the Escalade’s dark interior as they all chew on the prospects of being alone and isolated in a forestful of walkers.
    *   *   *
    They’re about to give up the search when they start to climb a gentle slope—at first so gradual it’s almost unnoticeable—up the side of a vast malodorous landfill. The barren, trash-strewn scrubland to their left reaches across miles of sandy berms, all the way down to the deserted, ghostly boardwalks that wind their way along the beaches. The sky has begun to bruise pink with predawn light, and the preacher has just started to say something when Norma sees the first faint streaks of red dots on the distant haze.
    â€œWait! Wait!” She points a plump finger down at the far dunes of ashen white sand winding along the coast,