Read This Dying World: The End Begins for Free Online

tumbled down from the roof with me.  Three heavy whacks to the head, and Big Funky was no more.
    I heard Abby call out for me.  Since I took the express route into the yard, there was no way I would get back up there.  Several of the dead were at the window, with more following behind.  I shouted for her to leave, and I desperately hoped she did not choose that moment to ignore me.  Those were the most frightening moments for me, watching a herd of killers chasing my family through the window.  I had to get back to them.
    I grimaced at the stiffening pain in my knee as I stood.  My shoulder burned, damaged from the fall and subsequent heavy bludgeoning.  As much as I needed to catch my breath, the undead don’t understand the fine tradition of a “Time Out”.
    Three more zombies were still in the yard with me.  Two that I know of had joined me in my rooftop swan dive.  The other must have been there already before my flight touched down.  They were closing on me, their feet dragging across the frozen ground.
    I had hoped at least one of them had fallen on its head on the way down.  I mean isn’t that what parents tell us all the time growing up?  Don’t play on the stairs or you’ll fall on your head.  Don’t stand on the table or you’ll hit your head when you fall.  Guess what…the top of one’s head is apparently not filled with lead, cause neither one of my pursuers landed on their rotten skulls.  I’m going to have to pencil in a point/counterpoint discussion with my mother.
    That is, if I ever see her again.
    Without the same benefit I had with my zombie air bag, the two that had belly flopped into the yard didn’t fare as well as I did.  One of them had shattered its ribs on impact, its right chest wall completely flattened.  The other must have landed on its shoulder.  It walked slumped over, as if it was auditioning for the role of Quasimodo.  The arm itself was mangled, broken bone protruding from several spots from its wrist up to its shoulder.
    The closer they came, the quicker they moved.  It was as if the promise of food beckoned them forward.  I backed away, nearly tripping over the splattered remains of Big Funky.  My back hit the cold aluminum siding of the house, closing off any chance of escape.
    Something inside me snapped and I flew into a rage.  These things came into my house, woke me up, threatened my family, chased me onto a roof in the middle of winter with nothing on my legs but boxers, basically threw me off the very same roof, and worst of all…broke my TV!
    With an angry shout, my first swing connected solidly across the temple of the closest zombie.  It stumbled backwards, looking dazed if such a thing is possible.  My back against the building and balancing on my good leg, I planted a foot in the chest of another.  Waves of pain shot through my body as my damaged knee revolted.  The thing fell backwards, splitting its skull open on the corner of an old wooden shed.  Its limp form slid down the shed, bone scraping against wood like fingernails on a very disgusting chalk board.
    I guess parents did know what they were talking about after all.
    I whirled around, taking full advantage of the momentum of my spin.  I connected with the side of the third creature’s face, its eye dislodging from its skull.  Pressing the attack, I pummeled its head until it hit the ground.  Its body went into spasms, until it stopped moving with a final twitch of its bare foot.
    I sidestepped the remaining zombie’s renewed advance.  Before it could spin to face me again, I shoved it face first into the building.  Like a two handed battle axe, the club came down with everything my damaged shoulder would allow me to bring to bear.  Its head flattened, caught between the aluminum sided building and my now cracked club.  Blood splattered around the thing’s head like a gory halo.  It fell to the ground, leaking some kind of thick substance from its mouth.
    My breaths