Life After the Undead (Book 1 in the Life After the Undead Series)

CHAPTER 20

After we filled both trucks, we headed to the ranch to hide the guns in the supplies. Then we went to North Platte where Liet waited for us.

His gaze was hard and directed at Quinn as we approached. I prepared myself for his wrath.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"I fell off the top of the truck." His voice was tense, but I could tell he tried his hardest to be cordial—and he was doing a great job.

"You fell off? How did you fall off the top of the truck?"

"We were up there cleaning off some zombie blood, and I didn't know there was one behind me, so as I wrestled with it, I rolled off the side."

Liet's gaze flicked up and down. "At least you didn't turn into a zombie. I guess you should be thankful you didn't get more hurt. That's a pretty long fall from the top of one of those."

"Tell me about it."

The breeze changed direction, and Liet wrinkled his nose. He glanced at Quinn and me. "You guys stink. Didn't they make you shower before you came in here?"

"Yeah, but they don't wash our clothes. We had some issues with zombies." Quinn rubbed the back of his neck. "If you think we're bad, you should smell the truck."

"I'll pass."

Liet turned on his heel and headed into the courthouse. The four of us followed. He went to his desk and glanced at a file.

"We're going to need medical supplies. After that little debacle with the zombies in town, we've depleted most of our resources."

"What did you find out about that?" I expected Liet to explode in anger at any moment. In fact, I would have preferred it. His

calmness creeped me out. I thought back to the hug he'd given me. I couldn't endure another.

Liet leaned back in his chair. "Apparently, one of the workers who'd had corpse cleanup duty stepped on a zombie that wasn't quite dead." He paused for a moment. "That's probably not the right choice of words, but you get my meaning. From what I could gather, he stepped on its torso, and it flipped up and bit him on the thigh. Since he was covered in blood and guts from moving bodies, no one noticed his leg was bleeding. The soldier on duty that day decided to forego the mandatory strip search because it was beginning to rain, and he waltzed right into his home. Obviously, he turned and sought out other victims."

"How many people were turned?"

"About forty."

Forty? That was a lot. No one had noticed one or two people getting sick? The disease spread fast, but it was odd that no one had reported it sooner. The carrier wouldn't say anything. I hadn't when I'd had to go through the line and all I had was scratches.

"Who was the soldier?"

Liet smirked. "You don't need to worry about that. It's been taken care of."

I shivered. The incident led to the soldier's death, perhaps even a little bit of torture. I'd witnessed how mad Liet had been when we'd left, so I doubted the man got off easily. Knowing Liet, he'd probably fed him to the zombies.

"I suspect you'll want to leave first thing in the morning."

I nodded. "Of course."

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Liet hadn't said anything about me running away and he was letting me go out again. I wasn't going to question it. I was going to let it ride.

The four of us headed up to the apartment, and I was never happier than when I took off my jeans and t-shirt. I thought about throwing them in with the other dirty clothes, but then tossed them into the fireplace. I shampooed and soaped up twice in the shower.