Chris Philbrook [Adrian's Und In the Arms of Family (epub) id

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.She looked back to Mike quickly, and asked “Is that smoke? Can you smell smoke?”Mike sniffed the air as well and immediately stood up, alarmed.“Get everyone awake.There’s a fire somewhere in the building.”Both leaders bolted for the cafeteria exit.They knew instinctively they had little time to get people awake before the smoke started taking its toll in human life.Not long after that the dead would begin to take their pound of flesh as well.*****Mallory’s dream of dancing in a nightclub to a heavy rock beat was stopped with an abrupt cough.The smoke machine in her dream was churning out plumes of pure white party fun, but when she took a deep inhale of it, the chemical fume was strong enough to shake her out of the grinding music running in her mind.She sat up on her small bed in the classroom she’d turned into a hair salon and realized the smoke in her dream wasn’t entirely in her head.Clinging to the ceiling of her room was a dark, noxious cloud of smoke.Mallory sat up as fast as she could, slipped her flip flops on her tiny feet and grabbed the maglite her boyfriend Adrian had given her.She thumbed the rubber button and pointed the powerful white beam at the bottom of the steel classroom door.The black smoke was coming under it like a thin ribbon of soot that crept up the face of the door, obscuring the tall, narrow window.“Holy shit.We’re on fire,” Mallory muttered.She was alone in the small classroom, and normally she enjoyed the privacy, but suddenly she wished she had someone with her.She wished she had Adrian there.He’d know what to do.He always knew what to do.Mallory scanned the room with the flashlight as she noticed the warmth coming from the other side of the door.It was as if the rectangular door had been transformed into a radiator, and the room into an oven.She suddenly felt like a fish baking.Mallory leapt up and snagged the large duffel bag she’d appropriated from one of the stores downtown after the end of the world, and began to stuff all her belongings into it.She grabbed clothing, her personal effects, and the handgun she’d learned how to use just recently.Her backpack was right nearby, and into that she put all her hair cutting supplies.Inside it she put shears, trimmers, cords, and various bottles of the ever dwindling supply of chemicals that she used to look good.Once all of the most important possessions were safely packed away, she went to the window of the classroom, and hefted the steel chair she had her “customers” sit in.With a grunt and a heave she sent it straight through the first floor window with a tremendous crash.She was not expecting the sudden change to the environment.The fire on the other side of the door ate the fresh oxygen hungrily from the space at the floor, and she heard it roar in anger.It was as if she’d opened the cage of an evil beast right behind her, and it was nipping at her heels.Mallory tossed the two bags out of the window as far as she could, and cleared the broken glass from the frame with a broom as the smoke just a few thin inches above her head started to pour out of the broken window.She looked back over her shoulder one time at the room that gave her purpose for so long, and climbed out, jumping the five feet to the ground.She rolled adeptly, and came up on her feet in the damp grass.Mallory survived once more.*****Mike moved in a crouch on the tiled floor of the school hallway, slowly waddling under the thick black smoke clinging like evil smog to the ceiling.The Army veteran looked up at the nebulous smoke and his blood ran cold, despite the heat.It looked like brimstone straight from Hell.He made his way to the door of a classroom that was nearest the stairs that led down to the basement, where the smoke was clearly coming from.The combat veteran reached up and grabbed the metal handle of the door, and gave it a twist.Thankfully it was cool to the touch, and turned easily.“Everyone inside needs to get the fuck ou—!” Mike was bowled over as the heavy metal door to the room formally used for teaching was shoved open into his chest.He fell on his ass and skidded a few feet backwards, nearly hitting his head on the row of lockers against the opposite wall.The door of the room was brushed open as multiple staggering dead people pressed their way out into the dark hall.They were clearly gone to Mike.All five figures were walking fully upright, entirely oblivious to the fact that they were enshrouded by pitch black smoke from the shoulders up.There was no way a living being could survive even a single breath of that filth without coughing and gagging.Mike pushed himself down the hallway on his back using the heels of his combat boots.As he skidded on the tile he reached down and drew his M9 handgun from his hip, and started to fire up into the smoke at where he thought the heads of the walking dead would be.The gunfire was incredibly loud, and the bangs echoed painfully up and down the passage.His third shot hit home in the black smoke, dropping one of the women in the crowd.As she fell to her knees and finally her face, Mike realized all the figures were women.That suddenly made sense.That room was normally filled with the women who worked in the kitchen.“Goddamn it!” Mike blurted as he snapped off more 9mm rounds into the smoke, dropping two more of the undead women.These were people he knew.People he cared about.Killing undead strangers was easy.Killing your friends was not.Mike emptied the pistol's magazine quickly, sending whistling bullets into the air, finally finding the skulls of his targets, and bringing the threat to a quick end.He’d just put down five of his friends, and before the night was over, he would have to put down more.Mike changed the magazine in his pistol, and got to his feet, keeping his head under the poisonous cloud above.*****The tall man walked around the exterior of the school carrying an armload of chain and a large padlock.He couldn’t find quite enough chain to lock all the exterior doors, but he knew if he could lock just one, it would mean at least ten people would die from the fumes and smoke.Ten more dead would be just the right death total for what he needed to achieve tonight.He tucked his flashlight under his armpit as he approached the double doors of the exit closest to the hall where the most people lived.They’d immediately run for that exit, and it would cost them their lives.To escape from there, they would need to cut across the entire first floor hall to the next entrance, which he’d already sprayed with gasoline, and set aflame [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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