Highway To Hell (Dying Days Book 1) Read online

  Darlene cradled his head and sobbed. She considered him one of her only friends. Besides Barry she was alone, with no one to guard her back. Despite the age difference between them she thought they had a lot in common, and kept each other grounded.

  “Where were you from?” Darlene whispered, ashamed that she’d spent so much time with this kid and couldn’t remember too many personal details about his life before everything turned upside down. “Did you have two loving parents? A job? A girlfriend?”

  For the first time in weeks the world around her simply stopped; all sound shut out from her. She welcomed it, wondering if she had somehow died as well and was at peace. If I died right now, would I be at rest, or would I still be in this shell, shuffling along with my killer, trying to kill others? Darlene didn’t care to know the answer. She hoped that death would be the end, period, take me to Heaven and let me in moment. With death so close at every step, either through zombie attacks, lack of food and water, dehydration, no medicine, crazy militia and marauders and looters, or simply falling into a ditch and never being found…

  It didn’t register at first that Jonathan had opened his eyes and his mouth as she sat with him on the ground cupping his head gently.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She stroked his hair, oblivious to the fact that he was squirming under her weight.

  “All I wanted was a friend, someone to talk to, someone to share stories with, and someone to laugh at my jokes. Does that sound cliché to you?”

  “Very cliché, to be honest,” Barry said as he pulled Darlene forcefully up off of the ground and put his booted foot on the chest of their former friend. “But now I know why I’m in love with you, Darlene Bobich.”

  Barry shot Jonathan in the face at pointblank range, covering Darlene’s dirty pants in blood. They watched as the lifeless body of their friend slumped on the ground.

  “We need to go, they’re all around us,” Barry said.

  Darlene stood numbly, staring at the body. When will this end? When will the death stop finding us?

  “This way.” Barry dragged her to the side of a building just as a dozen undead came into view. “They’ve cut us off from the library. Shit.”

  Darlene shook off the depression and followed Barry around the corner and through a ripped chain-link fence. They stopped when three zombies barred their path to the next street.

  “Now what?” Barry asked.

  “In here,” Darlene said and kicked open the nearest door. They plunged inside and did their best to shut the splintered door. Barry produced a flashlight and lit up the room. For a second the beam lingered on a figure sprawled on the ground and they thought they had company, but it was an actual dead person.

  “Help me with this.” Barry grabbed one end of a couch and they slid it across the floor and against the doorway, then piled as much furniture as they could find onto it. The two windows were still intact but easily broken. Shapes moved outside.

  Without a word they ascended the steps to the second floor. At the top of the stairs they entered a dark hall with three closed doors before them.

  “Which one?” Darlene asked.

  As if in answer the nearest door burst open and two undead fought around one another to attack. Barry shot one in the head at pointblank range. The other gripped his arm.

  Darlene shot him twice in the face and kicked him away as he fell. Barry slumped against the wall.

  “So much for hiding up here and hoping they pass us by.” Darlene slowly entered the room with her Desert Eagle drawn before her. She gasped.

  Another zombie was kneeling before them, his head buried in the V of a woman’s crotch, blood and pus running on the carpet. The zombie looked up, pieces of flesh dripping from its mouth.

  Darlene shot it three times in the head until her pistol was out of ammo. She turned away, closed the door and searched her pockets for more ammo.

  The farthest room down the hall was empty save for some overturned furniture. Barry went to the window and glanced out. “They’re everywhere. If we stay quiet maybe they’ll pass us by.”

  They could hear banging outside and below them and the sound of glass shattering. They piled the chairs and bed frame against the door.

  “I don’t want to die today,” Barry murmured to himself.

  Darlene loaded her weapon and crouched next to the window. She held her breath as the banging below them stopped. “You hear that?” she whispered.

  Gunfire was clearly heard in the direction of the library. She wondered how they were faring. In the short time she’d been in the group she’d met a few nice people, survivors looking to help one another and face the unknown as a team. She envied the older ones and the mothers protecting their children, people who had lost their loved ones: husbands, wives, children, parents, friends and neighbors.

  “This might be our last day,” Barry said from behind her. “There’s pretty much no chance of us getting out of here alive now. They’ve caught up with us. There might be a million of them out there.”

  “Keep quiet.” Darlene watched as the streets flooded with undead, and the stench of their rot wafted up to her. She fought the urge to gag on what little she’d eaten. “If we stay here for a few hours we might escape.” She didn’t want to think about the rest of the group. More than likely, by the sound of gunfire and the screams that now echoed outside, her former friends would soon become her enemies.

  “I’ve been putting together a bucket list in my head lately, all the things I want to do before I die.”

  Darlene shushed him to be quiet without looking at Barry. He was getting annoying now. Couldn’t he shut the fuck up before the sound brought them?

  “Guess what my top slot is?”

  Darlene brushed something off of her shoulder. At first she thought it was Barry’s hand or a bug, but when she turned her head she was staring straight at Barry’s engorged dick. “What the fuck?” she stammered.

  “Exactly. I want to fuck you before I die. I have since the moment I saw you.”

  “Barry, get the fuck away from me.” Darlene stood but Barry, standing in the buff and now stroking his cock, had blocked her into the corner next to the window.

  “You know you want this as much as I do.”

  “I’m going to count to three and then I’ll scream.”

  Barry laughed. “And give away our position to them? I don’t think so. Besides, we might as well have some fun in case they catch us. If they pass us by, so much the better.”

  “I’m warning you.”

  Barry was on her in a rush, hands wrapping around her and squeezing her ass fiercely. His tongue darted around her neck area and he was moaning.

  She tried with all of her might to push him off but he was too strong despite his smaller stature. His fingers dug into the back of her jeans and he was trying to rip them off of her.

  They slammed against the window, jarring the glass. Her jeans had come undone and Barry dragged them down her thighs.

  Darlene punched frantically at him but her blows were ineffective. Her vision blurred as she remembered the attack from the militia and how brutal they had been to her. At some point she’d started crying.

  “I knew you had thongs on,” Barry was whispering in her ear now, drool sliding from his lips and coating her cheek. “I am gonna tear that little ass of yours up.”

  He slid a finger under her undies and tried to bury the digit inside her.

  Barry was still smiling as Darlene jammed the Desert Eagle into his stomach and pulled the trigger. His eyes grew wide in shock but he didn’t let go. “I loved you,” he whispered before falling backwards.

  Darlene kicked his body in the ribs before shooting him in the face four times.

  She heard the pounding from below again and knew there was no escape. Resigned to that fact, she put her jeans back up as best she could and stared at the blocked door, the Desert Eagle ready to fire.

  Armand Rosamilia is a native New Jersey boy currently living in sunny Flo
rida, where he chases his loving children, annoys his wife Shelly and watches the Boston Red Sox devoutly. When not writing horror, reading horror, listening to Heavy Metal or sleeping, he is doing something completely different.

  He loves fan mail or people wanting to talk about Manowar and Slayer.

  [email protected] and at www.facebook.com/armand.rosamilia