deadheads by jade swiler (top 100 books to read TXT) 📖

(1)

“ Jade come here and look at this!” Emily Baker yelled from the living room. Emily was my best friend in haven high school. We had been hanging out since both our parents won a cruise last week and left us home to finish out the month of school we had left. I didn’t mind, we both were almost 18.

“ Jade come here and look at this!” Emily Baker yelled from the living room. Emily was my best friend in haven high school. We had been hanging out since both our parents won a cruise last week and left us home to finish out the month of school we had left. I didn’t mind, we both were almost 18.

“well we live in Haven Michigan, I think they’ll figure it out before it gets here, don’t you think?” I asked.

She nodded and I could see Emily felt a little relieved that I said what she was hoping out loud.

We shut the TV off and went to my room. My room was the favorite place in the house as far as I was concerned. My mom and dad went over sea’s a lot for business and always brought me back things from different places, I had a sword from china, pottery jars from Russia, posters from different country’s and a lot of nick knacks.

I also had a big stereo that my dad got me for my 16th birthday. Emily always brought a lot of CD’s over so we could listen to music and dance around my room. She liked Mark Greene from my second hour. But of course he never noticed her. Emily was a little heavy but I thought she was beautiful. Her reddish blond hair was always so sleek and hung down her back in soft waves. She had green eyes that were big with long lashes. I had blond hair that was so straight I didn’t even try to curl it because it never worked. But it was thick and long. My eyes were a light blue and I think was my best feature. I was slim, almost skinny as a rail as my mom always said.

“I wonder if mark is going to Sandy’s party next week.” I almost rolled my eyes when Emily asked that. She couldn’t go 5 minutes without mentioning Marks name.

“ I don’t know, I heard his brother Seth will be in town then. So maybe not.” I explained. Seth Greene was a god among us little people, I had a crush on Seth since 3rd grade. Seth had joined the army and did four years. Next week he would be coming home to take over his dads store in town.

I was musing in my head about Seth and didn’t notice that Emily had fallen asleep on the cot. I shut the lights off and crawled in to bed. I was tired and Emily and I had plans for the afternoon to baby sit for the Rogers down the street, we would need a good nights sleep to put up with their boys.

A sound woke me, I rolled over in bed and looked at my clock on my nightstand. 5:13am. The sound came again and it sounded like gun fire. I sat up just as Emily woke up.

“what the hell is that?” she asked groggily.

“I don’t know. It sounded like it came from down the street.” I replied and got out of bed with Emily right behind me. We went to the window and looked out in to the front yard. Shapes of people were running around and it looked like some were fighting. More gunshots rang out.

Screams started and Emily clenched my arm tightly.

“let’s go out in to the living room and see what is going on.” I said and headed out of the bed room to the living room.

We stood in the window, peeking around the heavy curtains that hung closed. The thin moon barely showed us what was happening out there. Police sirens could be heard in the distance.

“I want to go home right now!” Emily yelled. I could tell she was scared to death, so was I but didn’t think it would be wise for her to go outside while the gun fire and people fighting out there was going on.

“I think we had better stay put, we don’t know what’s happened.” I said and turned to the TV and turned it on. Nothing happened. There was no power at all. Emily tried the light switches. Nothing.

Suddenly something crashed in to our front door and Emily screamed out.

I whispered and told her to be quiet. I crept to the door and looked out the eye hole to see who it was. Tom Rogers stood on the porch, in the dim light it looked like something was wrong with his face.

“who is it?” Emily whispered to me.

“Tom Rogers.” I replied but made no move to unlock the door.

“aren’t you going to let him in?” Emily asked.

“no, something’s not right.” I told her. And there wasn’t, I couldn’t see very well but he looked funny, just not right.

I ran to my room to get dressed out of my PJ’s.

I hurried and put on jeans and a shirt and had just came back in to the living room when Emily had opened the front door.

“Emily, get away from the door!” I was practically yelling by this time. But it was too late, the door swung open and showed a shadowy figure standing there. It was moaning.

“ Jade I think he’s hurt.” Emily got out before Tom Rogers lurched in to the room and grabbed Emily by the arm. She screamed and tried to pull away. I started towards them when Tom bent his head towards Emily’s face and bit a chunk of meat out of her cheek.

Emily’s screams were loud in the small room and other people came through the door and fell on her. I ran out the back door in to the yard and out the back gate.

The alley was clear so I ran west as fast as I could, I was in shock over the horror I had seen, my breathe was hitching in my chest and I was crying hard with tears blurring my vision so I didn’t see the shape that rose up in front of me and I crashed in to it sending both of us crashing to the ground.

“oww damn it.” a voice said under its breathe.

As soon as Seth took a good look at me, he gathered me in his arms and tried to calm me down.

“shhhh jade, its me Seth. Are you hurt?” he asked while patting my back clumsily. I shook my head no and he got to his feet and helped me up.

Seth pulled me along behind him through town until we got to the woods behind park lane mobile homes where my teacher Miss Hyatt lived. But there was blood everywhere and the houses all had their doors opened or ripped off the hinges. We kept running until we stopped at a tree.

“think you can climb up?” Seth asked me as he pointed upwards.

I glanced up and saw a tree blind. A ladder was built out of boards in the tree trunk. I nodded and started to climb with Seth right behind me.

The tree blind was a plywood box nailed to branches high up in the tree. 2 open windows were cut open with a saw to allow hunters to shoot out of them with a gun. The ladder went up in to a trap door in the floor and I was glad to see it locked once you were inside.

I was still crying and shaking, Seth pulled me down on to the floor next to him and hugged me against his side. After a little bit I had calmed down enough to ask him some questions.

“what happened? They hurt Emily. People I knew. What’s going on Seth?” I asked with my voice rising in horror.

“shhh have to be quiet jade. Okay?” I nodded in response.

“ I don’t know much, I heard on the radio that a man made virus was released by terrorists all over the united states. It makes people get sick really fast and then die, they reanimate and attack other people spreading the disease. “ Seth explained.

“ you mean like zombies?” I asked incredibly.

“ yeah just like zombies.” Seth said as he hugged me tighter. I shivered in fear.

“I know its going to be hard, but try to get a little rest okay?”

I nodded and snuggled a little closer to him. I was exhausted and worn out from everything so it wasn’t that long before I was out. Seth held me and listened to the night.

When I woke, Seth was no longer beside me, I started up fast and caught sight of him at the window. I got up and went to him. Outside the sun was high in the sky, it was afternoon. I had slept a while.

We could just see over the tree line to our town, people were walking around in a slow jerky kind of walk. I started to get excited.

“there’s people there, lets go and find some help!” I said.

Seth shook his head and told me no.

“those are infected Jade, see how they walk? Its not normal.” he pointed towards town.

I looked again and saw he was right.

“so what are we going to do?” I asked.

“first off we need to find weapons, clothes and food.” Seth replied. “but I am going alone, you are going to stay here and wait for me to come back.”

“NO! Seth you can’t leave me here!” I sobbed.

Seth gripped my arms tight and looked deep in to my eyes.

“listen jade, I am trained for this, remember I am a soldier, I’ll be fine, I ‘m quick on my feet. You need to stay here and hold down the fort okay?”

I understood I would slow him down so I nodded my head. He hugged me tight and headed through the trap door and climbed down the ladder. I shut the door and locked it again and ran to the window, I watched Seth walk away from the tree until I couldn’t see him anymore.

I sat down with my back against the wall of the blind. Now I had to wait, I was worried because what if he didn’t come back? What was I going to do. I pushed those thoughts from my head and sat there quietly to wait until he got back.

I was almost crazy with fright and worry when Seth got back a few hours later. He carried with him my sword from my room and a rifle. 2 trash bags were slung over his shoulder. He climbed up and shut the trap door.

Inside the bags were clothes and food. Canned goods and box stuff. Bottles of water. Seth handed me the water bottle after taking a drink and I took a long pull from it.

He opened a can of potted meat and cracker and had me sit down and gave me some to start with. I hungrily ate them.

“slow down jade, I don’t want you getting sick.”

I tried to eat slower and we finished off our meal in no time.

“we’ll eat more in a bit. In the bottom of the bag with clothes are two blankets. We are going to stay up here for a while.” Seth explained.

“do you think we’ll be safe?” I asked.

“oh yeah I do, the deadheads can’t seem to climb or open doors unless they break them down. So we should be okay.”

I looked at him, “deadheads?”

Seth gave a small laugh, “yeah that’s what I call them. It kind of fits them don’t you think, a lot better then zombies.”

I had to nod. It did fit them.

We spent the rest of the day looking out at