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

We found a barn and pulled the truck inside. Seth shut the doors and we crawled up in to the loft for the night. We all were tired and exhausted but Seth made us eat some food to keep up our strength. Soon we were sleeping to the sounds of crickets in the distance.

Seth woke me up in the early dawn, he was going to go check out the house and wanted me to know so I didn’t freak out and find him gone. I told him okay and cuddled in to my blanket more, it was warm in the straw in the loft but the air was a little nippy.

“jade? I need to go to the bathroom.” Sammy said next to me.

“okay bud, but stay behind the truck and go there okay?” Sam nodded and went down the ladder. I watched him go behind the truck.

When his scream came, I was almost drifting off to sleep again. I sat bolt upright and looked down. A deadhead was crawling towards Sam, he was trying to climb a bench. I didn’t think at all. I grabbed a rope that was hanging and slid down it really fast. Rope burns made my hands scream in pain but I didn’t stop. I pulled my sword and swung it with all my might at the things head. Whack! My arms shook from the waves of pressure. The things head rolled away from it’s body and I saw with horror it was still moving its mouth and trying to bite.

It was a farmer, its legs were gone, probably eaten by a deadhead. It had turned and been in the barn when we got here. It was bloated. Gray skin sagged and mucus was running out of its mouth, it was thick and black. The smell was something rotten and long dead. It’s eyes were cloudy, the white part big and the pupil almost non-existent. I took my sword and stabbed it through its right eye and it stopped moving. Seth ran in to the barn after hearing Sam scream in terror.

He came to me as I put my foot on the things head and pulled my sword free. He moved slowly as to not scare me but I was fine. It didn’t bother me to kill it as much as I thought it would, I just had thought about Emily and how she looked at me as these things started to eat her. It was pay back.

“you okay?” Seth asked as he took my sword out of my limp hands.

“yes I am. Sam did it bite you?”

Sam shook his head no but was shaking so bad I went to him and held him until he quieted down.

“jade, I found this in the house, it’s a government list of safe zones that people were told to go to. I marked off the one at the base, but look, to the south is another one. We should get a move on and try to make it their before dark.”

Seth showed me a pamphlet of safe zones and where to go in an emergency. I nodded and got our stuff from the loft. I took my sword from Seth with a look to let him know I was okay. He handed it to me and we all got in the truck.

We didn’t have a lot of fuel so first things first, we had to find fuel quickly.

The next town had a gas station and we stopped to look for fuel. Since the power was out, we needed to find a hose and siphon the fuel into our truck. I went in to the station to have a look around, Sam stayed with Seth and looked for a hose in the garage part of the station.

It was dark inside and in the gloom I saw the bodies. Painted on the wall behind them was this:

Take what you need. We have gone on to a better place. God bless and good luck.

I looked around a little more but there wasn’t anything we could use so I walked back out to where Seth was putting fuel in the tanks of the truck.

“anything inside we can use?” Seth asked me. I shook me head and I guess he saw my face because he told Sam to stay with us. With the outbreak, I bet a lot of people had taken their own lives instead of becoming a monster.

A deadhead came around the back of the garage and headed for us, Seth started to put down the hose and go to it but I put out my hand to stop him.

“I got this, finish fueling so we can get out of here.” I stated firmly.

The deadhead was a women, newly turned because she didn’t smell as ripe as some of them. Her moans were loud in the still air and I readied my sword. I swung it at her head and cut her head in half. Her body fell to the ground and was still.

Seth stood and watched me with a strange look in his eyes.

I wasn’t the same shy girl he knew before in school. I was someone else. Someone stronger.

We got back on the road soon after. When we left the gas station, Seth had turn left on to an older dirt road, the map said this road would take us out of the way of the cities and towns . Less traffic in the way.

The moving motions of the truck had made me sleepy and I was resting my head against the trucks window when I saw through the glass a young girl run from a house to a shed.

“Seth stop the truck! I just saw something.” I exclaimed.

“are you sure jade?” he asked. Oh I was sure alright, I may have been tired but I know what I saw.

The house was standing in desolation in a rotten field of tomato’s. peeling yellow paint and sagging roof told of neglect and waste. There was an old metal shed behind the house, rusting so bad, I couldn’t tell what color it was supposed to be.

We got out of the truck, leaving Sam to keep watch for deadheads. As Seth and I walked up the driveway to the shed, 2 girls came out of the shed. Both were starved looking and worn out. The youngest was wearing a pink dress that was dirty and ripped. that’s the one I had seen in the truck. The other one was around me age, starved as well but more healthier. Her clothes were also ripped and dirty. Her dress was blue.

As we got a little closer I could see they both were getting ready to bolt.

“we’re not infected, we’re okay! I’m jade and this big guy is Seth.” I shouted to be heard.

The older girl looked at us hard for a minute. She didn’t seem scared, more determined to protect the younger one from harm. I guessed they were sisters because both had dark brown hair and brown eyes that were shaped the same.

“I’m jess and this is my sister rain.” the older one said and took a step closer to her sister.

‘Are you too hungry? We have food.” Seth stated. Jess and rain seemed to make up their minds about us because they came towards us slowly. Food always wins when your hungry enough to skin a cat. At least it looked like a cat hanging from the sheds doorway.

Rain and jess’s dad owned the old farm that the crops were rotting in the fields we could see. The outbreak happened in the night and their parents had been killed. Jess took rain and they came here. This old house and shed had once been her grandma’s place. It had been empty since her passing 10 years before.

We took out food and let them eat. Rain and Sam ran around the yard afterwards and played tag. It was nice to see sam smile again. Since the deadhead in the barn, he had been quiet

Seth, jess and I sat on the porch steps of the house and watched the kids play while keeping an eye out for deadheads as well.

“we are heading to a safe zone, should get there by tomorrow, want to come with us?” Seth asked jess while handing her some more water from the bottle in his pack.

“yeah that would be okay if it’s okay with jade.” she said as she turned to look at me.

I smile and said it was a good ideal. I got up and started for the truck.

“where you going?” Seth asked.

“going to dig in mine and Sam’s pack and see if I can find some clean cloths for these 2 to put on.” I replied. There was an old hand pump out back that we could get water from, we didn’t drink water from wells or rivers, we didn’t know if the virus had effected any of it but had saw enough fields of rotted crops to think so. It was the middle of summer yet these tomato’s were already rotted, a corn field near the gas station was rotted. So we never drank anything unless it came out of a bottle or a can.

I got back from the truck with clothes for both girls and called them to me. I led them around back and found a large bowl and pumped water in to it with an old sock I had found in my bag. Would make a great wash cloth to wash up with. I opened a bar of soap from the super market and had them wash. Even their hair.

Jess wore my jeans and red tee shirt. For rain I had found a green shirt with light green jogging pants. After helping the girls brush their tangled hair, they looked human again and not something from the wild.

The trucks cab was a sleep cab, in the back was a bed. So the girls climbed in first and sat back there. Sam went back there to hang out with rain. Seth and I got in and he started the truck.

“everyone ready?” he yelled and after screams of “ready” we backed out to the road and once more headed south.

The going got more difficult the closer we got to the area the map said was a safe zone. Besides abandoned vehicles in the road, there were deadheads here and there as well. That was scary to me because what if this safe zone had been over run?

A large wall surrounded the camp. It must have been 10ft high. Dead and burning bodies littered area’s a little way from the gates. Soldiers with escorts stood outside the gates moving the dead bodies to piles to be burned. Uniforms of many colors were worn by the soldiers, Seth explained that all armed forces had banded together to fight the un-dead. It made sense. These were tough times, we all needed to band together.

As we got closer, men manning the walls and the soldiers on the ground all pointed their guns towards our truck. Seth rolled to a stop and turned off the engine. A soldier broke away from his gate post and walked slowly towards our truck. Seth had put the window down so he could talk to the guy.

“name and who are you?” the soldier asked in a harsh voice.

“I’m Seth, this is Jade and in the back we had Jess and 2 little kids named rain and Sam. We are survivors of haven and Littleton.” Seth said slowly and calmly.

Littleton was where we had found rain and jess.

“get out of the truck and put your hands in the air.” the soldier said while pointing his gun at my head.

“we have food in the back of the truck!” I yelled.

But the soldier didn’t seem to care. We got out and lifted our arms in the air. Another soldier came forward and patted us down at first I thought for weapons, but it was bite marks and wounds he was looking for.

After we