Live Free or Die Complete Series Boxed Set: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series Hayley Lawson (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📖

Carter knelt to be on their eye level. “It’s no place for kids—” Carter began, but he was cut off.

Tommy’s little face went red. “We fought off the Mad. We can fight off anyone else after that!” Tommy said with more grit than most adults. It made him look old beyond his years.

“I need you to protect Jessica and the others, and once we’re done, we’ll all be together again as one big happy dysfunctional family,” Carter told him.

“You promise you’ll come back for us?” Tommy asked.

“Of course! Where else would I go?” Carter ruffled Tommy’s hair. “Let’s go. Sooner I go, the sooner I can come back.”

Chapter Twelve

Afana dropped through the hole from Level One to Level Two, where the advisors and their families lived.

“Help us, Afana. Please,” a woman sobbed. Her infant son was in her arms as she ran toward Afana with one of the infected chasing her. This was new for him. Normally people hid in fear, and children would cry. These emotions were new for Afana, and he didn’t care too much for them. He just shrugged, and the woman looked at him in horror. That’s better, he thought.

She ran past him, and the infected got closer to Afana. With a mighty swing, he punched the infected, who flew across the bunker and crashed into the wall.

“Thank you. Thank you,” the woman sobbed. He hadn’t done it for her, but for himself.

Afana headed for the Mad body that was on the floor, picked it up, and twisted its head until it crunched. That motherfucker wasn’t going to get up again.

He took a glance around. Apparently one of the advisors had the disease. Screams came from down one of the tunnels off the social area, then more women and kids ran toward Afana and past him. Some of them stopped suddenly, shocked when they saw the vampire, then kept running.

Thuds came from the back of the screaming pack when more were pulled to the ground.

Through a gap of the fleeing crowd, Afana saw a child on all fours bounding like a wild animal, still wearing her nightgown. The snarling child had blood on her face and mindless, glowing red eyes. She pounced on a woman’s back and sank her teeth into her neck, then thrashed her head to tear a chunk loose. Her hair swung violently as she pulled the woman’s flesh free.

Other infected saw that there was a new meal on the floor for them, and they surrounded the body and began to feed on it.

The uninfected were behind Afana, trying to get as far away from the danger as possible.

I’m the monster down here, not these little shits. Afana marched over to the feeding Mad and pulled them off the latest victim.

They thrashed around, trying to latch onto Afana, and an infected woman leaped on Afana’s back. She tried to bite him. Afana’s skin was tough, but the infected was relentless. Her teeth sank into Afana’s back, and he gripped her by her hair and dragged her off him. “You bitch!” He snapped her neck, then ripped the woman in two. He was furious that he’d been bitten, Advisor Robert’s blood samples had shown that Afana could get the disease if he were infected with a lot of the virus. One bite couldn’t transmit a lot of the virus. I just won’t get bitten again, Afana thought.

Another infected ran at him, but this time he wasn’t going to let the fucker bite him.

He pushed his hands into the infected man’s mouth and pulled. His jaw came away with a sickening rip.

A man ran up to Afana. “Thank you, Afana! You saved me!”

Fuck this! He grabbed the man and snapped his neck, then threw his body across the bunker. “No more fucking thank yous!”

Others went for Afana, and he swung his oversized fists at them. Bodies flew across the bunker and crashed against the walls. He felt a sharp pain in his thigh; an infected had wrapped his arms around Afana’s thigh and dug his teeth in. The vampire pulled the man off him and crushed his skull, but the damage had already been done.

Afana stopped when there was no one left to kill, feeling a little weak from the fighting. He wondered if it was from the bites. With all the carnage around him, he just wanted to drink blood to repair the damage.

He had to get to Level Six and feed on the non-infected.

Everyone on Level Six was in shock that they’d seen Evelyn taking chunks out of people and that she’d been able to knock Terrier to the floor. He was built like a brick wall, and Evelyn was a petite as they came. How could someone so small be so strong? What did the Madness do to her, and how had she been infected?

Some of the men who had been bitten were crying out in pain, and they had their hands wrapped around their gaping wounds as they tried to stem the blood flow. Blood was oozing through their fingers, and their faces were as white as snow. Evelyn had bitten down on the main arteries in the neck. They needed to stop the blood. If they didn’t, they’d be dead soon.

General Murray looked at all the blood. “Get some sheets, blankets, and anything else we can use to stop the bleeding.”

The women looked at him for a moment. Most of them were done following orders from the generals, but some ran off since the men Evelyn had bitten were their boyfriends.

“Ladies, you heard the man. Get help!” Mama Lou yelled, looking at them in disgust. The women quickly followed Mama Lou’s orders. She knew why the women were hesitant, but she’d brought them up better than that. They needed to help the injured. She would speak with them later about that. They couldn’t let the years of their captivity control them once they got out of here.

Shelly returned with a white sheet and hastily bundled