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

Ryder wracked her brain for her next move. She had hunted with Pavel for years, so he knew all her moves. If she flipped, he’d be ready with his knife. If she went for his nuts, he’d grab her leg. If she just lay there, he’d stab her. His knives were already in his hands.

She could only think of one decent option. She lunged forward and grabbed his legs, pulling him to the floor.

Before he could right himself or get leverage, Ryder pounced on top of him and pounded her fist into his face. Pavel managed to turn his body, knocking Ryder off him. Then, he was on top, and it was her turn to take the pounding. With all her strength, Ryder bucked him off with her hips, and one of his knives flew out of his hand.

Ryder scrambled for it. Pavel grabbed her feet, pulling her away from the knife.

Then, a pair of boots appeared next to the knife. It was Tightwad. He kicked the knife into her hand and shot her a drunken thumbs-up. Ryder wondered how much water he’d had tonight.

She grabbed the blade, flung her body sideways, and stabbed her former companion in the leg. As he moved instinctively to cradle the wound Ryder quickly pulled the knife out and stabbed upward, slashing him across the face.

Pavel swiped his other knife at Ryder, but she was too fast for the injured man. Ryder lunged at the hunter and sliced his throat. His knife dropped as his hands wrapped around his spurting wound. No amount of pressure would stop that, though. He was a goner.

Pavel was taken care of, but the others would soon be here. One down, two to go. She’d worry about those dickheads when they showed up.

“Ryder, a little help here?” Carter yelled. He was fighting off the Mad.

Ryder hopped on the bar, and this time, nobody stopped her.

It took less than a second to nock an arrow and ensure that she had a clear shot at the Mad. She sighted and fired, then reached for the next arrow before her previous one had embedded itself in the Mad’s brain.

The arrows took Carter by surprise. “How about a warning first?” he shouted over the music.

It took a few seconds for Ryder to work out what Carter was saying over the voices singing about a dead-end world. It was like the music knew what the hell was going on in here.

“Can someone turn that damn music off?” Ryder yelled.

“I’ve got it,” Kelvin said as he worked his way toward the jukebox.

It was like a human obstacle course. Kelvin ducked and swung at the arms of the Mad coming toward him. Kelvin swung his bat as Carter stabbed with his knives and Ryder fired her arrows, attacking the Mad from every angle. Those who weren’t bitten ran out of the Old Dog, leaving the three of them to fight the five remaining Mad.

The trio of undead hunters fell into a rhythm, almost like they’d been killing the Mad together for years. Kelvin and Carter would knock them out of their way, and Ryder would finish them off with a headshot.

By the time Kelvin got to the jukebox, all the Mad were dead. At least, they appeared to be.

“We’re not done yet,” Carter panted. He bent at the waist with his hands on his thighs while he got his breath back. “We have to make sure they have some type of head trauma. Then they don’t come back. Two-tap rule.”

Carter didn’t need to explain any more than that. Ryder and Kelvin knew what the two-tap rule meant. Neither of them wanted to do it, but these people were changed. They were Mad.

Being down didn’t mean they were dead.

Kelvin pounded the first one’s face with the baseball bat, and blood spattered everywhere.

“Wait,” Ryder exclaimed. They all turned to look at her with their weapons held awkwardly in the air, mid-swing. “Will we turn if we touch the blood?”

Kelvin looked down at his blood-covered hands nervously.

Carter shook his head. “Just shut your mouth.”

Ryder drew herself up. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Carter laughed. “I mean, don’t get the blood in your mouth. Keep your mouth closed.”

“Oh.” She felt like an idiot for biting without provocation, yet again. “Wait. How the hell did you become the expert in the room?”

“I’m no expert, but we all learned some lessons the hard way back at the settlement,” Carter told her. “If they bite you, you’re infected. If you get blood in your mouth, you get infected. Brain trauma takes them down. And that’s it. That’s all I know. Now, you’re all experts, too.”

Silence hung in the air between them as they tried to process the whole situation. Ryder knelt to examine the nearest undead, trying to glean any kind of answer she could. She got closer, and the blaring sound of a trumpet filled the air.

Ryder jumped as the jukebox started playing ‘Tequila.’ “I thought you turned it off!” she accused.

“I was preoccupied.” Kelvin waved his bloody baseball bat. “Let’s get this over with.”

They all got to work making sure none of the living dead got up again. Oddly enough, the song made the grisly work somewhat less unpleasant.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The three of them looked at the bloody mess on the Old Dog’s tiled floor. It was a horror show. “You can come to my house and clean up,” Kelvin told Ryder and Carter.

“Thank you,” they chimed in unison.

Two men walked through the doorway.

One of them—the one who had bumped into Ryder earlier—let out a sigh of relief. The older man’s mouth dropped open as he took in the sight.

Kelvin looked up with a tired grin. “Massimo, Leandro, you’re just in time to help me clean up!”

“What happened?” Massimo asked, looking around the bar with a blank expression.

“One of them wet Mad and started biting everyone,” Kelvin told him. “Then, the people who got bit