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

drooled all over himself while he slept, and there was a puddle of it on the table where his head had been. He wiped his sleeve across the table to clean it up.

Koda got up to fetch some plates, and Ryder and Leandro placed the serving dishes on the table. Ryder couldn’t wait to eat. They had the venison steaks, mashed potatoes, and string beans and Leandro had made gravy with the meat juices and the onions.

“This looks and smells really good,” Koda commended, sniffing deeply. “You two are welcome to come around anytime to cook again.”

“Thank you. It was fun.” Ryder popped a piece of meat into her mouth. Leandro had given her the largest steak. He’d given his dad extra mashed potatoes, and Massimo was happily tucking into them.

“I told you my boy was a good cook.”

“He really is,” Carter agreed through a mouthful of food.

Was he ever going to learn to close his mouth when he was eating? He had bits of mashed potato in his beard. “Are you saving those bits in your beard for later?” Ryder asked.

Carter looked up for a second, then went back to his food. “Yep.”

Everyone fell quiet as they ate, which was always a sign of a good meal. In the bunker meals were sometimes good, and sometimes they were awful. Most of the time they lived off stew made from meat, potatoes, and whatever vegetables were around. The menu was very limited for all the people in the general population of the bunker.

Of course, the advisors and generals had a much more varied diet. There were many luxuries put aside especially for them, some of which Ryder had been able to get a little taste of when she’d broken the kitchen camera. Ryder smiled at the memory of her and Terrier sneaking the good food. Once she got Terrier and the others out of the bunker, they’d be able to eat like this all the time.

Koda pushed his plate away and leaned back with his hands laced across his stomach. “Ryder, Massimo was telling me about your plan to get into the bunker and free the people,” Koda looked at Massimo then back at Ryder. “I think you will need more people to help.”

Ryder furrowed her brow. “Who?”

“There’s one guy who may help for the right amount of money. Johnny Garner. He’s one angry man.”

Leandro glanced at Ryder with concern. “And he’s a sexist asshole, which is why I didn’t include him on the list. Vicky would be a good addition, but not Johnny.” Ryder shrugged. “What’s one more sexist asshole? We need all the people we can get. Let’s see if we can get him to help us. We don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing.

Leandro looked like he was going to argue, but Ryder’s expression told him that it would be pointless. “Okay. We’ll head to Willard’s first. He’s on the way.” Everyone nodded, then went back to finishing their meals. There was a lot more walking ahead of them, and they’d need the protein from the venison to keep them going.

Ryder considered her vampire problem. Massimo really needed more meat in his diet if he was going to be able to help them. Ryder had to think of a way to convince Massimo to drink her blood.

Once Afana was sure the advisors were all clear of the disease he went back to studying his live specimens.

Afana hated the fact that he knew their names. Well, if you could call them names. Who called their children something as ridiculous as tank? Back before the WWDE, people gave their children even more ridiculous names. It had started with celebrities naming their kids after weird things, and worked its way down to normal folk. Afana wished that had died when the world went to shit. Instead, it got a million times worse. Luckily the two cattle no longer had names, only designations.

Specimens One and Two lay inert. They’d finally stopped their ridiculous struggles and accepted their fates after Afana and Robert had brought in Advisor Nicholas’ severed head and body.

There was no visible effect from the injections yet on the two specimens. Afana thought at one point the disease had already taken them over, but the two men no longer had the energy to fight. They had fallen into a trance-like state.

Afana parted Specimen One’s eyelids, looking for any sign of the red tint he’d seen in Ivan’s eyes. He did have a few thin red lines on the whites of his eyeballs like someone had drawn them there with a pen, but Afana put that down to stress.

He did the same to Specimen Two. Here we go. His eyes were a web of red. It was working faster on Specimen Two.

“Robert, which specimen’s blood reacted quicker to the infected blood?”

“Specimen Two’s,” Robert replied. He left Advisor Nicholas’ body to see why Afana was asking the question. Robert peered at Tank’s eyes and saw what Afana had.

Robert rubbed his hands together gleefully. “It’s taken effect!”

There wasn’t a better feeling than when an experiment started to show results. Afana released Tank’s eyelids and he didn’t react. There was no thrashing around or trying to break free from his restraints. He didn’t even look at Afana or Robert, just stared past them. If you didn’t know what you were looking at he seemed normal, other than his spiderwebbed red eyes. Afana knew that Tank’s transformation would be in full effect soon, and couldn’t wait.

Both men looked at Specimen One and wondered how long it would be until the Madness took him. The specimen’s eyes rolled in fear.

He knew it would happen soon.

The gang left Koda’s and headed to Willard’s. The sun was at its apex, and their stomachs were full.

Massimo sang as he walked, but the others were a little sleepy after eating as much as they could. Ryder regretted clearing her plate, but it had been too good to leave. They decided that they would make