Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) by Sean Schubert Page A

Just cowardly shits taking advantage.”
    DB wanted to spit again but thought better of it. No point in being rude after all . “Yeah. I don’t know that I ever seen one of them things do nothin’ bad or aggressive to another one. They just kinda hover and wait. Kinda funny that those things treat each other better than we treat ourselves.”
    Claire nodded her agreement and firsthand understanding, while she carefully used her teeth to remove every sticky morsel of granola bar clinging to her fingers. This might be her last meal and she didn’t want to waste a single nibble.
    Cradling his forehead in his palm, Jerry commented, “Yeah. A laugh riot.”
    DB measured Jerry with his eyes. He would have guessed that Jerry was young, maybe not much beyond twenty-one. Jerry didn’t fit the mold if he was as young as DB suspected now that he had been able to more closely observe him. DB searched the pool of his memory trying to stir his vocabulary. The agitated, undulating caps of adjectives seemed so common and ill-fitting. And then he seized upon a word riding the others: poised. Yes, the man...the boy was poised. DB was satisfied with his quick assessment and moved on.
    “There are folks all around. I mean, you know, the kind that don’t eat people. I seen’em around, here and there. Small groups and sometimes just loners. They just lookin’ to stay alive. No different than me or any of us. Mostly, them folks keep to themselves. But there’s others marauding the Peninsula, from Cooper Landing all the way down to Homer. If it ain’t them things out to get you then it’s those bastards followin’ behind to finish you off. Crazies that banded together and just want to stir the pot until it spills onto the floor. Got no regard for nothin’, not even themselves. Drunk or stoned and riding around on motorcycles creating havoc amidst the chaos. About as bad a mix as it could be.
    “But that ain’t all. Down outside Soldotna, some of them citizen militia people got organized in a hurry. Hell, this was kind of what some of them had been predicting and preparing for for years. I’m sure that to some of them, this was just Christmas come early. I ain’t had much to do with none of them, but what I seen ain’t been too complimentary.
    “Me and Duke and Ricky...I mean Alec, I guess, we was on foot on the highway. This was about a day or so before we found Della and the kids. Well, my truck...let’s just say it wasn’t going to be driving us nowhere. So, like I said, we was walking the highway when I heard something comin’ up the road. It sounded like an NRA parade salutin’ the history of the gunshot. But then I heard the engine sound too. Motorcycles. We dropped out of sight, hopin’ they’d just pass us on by. There wasn’t much in the way of hiding spots to choose from. We was near Kenai Central. Ya know that high school there on the highway? We just got as small and still as we could in the shallow ditch that ran along the side of the road.
    “When I peeked back onto the road, I realized there was more to it. There were a couple people on bicycles that were being chased by whoever was on the motorcycles, who were still a little off in the distance but closing fast. It was going to be a short chase. I could tell the bike riders, a man and a woman, were already at their limit and the motorcycles were doin’ nothin’ but gainin’ on ‘em. It was just a matter of minutes...seconds and maybe not even that long.
    “The fellas on the motorcycles, when they came into view, were wearin’ uniforms. Like full on military uniforms with the yellow yarn on their shoulders and everything. The militia boys ran them other two folks off the road. They sent ‘em crashin’ ass over tit onto the road. They couldn’t a been more ‘n twenty, maybe twenty-five yards away from where we was hidin’.
    “The man from the bike got up first. He looked over his shoulder at the woman who wasn’t movin’. He tried to get away on