Zombie Island (Zombie Apocalypse #1)

  Part of him has to care what happens to me, or he would have left me behind instead of looking for me. Right?

  I clear my mind, and try not to think about anything for the rest of the drive. When I finally see the SUV, I almost cheer along with Tobe. We’re just minutes away from transferring our supplies to the jeep and heading up to Michigan. Then we’ll find a safe place to survive and make lives for ourselves.

  Everything is going to be alright.

  Ryder parks the jeep and the four of us get out and stretch our legs. I feel awkward, uncomfortable, and exposed wearing nothing but my shirt, boots, and panties, and I can’t wait to get my clean pants on. They’re in a duffel bag in the backseat, along with my cooler of vegetables, and I can’t wait to get to those too. As I pull on my clean pair of jeans, I open the cooler, and freeze.

  The cooler is empty.

  “Hey, did you guys eat the rest of these vegetables earlier?” I call over my shoulder.

  “No, why?”

  I look back at Ryder. “The vegetables are gone. I was sure there were some when we left. You guys really didn’t eat them?”

  “Someone got into the water too,” Tobe says from the back. “There are three bottles missing. And some of the ammunition is spread out.”

  Ryder and Reese just have time to raise their weapons when three armed men emerge from the trees, guns raised. One of the three lunges for me, and I bring my knee up into his stomach. He coughs, fighting to catch his breath, and I duck behind Ryder for protection.

  The three strangers are evenly spaced out about fifteen feet from us, and all of them have their guns pointed at Ryder or Reese, who are clearly the two biggest threats of our group. Two of these men are holding shotguns, and the third has a powerful looking rifle, one I recognize from the back of our SUV.

  “They raided our guns and supplies,” Reese says angrily, taking a step forward. His rifle is aimed directly at the heart of the biggest man, the one in the middle with the rifle. He looks to be the leader, and he’ll be the most important one to take out if it comes to a fight.

  “You’re trespassing,” one of the men says tightly. “This here is our stuff.”

  “Like hell it is,” Ryder snaps. “These are our supplies, and we’re not giving them up. So you can just give us back our ammo and be on your way if you know what’s good for you.”

  “We do know what’s good for us, and it’s this stuff right here,” he says with a thick accent of some kind. “We’ve been walking for four days with little water and no food. We thought we’d won the lottery when we found this abandoned car and these supplies.”

  “This car isn’t abandoned. It’s ours,” Reese says, glaring. “And you can’t have any of it. Now, return the things you’ve taken, and we’ll let the three of you walk away from this.”

  The leader laughs. “You’re outgunned and outmanned. Don’t forget that. You’re two cowboys with two dependant girls waiting to be taken care of,” he says, slowly looking Tobe and I both over. I don’t like the way his eyes linger on our bodies. “I’ll make you a deal though. We’ll keep the water and give back the ammo, in exchange for an hour with her,” he says, pointing at me. “She looks like a fighter.”

  Ryder moves in front of me, shielding me with his body. His hands tighten their grip on his rifle, and he narrows his eyes. “Try it and you’ll be dead before you can undo your pants.”

  My hands start to tremble, and right now I’d rather be facing an entire horde of zombies than these men. Zombies can’t think, they can’t plan, and they can’t negotiate. They just do what their basic instincts tell them to do. They don’t plan to screw people over.

  The leader smiles. “All I need is one hour, and you can have your ammo back. There doesn’t have to be any bloodshed today. We’re all just trying our best to survive this crazy world, right? Survivors help one another.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Ryder says. “If you don’t give back what you took and take off, you’re gonna regret it. I can promise you that.”

  The leader laughs again, but his two friends don’t look so happy. They’re staring at the brothers and their rifles with uncertain glances, and I think they’re considering running. I don’t blame them. Ryder and Reese look incredibly rough around the edges, and they look like the kind of guys you would never willingly mess with.

  The leader seems to sense that his partners are wavering, and tries one last desperate plea. “Alright, we’ll hand back the ammunition we took, just don’t hurt us.”

  He sets his gun on the ground, and takes a couple of magazines from his pocket. Slowly, he walks forward, hands up in surrender. I instinctively back away, not wanting to be anywhere near this horrible man. When he’s near the open hatch of the jeep, he sets the magazines inside, and reaches back into his pockets for more.

  Instead of ammunition, he pulls a knife out of his pocket and lunges at Ryder.