Mille checks her phone and the seven unanswered calls. Most of them are from private numbers, and she’s pretty sure it’s the police who have been trying to get to her to make sure she is okay, like they probably did with everyone aboard the bus whom they couldn’t find right away.
But there’s also a single call from a number she knows. A single call she didn’t expect at all.
Helle, the display says.
Forty-five minutes ago. Mille saw the call coming, but she just stared at the silent phone. She didn’t try calling back, and Helle hasn’t tried calling again.
Mille didn’t pick up, because she had no idea what to say. What do you say after six years?
Suddenly, she wants to call back, but the thought immediately makes her uncomfortable. There are too many questions. How will the voice sound? Like she remembers or completely changed? Older? Weaker? More loving? Maybe even concerned?
Mille is just not sure she would know how to handle it. Yet her finger moves closer to the Call button, hovering there for several seconds.
Then she sees something out of the corner of her eye and turns her head. Far away over the field, she can make out a wobbling figure in the twilight. No, not one—two. No, three. More and more are appearing. There are over twenty in total, and still more are coming.
Her throat constricts and it’s suddenly difficult to breathe.
The living dead aren’t walking in any particular formation, they don’t even seem to be walking together. But they’re all nonetheless headed in the same direction. They’re all aiming directly for Holger’s house on top of the hill.
At that moment, Dan comes back into the room. “I found a charger,” he says, but his expression changes once he sees Mille’s face. “What is it?” he asks in alarm.
Before she can answer, there’s a loud bang from the bedroom, and Dan whirls around. William’s dog comes barging in from the kitchen, barking at the noise.
But it’s only Holger, who slammed open the hatch in the floor, and now comes tumbling into the living room, his expression wild.
“Shut up, Ozzy!” William commands, as he joins them from the kitchen, phone pressed to his chest. “What’s going on, Holger?”
Holger looks like he wants to run someplace but can’t decide where that place is, so he ends up just standing there. “I saw them,” he pants. “I saw them on the screens. They’re coming.”
The words leave a chill silence in the living room.
“How … how many?” William croaks.
“Many,” Mille says, surprised to hear her own voice. All three of them turn to look at her. She points out the window.
William is instantly by her side. “Oh, fuck me,” he mutters and steps back. He looks from Mille to Dan and then to Holger. There’s a special glow in his eyes—it could be fear, yet to Mille it looks almost like wild excitement—as he says: “Here we go …”
Don’t worry; this is not the end of the series!
When I began writing Dead Meat, I honestly had no idea where the story would go or how long I could keep writing it. All I knew was that I had an idea which made me very excited and I wanted to see where it could take me.
Soon I realized how big of a journey I had embarked on. The end of the world is a slow process, and there are so many things to tell—even when seen from the limited perspective of the main characters. I also began to get glimpses of where the story would take me.
I feel confident Dead Meat could go on to reach Day 10. I certainly have plenty of ideas and inspiration, and the story is very easy for me to write. So if you’re up for more zombie fun, I hope you’ll follow me in the days to come.
Oh, and if you'd like to leave a review of this book, I would greatly appreciate it! Authors like me rely on readers like you to get the word out.
Thank you for reading!
—Nick
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Dead Meat (Book 3): Dead Meat [Day 3] Page 10
