“Those things. Those fucking things killed her!” Jake groaned. “I- I couldn't save—”
Then his eyes closed and, with a great sigh, he went slowly limp.
Kat froze. “Jake?”
Nothing.
“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.” She stared at his face. “Jake? Jake!”
Rae foolishly moved up in an attempt to console her and, when she placed a gentle hand on Cho's elbow, the ninja-girl roughly knocked it away. “Back the fuck off!” she snarled.
Foster pulled his counterpart out of arm’s reach and shook his head. Kat missed their encounter, because her world had narrowed down to a single image. Ignoring everyone and everything else around her, Kat's eyes never moved from Jake's face.
“No, you can't die! You can't!” she yelled brokenly and shook him to no avail.
“Sweetheart, come on. You gotta get off the boy,” Foster told her sadly.
“No!” Kat wailed and dropped against his motionless form. Her arms slid under Jake's neck, cradling his head to her as she wept. “Please! Please!”
Her chest hurt. She couldn't get her breath. Kat rocked his unresponsive body as the others tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't release her hold on him.
“Don't go!”
She held him tighter and pressed her lips to O'Connor's. Her body shook with grief as she clutched at him, striving with all her might to deny the reaper his prize.
“Jake, I love you!” she sobbed. “Don't leave me!”
* * *
The enormous, pink transport rolled on into the darkness, shortly leaving the burning power plant and the gathering dead in its wake.
Elle and Leo would be meeting them down the road shortly. They'd find a safe place to hole up for the night. Maybe another cache if one was nearby or just stay in the security of the Mimi. Once the sun rose in the morning, the survivors would continue their journey south towards Pecos and—hopefully—the safety of the West.
After they licked their wounds.
And after they mourned their dead.
While this concludes the second novel of The Crowbar Chronicles, fear not.
The journey of the Screamin' Mimi and her rag-tag crew of misfits is far from over.
Our survivors will return soon in Book Three:
Assuming Room Temperature
-About the Author-
For over a decade, S.P. Durnin crisscrossed America seeking the perfect pint of Guinness while developing a deep love/hate relationship with the idea of hungry mobile corpses. He has lived in: Montana, Texas, California, Colorado, Washington, and New Jersey.
In his younger days, S.P. was known to keep a morning after backpack in the trunk of his vehicle (just in case he woke up in a strange place) right next to his crowbar, but in recent years took the next logical step and upgraded to a Bug-Out-Bag. Keep Your Crowbar Handy and Rotting To The Core are the first novels set within his “zombie-verse™”.
S.P. now resides in Ohio with his family, two (very) spoiled cats, and one (mutant) dog, until the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) Page 33
