FREE - In the End

In the End will be FREE on Amazon tomorrow and Friday. If you haven't picked it up yet, go get it! :)

http://www.amazon.com/In-End-Quaranti...

Until then, here's an excerpt:

We tread into the water. The coldness creeps up my pant leg, licking my skin and sending shivers through my body. This is going to be a long, exhausting ordeal. One made even longer by the fact that we all just ran two miles and will now be swimming those miles into the current of a freezing cold river, some of it underwater.

No one complains as we sink into the current. Nothing beyond the involuntary gasp at the sudden coldness. Then we’re moving. They follow my lead as I swim us upstream, trying to remain as perfectly centered in the water as I can. I don’t know how many infected are on the other bank, but I imagine quite a few. I can hear them now and then moaning in the trees but I haven’t seen any yet. Doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat.

“Ali,” I whisper, over my shoulder, “keep an eye on the west bank. Quietly and calmly let us know if you see anything.”

Silence is my answer.

“Al,” Syd breathes behind me.

“No, I heard you guys,” she whispers back, sounding annoyed.

“Then what’s with the silent treatment?” I ask quietly.

More silence. Just when I’m about to snap at her, she finally answers me.

“I’m all turned around,” she grumbles. “I was trying to figure out which bank is west.”

“On the right,” Syd and I say together.

“Shhh!”

I look over my shoulder at her incredulously. “Are you shushing us?”

She rolls her eyes. “If you would use normal directions like left and right, this wouldn’t be an issue. But you have to go all tactical Rambo. What’s next? Is there an infected at my 20?”

“Are you serious? What about ‘stage left’?” I whisper back sharply.

Alissa narrows her eyes at me. “It made perfect sense.”

“To who? The cast of Cats? Who uses that as a direction?”

“It worked didn’t it?”

“I have no idea. Did I turn the right way?”

“Did I put an arrow in your heart?”

“No,” I reply, feeling instantly annoyed that that was a possibility.

“Then yeah, you got it right.”

“I have an idea,” Syd whispers, drifting in the current between us.

“What?”

“Shut up.”