Free DeadBorn by C.M. Stunich Page B

killing the man that I'm trying to save. I move back from Holly, certain that she'll take care of the situation, or at least that she'll try. When she just stands there, I start to panic.
    “ Holly … ” I say and then pause. The man and the water hag are tangled together in a vicious brawl, one that doesn't look quite … human.
    “ Zombie,” Holly says and I watch as the man, who I presume was once Doug, groans and gurgles while blood pours out of his newly damaged throat. He can't have been dead long, but dead he is. His eyes are glassy and sightless and his dark skin is torn and shredded. He's a loper now and there's nothing we can do to help him.
    “ Shit.” The two DeadBorn are flailing their limbs and gnashing their teeth at one another. I'd been under the impression that they were on the same team. Not so much anymore. A howl goes up from the other water hags and I watch as several of them drop their knuckles and come charging towards the battle. It's already painfully obvious that Dead Doug stands no chance. One of his arms has already been severed by the water hag's ragged nails and is now crawling across the ground like something from The Addams Family.
    And it's coming up the hill towards us.
    “ Holly,” I say and we exchange a nervous glance. She then hands me the baseball bat and pulls out her revolver. Gunshots slice through the air like a knife and pepper the flesh of the arm with holes. It doesn't stop it though, doesn't even slow it, not even when one of the fingers comes flying off and lands at my feet. I stare at it, shocked to see that it, too, is still moving. “What the hell?” I ask, but Holly's three steps ahead of me as always. She puts the revolver away, takes out the baseball bat and smashes the finger into a bloody lump. Only then does it go still. We don't have time to rest though as the arm is still coming for us. I can't imagine that it would be much of a danger, but it wouldn't be wise to ignore it either.
    Holly waits until we think the appendage is out of the water hags' range and then moves forward and begins to wail on it. The zombies don't seem to notice; they're too wrapped up in tearing the rest of Dead Doug to bite sized pieces and eating him. Wriggling flesh slips between their pale blue lips while crimson floods drain down their white chests and stain their ragged gowns. I vomit into my own mouth, swallow it and turn away.
    The arm is still quivering, flickering flesh pulsing as Holly takes a breath and then freezes. Her face and arms are covered with little, red drips and her eyes are as blank as a DeadBorn's. She stands so still that I start to move forward, prepared to grab her and carry her back to the car when she suddenly explodes into action. The bat rises and falls above her head and hits the ground with wet thumps that churn my stomach and finally draw the attention of the water hags. When they start to race up the hill towards us, I panic and grab Holly's wrist, drawing her away from the now quiet lump.
    They don't quite make it that far, but I still don't know what it is that's keeping them so close to the water. Since the tether that's tying them there isn't physical, I can't judge if it's about to break. I decide that safe is so much better than sorry and drag a whimpering Holly back towards the trailer. Doug has a nice stack of white towels in his bathroom. I'm going to take one of them and clean Holly off. She needs that, I think, or she might start to break down.
    “ The keys,” she says as if that's still important. I shush her and guide her up the stairs with my hand around her waist. I forget to check the inside of the trailer and am relieved to find that I didn't just make a deadly mistake. It's still empty.
    “ What just happened?” I ask her, trying to distract her from all of the violence by using the mystery as bait. “Why the heck would they attack each other? Aren't they on the same side?” Holly hiccups and wipes her arm across her face. It