Free Devour: Death & Decay Book 1 by R. L. Blalock

Inside was an office with some bookshelves, a desk cluttered with papers, and a single empty spot where a laptop could be placed. At the end of the hall, the door to a small bathroom stood open.
    Across the hall from the office was a closed door. Behind it, footsteps shuffled back and forth. As she approached the door, the dog, which had followed close behind as she toured the rest of the house, hung back. He lowered his head and a low growl reverberated from his throat. She didn’t want to open the door. She didn’t want to fight one of those things. However, she could never feel safe with the thing in the house, even if it was behind a door. The hairs raised on the back of Liv’s neck as she reached for the doorknob.
    After a deep breath, Liv seized the knob and shoved the door open. With a screech, a woman lunged from the darkness. Liv backpedaled and swung the wrench. The woman’s bones shattered with an unmistakable crunch.
    The woman fell to her knees as the blow landed on her right shoulder, her face contorting in a grotesque sneer. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Liv rushed forward and brought the wrench down on the woman’s head. The sickening thud of breaking bone announced her success and the woman went limp.
    For a moment, Liv stood perfectly still, holding her breath as she listened for an indication that any more infected were in the house as she glanced around the corners of the room. When nothing stirred, she breathed a sigh of relief.
    The smell of copper washed over her. Liv stepped back a bit and turned away from the scene. A dark pool slowly seeped out from underneath the woman onto the carpet.
    After a couple of minutes, when Liv was sure she had control of her stomach, she turned back. The body lay in the hallway, obstructing the pathway to and from the other bedrooms.
    It seemed disrespectful to just leave the woman there in an unsightly heap. The thought of touching the body, though, made her skin crawl, and the ever-present threat of infection still made it dangerous.
    Her eyes fell upon the open bathroom door. The rack held several large, soft bath towels. Liv pulled two down and draped them over her hands like the gloves of a giant.
    Back in front of the body, Liv slid her hands underneath the woman’s armpits. Just about the time Liv thought she had a hold on the body, the woman’s arms would come up and she would lose her hold. So she took hold of the woman’s wrists. As she pulled, the woman’s right arm twisted grotesquely with the strain on her shattered shoulder. The woman’s head lolled side to side unnaturally. Though the woman wasn’t large, Liv struggled to move the body’s dead weight.
    The bedroom was a mess. Blood smeared the bed and sagging sheets trailed off onto the floor. The woman must have come up to the room and crawled into bed only to change in her sleep. When she awoke, the woman had haphazardly rolled out of the bed as one of them to bumble around the room. Pictures had been knocked off a nightstand and books off their shelf. A crumpled rag soaked in blood lay discarded at the foot of the bed.
    Liv picked up one of the pictures. In it, the woman had her arms slung around a man, probably her boyfriend or husband, maybe her brother. The two looked alike, but Liv wasn’t sure a family resemblance was there. They both beamed at the camera from behind sunglasses as the ocean glimmered behind them.
    As delicately as possible, Liv straightened out the body on the floor next to the bed. She doubted she would be able to lift the woman up. She laid the photo on the woman’s chest and crossed her arms over it. Finally, she draped the comforter from the bed over the body.
    It wasn’t an elegant burial. It wasn’t even a burial. At least the woman hadn’t been left where she had dropped. Liv knew this was all for herself. The dead didn’t care what happened to them any more than a leaf that had fallen free from its tree cared where it landed. All the same, it gave