Free Beach Blanket Bloodbath (Amanda Feral Book 4) by Mark Henry

was something alien about the
chomping. An absence of pleasure. No ecstatic murmuring. You know what I mean. For
a zombie, I’ve been told I’m a dainty eater. I don’t leave much of a mess, if
any, and I rarely need to change clothes. I’m a professional, after all. I’m
also, apparently quiet, which I certainly couldn’t say about Wendy or any other
zombie I’d ever met. Wendy’s moans were legendary; she really gets into her
meal. I mean, if you didn’t know it, you’d think she was having sex for the
wailing and panting.
    What was happening at the end of the
alley did not sound like sex. You know that awful comedian whose entire act is
splattering watermelons with a sledgehammer? It was loud and clumsy and
gory—if a sound can be gory.
    It was also none of our damn business.
    I crept toward the front of the building,
not wanting to draw attention or disrupt what was obviously a very private, and
dare I say intimate, experience, intent on scaling the fence.
    “Chain link,” Wendy whispered. “That’ll
lop off your failing digits like a cheese slicer as soon as you put your full
weight on it. Plus, your Louboutin’s will be devastated.”
    “Then,” I said, looking back over my
shoulder at the feeding ground. “We have to hold our heads high and walk on by,
just like a strike scab.”
    “But?” The whites of Wendy’s eyes grew
large as they turned toward the feeding frenzy. “What if that’s a mistake back
there? Patient zero of an outbreak?”
    “That’s why Gil’s going to go first.
Right, Gil?”
    The vampire had disappeared into the
shadows, but his drawn out sigh placed him a foot from the door. “Let’s just
wait until it’s finished. We don’t want to be rude.”
    I ground my teeth. Shaking my head at his
cowardice, I dug in my bag for the tiny flashlight I kept for door locks or
sussing out a hiding victim’s location. Clicking it on, the low beam lit the
far end of the alley in a grainy blur, but what we saw there caused a
collective gasp.
    Monstrous and gray, but slick as oil. The
thing retreated rapidly, revealing flesh that was undeniably fin-shaped despite
mammalian characteristics. It crouched on two muscular haunches and as it
slipped out of sight, like a great white disappearing with its meal secured, I
caught a glimpse of a smooth human ass and something else.
    Dangling.
    “That thing was huge,” Gil said,
completely awestruck.
    “I barely got a look at it,” I shrugged,
disgusted at his sexual avarice. “Of course, you’d notice.”
    He narrowed his eyes, glancing at Wendy
for support. She shrugged.
    “How could you not? It was clearly some
sort of a shape shifting shark thing. It was enormous.”
    “Oh yeah, that,” I tried to recover,
embarrassment blossoming on my cheeks. “Yeah, huge. Absolutely. Scary.”
    Wendy strode past. Never one to let
sleeping dogs lie, she muttered. “Amanda was talking about its dick...because
she’s a pervert.”
    Gil busted up laughing, hands on his
knees for support.
      “Look at that bite radius.” Wendy whistled. “Enviable, even.”
    I shambled forward, taking in the mess
that was obviously a girl’s torso—don’t make me tell you how. Dread
filled me as I noted the contestant’s sash coiled around the thread of her
dislocated spine like a cancer all the way to her pristine oddly viscera-free face.
Relief flooded over me, then elation. From the look of things, Miss Sandflea
would be seceding her crown to the runner up. The dazed beauty queen stared up
at me with only slightly deader eyes than she’d had in life.
    Wendy and Gil crowded in around me,
clucking their tongues in a confused way.
    “Huh,” Wendy said, absently fondling the Twix I’d given her earlier. “She’s an
odd choice. I would have pegged her for being a tough meal. Chewy.”
    “She seemed absolutely bloodless.” Gil
crinkled his nose. “A definite pass in my book.”
    “Well.” I pushed them back and rubbed my
throat in preparation. “It’s