Free Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III by Robert J. Duperre, Jesse David Young Page A

with the remnants of teeth hung open, releasing groans that sounded like the final cries of drowning men.
    Charles “Corky” Ludlow stood in the center of the pavement in front of the entrance to the Clinton Resort. The way in was efficiently blocked by the heavy iron gate, making him breathe a little easier. Still, it was tough to look at the monstrosities trying to force their way inside. They were disgusting, depraved, inhuman . In a way, the sight of them made him sad.
    “This sucks balls,” he muttered.
    Horace Struder, the old scientist, stood beside him and let out a groan that sounded eerily like the walking dead folks outside before saying, “Very true.”
    The weather had become unseasonably warm up on Mount Clinton , to the point where Corky had heard Larry proclaim more than once, “Can we get some real weather now? I’m tired of this shit!” Corky agreed. After a freezing cold fall and a winter where it seemed to snow every day, all he wanted was some nice, comfortable seventy-degree temperatures. But no, nature had to go out and make it close to ninety. In spring. He sweated so much that his armpits and inner thighs were chaffed. Without enough power to run the air conditioning inside the hotel, he was left to deal with it as best he could.
    Ideally, he would have trekked down the mountain, raided the local pharmacy of as much baby powder as he could carry, and apply it liberally all over his body. But alas, groups of zombies—freaking zombies —started showing up out of nowhere, which made leaving the walled interior of the resort an iffy proposition, at best.
    Corky sucked in a wad of phlegm, gathered it in his mouth, and spit it at the beasts. It hit one of them on the face, and when the gob rolled over its lips it closed its mouth. For a moment it stopped its bleating and scrunched its forehead, as if it had just tasted something wonderful but couldn’t place the flavor. Then it was back to beating on the bars again seconds later.
    “That’s disgusting,” said Horace.
    “The least I can do,” replied Corky, “what with the way they screwed us and all.”
    Horace shrugged. “It’s not so bad, actually.”
    Corky chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Yeah? Oh really?”
    “Yes, really. Think about it. We’re up in the mountains, away from civilization. Right now there are what, six or seven outside the gate? Consider how bad it must be in other places, where the populations were much more…dense.”
    “Oh,” Corky said. “I see your point.”
    Horace nodded.
    Doug Lockenshaw walked by them, wearing a tank top and cut-off jeans. He moved with precision, muscles tense, his hair that hung just above his shoulders bouncing with each step. In one hand he held his rifle by its strap, in the other a huge bowie knife. He marched to the gate with purpose and went about jabbing the knife through the bars, stabbing eyes, mouths, necks. The undead fell one at a time until only two remained. Those last two, apparently sensing the danger to themselves , stepped away from the gate. Doug dropped the knife, shouldered the rifle, took careful aim, and cut them down with two shots.
    As the young Marine wiped the blood off his hands with the towel attached to his waist, Corky asked, “Why didn’t you just shoot ’em all?”
    Doug glanced up, shook his head, and, with a hand pressed against his temple, replied, “I’m running out of bullets. Don’t wanna waste them.”
    “Oh.”
    The kid gathered up his things and proceeded to walk back to the building. On the way he turned his head and offered the two observers a bit of advice.
    “By the way, staring at them don’t accomplish anything.”
    Neither Corky nor Horace had a retort for that. They followed him inside.
    The interior of the hotel was just as hot as outside, but it felt even hotter because of the stagnant air and restricted space. Corky passed the fountain on his way to the lounge and thought for a moment that he should just go to the basement