Free Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2) by Ambrose Ibsen Page B

Kubo's massive palms caught me in the chest, stopping me in my tracks. Joe, too, had gotten pushed backward, nearly falling on his ass. The Chief's eyes were glued to the path ahead, to the SUV.
    To the figures who shambled all around it.
    “Zombies,” he muttered.
    There were five that I could see lingering around the SUV, and every possibility that more existed just beyond it. The creatures didn't seem to have any agenda. They were simply limping through the parking lot, going for a mindless, moonlit stroll as zombies apparently felt compelled to do from time to time. But when they caught sight of us, there was a marked change in their demeanor. The shadowed figures straightened out, took on something of alertness, and not a moment later I heard the first of several agonized groans.
    A battle-cry.
    Kubo reached into his breast pocket. “Looks like we're going to have to fight our way out.”

TEN

    The Chief rifled around in his inner pockets but came up empty. “Shit.”
    “What's the matter, Chief?” asked Joe, counting the undead as they approached the alley. He'd switched on his lighter and was ready to start throwing fireballs at the slightest provocation.
    “My seals are in the SUV. I took the damn things out of my pocket earlier.” From his shoulder holster he yanked his big, silver gun. “This will have to do. Not the best option against zombies, though. I'll cover the two of you and try to keep them at bay while you destroy them. Got it?”
    “Sounds good,” said Joe, allowing the flame from his lighter to grow. It surged upward into a pillar of flame. Joe reached into the flame and pinched off a hunk as though he were working with clay. The fireball hovered above his palm, and with a grunt he gave it a toss at the incoming undead. The fiery fastball sizzled as it coursed through the air, eating up a fair bit of the humidity in its wake, and connected with its target.
    Hit square in the chest, the zombie fell to the pavement and began to shriek, limbs splaying out and kicking the ground. Joe's attacks worked fast; I watched him focus on the flames as they spread over the reanimated cadaver. He was manipulating them, causing them to spread quickly so as to consume the body and destroy it with haste.
    The other zombies took this as an invitation to strike, and rushed towards us in a tightly-packed unit.
    I stepped up to the plate while Joe queued up a second fireball. Fighting these things was just like swatting at a swarm of bees. You had to treat the whole cluster as a single organism; focusing on just one was sure to get you stung. Loosing a growl, I jumped to the fore and readied myself for the onslaught. If I hit them just right I could smash them two at a time; a punch from the left, then from the right, would probably get the job done. I planned to kick the stragglers to pieces, and--
    Just then, from the entrance of Yao's, I heard someone speaking. The metal door slammed shut as a thin man in glasses stumbled out. He was holding his phone out before him, evidently recording the battle. His sights were centered on the snarling, smoldering creature on the pavement, and his continued utterance of “Holy shit” distracted even the zombies.
    “What the fuck is he doing?” asked Kubo, pointing to the guy. “Put that goddamned phone away,” he warned, waving his gun in the air.
    The guy, college-aged and goateed, panned about the scene, capturing all of us in frame. “Y-you're all going to jail,” he began. “I see everything you're doing out here, and I'm going to the media with this.” He kneeled down, getting a better view of the scorched zombie in its death throes. “T-this will be trending on Twitter within the hour. It's a hate crime!”
    The zombies, having paused, seemed to have trouble on deciding where to focus their efforts. They looked at Joe and Kubo, then to me. Lastly, they glanced at the college student, moaning with what I took to be the zombie equivalent of confusion.
    That was