Free Year of the Zombie (Book 8): Scratch by David Moody

in
the ensuing chaos, as Gary did everything he could to avoid her savage,
poisonous claws, their positions were steadily reversed.
    Jody with the kids
cowering behind her now.
    Gary next to the open
window.
    She came at him again,
and his decision was made.
    ‘Sorry, kids.’
    He dived for the open
window as she lurched towards him. Heart-racing, desperate, terrified, he
climbed over the veranda then dropped down onto the roof of his car. He
half-rolled, half-fell to the ground then immediately picked himself up. He
checked his pockets. Car keys, but for the wrong car. Charlie’s motor was
locked in the garage, blocked in by his own useless vehicle, and there were
infected approaching. Three of them. Wait, no, four. Six! Eight! He looked up
at the house he’d just escaped from, then ran.
    As fast as he could. As
far as he could. Not stopping. Not looking back.
    Gone .
    Jody watched from the
upstairs window until he’d disappeared, then turned back to face the children.
Ben, shaking with fear, positioned himself in front of his two younger sisters,
ready to defend them from the vile creature that had once been his mother.
    ‘It’s okay, love,’ she
said. ‘It’s me. I’m all right.’
    ‘Don’t believe you,’ he
said, voice trembling as badly as his legs.
    ‘I swear. She didn’t touch
me. I’m okay. Not sick.’
    ‘What about the
scratch?’
    ‘I did it.’
    ‘You did it?’ Jenny
asked, peering around her brother’s stocky frame.
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I wanted to see
what your dad would do. I wanted to know if he was really going to look after
you.’
    ‘Daddy ran away,’ Holly
said.
    ‘Yep. Pretty much
exactly what I expected.’
    ‘And you’re not sick?’
Ben asked, still clearly unsure.
    ‘I’m not sick.’
    ‘Promise?’
    ‘Promise.’
    ‘What about Charlie?’
    ‘I couldn’t help her.
She’s okay now, though. She’s not hurting anymore.’
    ‘She dead?’ Holly asked.
    ‘Yes, she’s dead. Sorry,
love.’
    ‘I liked Charlie.’
    ‘Yeah, I liked Charlie.
She deserved much better. Shall we go home now?’
    ‘Yes, please,’ Ben said.
    ‘Cool.’
    With a grunt of effort
Jody moved the bed away from the door then led her children downstairs,
distracting them from the wreckage and the blood and what was left of Charlie.
She found the keys to Gary’s 4x4 in a bowl on the kitchen table, and she drove
the kids out of the infected zone.
    And they felt safe.
    And they were safe.
     
    ***
     

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
     
    David Moody grew up on a diet of trashy horror
and pulp science fiction. He worked as a bank manager before giving up the day
job to write about the end of the world for a living. He has written a number
of horror novels, including AUTUMN, which has been downloaded more than half a
million times since publication in 2001 and spawned a series of sequels and a
movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. Film rights to HATER were
snapped up by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) and Mark Johnson
(producer of the Chronicles of Narnia films). Moody lives with his wife and a
houseful of daughters and stepdaughters, which may explain his pre-occupation
with Armageddon.
     
     

ALSO
BY DAVID MOODY
     
    THE HATER SERIES
    HATER
    DOG BLOOD
    THEM OR US
     
    THE AUTUMN SERIES
    AUTUMN
    AUTUMN: THE CITY
    AUTUMN: PURIFICATION
    AUTUMN: DISINTEGRATION
    AUTUMN: AFTERMATH
    AUTUMN: THE HUMAN
CONDITION
     
    TRUST
    STRAIGHT TO YOU
    LAST OF THE LIVING
    STRANGERS
     

ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE
     
    My first novel, STRAIGHT TO YOU , was
released in 1996 and promptly disappeared from view. 500 copies were printed,
and I still have a couple of boxes from the original print run in my garage!
The experience taught me several valuable lessons about writing, most notably
that both the hardest and most important task for a new author is to find
people to read their work. In those dim and distant pre-Internet, pre-ebook
days, that was no easy task.
     
    When it came to