Free DEAD RAIN: A Tale of the Zombie Apocalypse by Joe Augustyn

safe.
    The Sheriff’s station seemed the obvious choice, but it was nearly two miles away. The local hospital was closer, and there was an all-night mini-mart nearby where his cousin Tim worked the graveyard shift. Between those two choices he’d have a good chance to get some kind of he lp.
    He padded off into the fog, skirting around patches of light from the streetlamps, trying to stay invisible and quiet as a cat. Most of the houses on his street were dark. With the summer season over, only a handful of year-rounders were in residence. And many of them were golden-age retirees, people too jaded or weary to heed the evacuation warnings related to the incoming nor’easter, which was expected to hit the area in just a few hours. They weren’t likely to be much help against the kind of violent maniacs who’d attacked his mother.
    Hope rose in his heart as he saw Mr. Mendel’s house, with lights on inside. The retired widower was an agreeable neighbor who often did favors for Ryan’s mom. The boys joked that the old man had a crush on her and although Mary Ellen knew it was true, she routinely pooh-poohed the idea. Robust and sharp-witted despite his age, Mr. Mendel would know just what to do and would be willing to help. He would at least drive Ryan to the Sheriff station, of that the boy was certain.
    Ryan dashed across the old man’s lawn but slowed as he approached the front door. It was hanging ominously open. Normally it wouldn’t mean much to find an open door in the quiet neighborhood, especially on trash night, but after the events of the evening, Ryan feared the worst.
    Gazing through the open doorway he saw shadows moving jerkily across the floor, and turning to the windows he saw silhouetted figures through the drapes, moving clumsily and strangely askew, looming at crazy angles.
    His apprehension intensified. Cautiously he stepped closer and peeked through the doorway. Mendel was lying on the floor, with one hand clutched tellingly over his heart. Two people knelt at his sides, backlit by an overturned table lamp. One was a neighbor woman Ryan vaguely recognized; the other, a man in a ratty black suit. They were eating the old man’s flesh, biting chunks from his hands and his face.
    Ryan backed silently away from the door. He didn’t breathe again until he was halfway up the street, safely ensconced in the fog.
    What the hell is going on? Has everyone gone crazy?
    He heard movement behind him—the sharp crack of a footstep on a dried twig—but when he whirled around, all he could see was fog. He turned and ran off down the street, moving as quickly and as quietly as he could.
    I’d better just get to the hospital , he thought . I’ll be safe there. And they might know what the hell’s going on.

 
     
    15
     
     
    The meat wagon turned onto Route 47, headed towards Route 9 with its siren wailing. Deputy Jurgensen and his attacker lay on stretchers in the back. The cannibalistic fiend would arrive DOA, his head half smashed to a pulp. The deputy was still breathing, if shallowly, when they loaded him into the van.
    Kerri unbuckled Jurgensen’s straps and opened his shirt to monitor his life si gns. They were barely existent. She felt his forehead. It was covered in sweat but his skin was icy cold. She checked the pressure bandage on his leg, then stepped forward and leaned into the cab.
    “Hector, step on it, will you,” she shouted to be heard above the siren. “He’s not going to make it much longer. He’s barely hanging on.”
    “Relax. We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Hector replied. “But I can’t see two feet in this peenchy fog.” He turned the siren off and picked up the radio to notify the ER to be ready and waiting. “Hello, dispatch, this is Unit Five, do you copy?”
    Kerri turned back to check on the deputy.
    He was standing right behind her.

 
     
    16
     
     
     
    Ryan turned a corner and paused to catch his breath. The fog was still thick and the narrow suburban