Free ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) by Shawn Chesser

pushed off the
floor with both mutilated hands splayed out in the pooled blood, all it felt
was the pang in its gut telling it to feed. Because through feeding, the deadly
virus reproducing inside of him and already present and concentrated in his
saliva would be transferred to the next host. And so on, and so forth.
    Much like Don in his present form, the virus possessed no
emotion or feelings one way or the other where life or death was concerned. It
just needed to do what it did best—keep the chain reaction going. It was engineered
by scientists to be ruthless in its attack on the body’s immune system. And
thanks to conditioning, the normalcy bias inherent in twenty-first-century man
made efficient its worldwide delivery.
    Seeing movement out of the corner of his right eye, undead
Don got his legs under him, gripped the counter near his forehead with his
fully functioning left hand, and wormed what was left of the right between the
writhing creatures pressing down on him.
    Flexing his legs and tensing corded back muscles—all still
somewhat toned, though nothing compared to when he was in playing shape and posting
up the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—allowed him to get into a low squat and
find purchase with his bloody nubs on the sliding door. After that, standing
was easy. Eyes already searching out fresh meat, undead Don rose fully, in the
process racking his head on the low ceiling and inadvertently dumping the
undead street kids onto the cement floor.
    The living corpse that had been Don felt nothing. Not the
fresh bloodless four-inch gash on the crown of his pallid forehead. Not the
exposed nerve endings where his fingers had been. Moreover, he had no feelings
one way or the other after sending his attackers sprawling onto the cement
outside the booth.
    He only wanted to eat. So with an inner voice urging him on
with a chant more instinct-driven than verbal, following his new brethren, he
let his upper body hinge forward through the rectangular window. While a tight
fit for two bodies at once, undead Don’s head and torso fell through the
opening with ease, his hips and legs eventually following suit.
    Hearing the hollow thunks of the bloody spectacles
spilling onto the garage floor, a trio of passerby at street level stopped and
stared down the ramp. Mouths forming capital O’s, to a person they remained
rooted in place for a quick beat before springing into action, one of them
stopping a passing ambulance while the rest moved other pedestrians aside as it
began backing up to the entry.
    Attention drawn to the top of the ramp by the beeping of the
ambulance’s back-up warning and the presence of silhouetted human forms, the three
living corpses snarled and rose up off the ground. And if the silent subliminal
chant jumping synapses in the primordial part of undead Don’s brain was to come
out in words instead of the raspy growl rattling his diaphragm, want, need,
eat would be echoing loudly off the parking garage ceiling as he locked
onto the meat milling in the colorful splash of the strobing ambulance lights.
     
     

Chapter 12
     
     
    Charlie’s first clue that something wasn’t right was finding
Duncan’s Dodge in front of the garage and the front door standing partway open.
    He turned toward the taxi and put a finger in the air to
tell his new best friend, Nate, that he’d be right out with more cash—or so he
hoped.
    He paused on the single cement stair, pinned his hair away
from his ear, and listened hard. Riding just over the tick and wheeze of the
tired V8 in the nearby Crown Vic was a low, sonorous rumble. And competing with
both noises was the steady hum of a box fan pushing air around just inside the
cracked door.
    “Duncan?”
    Nothing.
    Louder this time. “Duncan! You in there?”
    After watching the bad news trickle in on the televisions in
the crowded bar, and imbibing quite a few drinks to numb the gnawing suspicion
that this time the crap really was hitting the oscillating thingy,