Empire by David Dunwoody Read Free Book Online

hers and pried at the door. "C'mon, c'mon," he breathed, barely audible, then a hysteric "FUCKING C'MON!!!"
        
        The rotter swept boxes from shelves and searched the room with its empty dog's-eye sockets. It began loping down the aisles at a frenetic pace. Lauren screamed.
        
        Then, something fell from a shelf and collided with the rotter's legs, sending it to the floor. The door tore open and Jenna, Duncan and Lauren fled into the night.
        
        The rotter sat up, jerking its head back to see what had tripped it.
        
        Fred Moorecourt pawed the floor in a madness, crawling in place as his bloody feet failed to gain traction and drew crimson scribbles on the concrete. The rotter slapped at his heels until he got a hold of one.
        
        "NO!!" Moorecourt hollered. He saw the inhuman thing towering over him, then he tasted blood thick in his mouth, and he saw light; an audience of fist-pumping constituents at a speech; Doug's face, his smile, turning away in a silken pillow; he saw his life, and saw that none of it had mattered, then the rotter planted a knife just below his chin and opened his throat.
        
        
    9.
    Sawbones
        
        Throat to sternum. Blood welling inside canyons as they're carved from flesh and bone. Both knives through the ribcage now, spreading it apart. Skin, muscle strain and finally tear. This isn't one of the warmbodies that was seen coming into the warehouse. Doesn't matter. It's meat. Placing one boot inside the garbage bag to hold it open and feeding pulpy organs into it.
        
        The hunger was strong, worrying at every inch of Sawbones' insides. He hurried to finish bagging Moorecourt's innards, then started ripping at his flesh. Thick strips dripping blood came away in Sawbones' gloved hands. He longed to pry apart the dog's-jaws and feed. He couldn't. Sawbones grunted and shoved the skin into the bag.
        
        When he was finished, Senator Moorecourt was a ruddy skeleton with a few bits of gristle clinging on. Blood covered the floor and spread beyond the solitary light's reach into darkness. Sawbones splashed through it and out the door.
        
        Eyeing warily the shoreline beyond the landfill, Sawbones made his way into the swamp, trudging through knee-deep muck. The trees were all enormous here, roots and branches threaded around the rotter's boots with every step. Bark and leaves alike teemed with moss. Algae-covered fungi jutted from semi-solid patches of earth. The swamp seethed with life. Sawbones felt warm inside as he passed through it. His hunger subsided.
        
        Aidan and Gerald opened the gates for him. They stared through their fellow zombie, at the garbage bag.
        
        He knew to go around to the rear kitchen entrance. There Uriel was waiting, and he ushered Sawbones in, locking the door behind him.
        
        Rather than entering the kitchen, Sawbones went into a narrow hallway, its floor caked with blood, and upended the bag.
        
        Baron Tetch stood in the foyer of the manor. His brothers and sisters gathered around him, glassy eyes pleading.
        
        "Eat." He said. They rushed into the narrow hallway. He shut the door to muffle the nightmarish din of their supper.
        
        Sawbones padded into the foyer, sans boots and apron. He bowed his head before Tetch. "Go downstairs." Tetch ordered. "I'll be down later." The rotter shuffled off.
        
        Sawbones didn't eat with the others. Measures had been taken to ensure that, the dog's skull among them. He only took nourishment intravenously, not only because he was charged with the task of fetching meat for the undead, but because Baron Tetch didn't want his father to heal too much, to regain any scraps of memory. Worse yet, of his personality.
        
        The manor in earlier years had been known as the Addison Estate. Addison himself had been