Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) by Perrin Briar Read Free Book Online Page A

his throat. His jaw flapped open and closed, his teeth chatting together in a series of clicks. He reached up with his free arm for them, not for help, but in a vulture-like claw, grasping for a morsel of living flesh.
    “Oh my God,” Jordan said. “That’s one of them, isn’t it?”
    “Well, it certainly ain’t Santa Claus,” Joel said.
    Looking into those dead eyes, Jordan was surprised to find the trickle of fear he felt dry up, and was instead replaced by a stronger feeling of derision. The creature before him was not human, but a shell, a poor grotesque impersonation.
    Joel knelt down beside the creature, who sensed a meal and stretched for him. Joel seized the Lurcher’s hand and pulled his arm out straight. The fingertips were ragged, the flesh missing, the bone shining through. “Looks like we found our author. He wrote the warning, I reckon.”
    Something caught Joel’s eye. He aimed the torch up at the giant door. Written across it was ‘Lurchers inside. Do NOT open’.
    “If he doesn’t feel pain, and he won’t die from losing limbs… why doesn’t he just chew his own leg off?” Jordan said.
    “That relies on a certain reserve of intelligence. Fortunately for us, they don’t even have that much.”
    The groan they’d heard had not come from this creature, but from behind the giant metal door. It was low and unbroken, one continuous note that did not change in cadence or pitch.
    “He trapped whatever Lurchers were on board this ferry in this room,” Joel said. “But at some point he must have got scratched or bitten, and became one of them.”
    “ Lucky for us, right?” Jordan said.
    Joel nodded. “It would be if the engine bay wasn’t exactly the place we needed to go.”

14.
    “How many do you suppose are in there?” Anne said, pressing her hand against the door.
    “Sounds like a lot ,” Joel said. “On a boat this big there could have been any number of people becoming Lurchers. You saw how many cars and coaches there were upstairs.”
    “ We need to get inside.”
    “ The moment we open this door they will rush us. We won’t stand a chance.”
    “But th ere might just be a few of them,” Anne said. “We can’t know without looking.”
    “J udging by the state of this boat I’m not even sure if the part we need will be in good working order anyway.”
    “So that’s it? We leave without even trying?”
    Joel rounded on Anne in undisguised anger. “Do you really want to open this door and say hello? I know I don’t.”
    “There must be a way of getting inside without having them rush us.”
    “I’m all ears.” Joel shook his head. “Of all the rooms on this ship, why did he have to trap them in the one we needed?”
    “It was probably the only one that could hold them,” Anne said.
    “So what shall we do?” Jordan said.
    “We need that alternator,” Anne said. “We can’t leave without it.”
    Joel shook his head. “No. We need to stay alive. We’ll find another boat with another alternator.”
    “ You were the one who said we wouldn’t find another boat,” Anne said. “Now we’ve got one and you don’t want to go fight a few Lurchers?”
    The death groan behind the door grew louder as Joel and Anne ’s voices raised. There was a shuffling sound, and scratching on the door. Their groans kicked up a notch, becoming louder and frantic in nature, as if savouring the meal to come.
    “ There goes the element of surprise,” Joel said, the muscles around his nose contorting into a sneer. “Wonderful.”
    T he heavy groans washed over them like the waves on a ship’s hull.
    “ What if there was a way to kill the Lurchers before we entered the room?”
    “ Do you have some psychokinetic ability you’re not telling us about?” Joel asked. “Because if you do, that would really come in handy about now.”
    Jordan ignored him. “What if we flood the engine room?”
    Joel and Anne turned to look at him.
    “What?” Joel said.
    “What if we flood the