Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row by Sean Robert Lang Read Free Book Online Page B

he could bring her back. Wished he could see her chest move with life again, her lips smile, her lids flutter. Eyes glow. Smell her lavender bath soap mix with her natural scent. But his grieving tears held no such magical, mystical healing power, and she remained… dead. Ironic, in a world where the dead lived.
    He clutched his chest, bowed his head. Southern Comfort could only comfort so much.  
    After he had loaded up her body that day, he decided to check out Mitch’s place one last time. He presumed that Sammy and Gills had killed David, finished him off, as it were. Left the body for the biters and vultures and dogs… and maggots. Given the hellish depth of Tom’s rage and need for a very specific spiritual restitution, he had to be sure. His future, his existence—his life—hinged on destroying David. But he found no body—at least not the one he was looking for, and he again thanked the god beneath his heels.
    He did find two friends, though. Two friends he thought he’d lost forever. The reunion lit a ring of hope around his hurting heart, his love for them second only to the love for his wife. Gleaming resplendently in the dirt of the drive, among the weeds and the rocks and spilled blood, were Bessie and Bertha—his beloved Ruger Vaquero pistols.
    This wasn’t just a fortuitous find; it went beyond chance or luck. Destiny, not serendipity, had brought him and his steel back together. Tools of reckoning, extensions of himself. Fate was giving him the green light, the go ahead, and he had every intention of doing just that.
    In Mitch’s yard and in the pasture, under a bright morning sun, he found no Sammy, no Guillermo. No David. Tom had checked each and every corpse in the vicinity, while adding a few others to the collection, and discovered only twice-dead strangers. This delighted him, further proved that his mission of vengeance—his calling—was right and true. He would kill David. He would kill Sammy. He would kill Guillermo. Jessica. Randy. Bryan. He would kill them. All of them.
    He stole another sip of Southern Comfort before movement by the building snagged his eye, and he smiled a smug, knowing smile. Four or five men, armed and searching, as though looking for an intruder. An uninvited guest. A living one. Bryan had delivered.
    Well done, kiddo.
    Tom stepped back, pinching the brim of his hat. He felt invulnerable there, veiled in the tree’s shroud and shadow. He doubted the men could see him. His observation post, roughly two-hundred yards south of the building, was on the edge of the woods, immediately behind the barbed wire fence that divided forest from field. Even if they spotted him and were to light out after him, he’d have a significant head start. Never mind that he had more bullets than there were people to chase him. And he was a good shot. A very good shot.
    As he watched the men sweep the grounds inside the wrought iron fence, he tugged back his coat’s edge, rested a palm on Bessie, his six-shooter. His heart fluttered, happy to have the western-style wheel gun holstered on his hip once again. He felt complete, whole. Dangerous.
    Immortal.
    “Curb your jealousy, Bertha,” he drawled to the eight-shooter hanging low on his other hip. “You’ll both get your chance at the big dance.”
    In his mind’s eye, he rehearsed David’s death for the umpteenth time—visualizing, really seeing it happen. He envisaged a gleaming Bessie, her majestic barrel pressed to David’s terrified heart. The scarlet spray of the first kill shot. David’s heart conceding this life, wispy white smoke coiling from the empty hole, a symbolic white flag of surrender.
    I… give… up.
    Life essence extinguished.
    Tom would watch, wait for David to turn. And he would turn. He’d become… a biter. But before he could take that first bite, before David could taste the living, Tom—
    Doc
    —would press Bertha’s equally magnificent barrel between David’s foggy eyes. He’d revel in that