DeadBorn by C.M. Stunich Read Free Book Online Page B

turns on the windshield wipers and smears ooze and blood across the glass. We've stopped moving now are sitting in the midst of a hundred broken cars and a thousand slobbering DeadBorn. There's an entire army of skeletons, some with little bits of flesh dangling from their bones and others who've been bleached white by the sun. Alongside them is a whole host of gray skinned corpses grinning back at us with missing lips and shattered heads and police uniforms. From the cop cars on both sides of the road, to the lack of incoming vehicles, I make the guess that there'd been a road block here. Helicopters sound overhead and I get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Are those mummies?” Martin asks quietly, pointing at a cluster of bodies behind the necromancer. I ignore him, certain that I don't give a shit. There's already enough to worry about.
    The woman in the cloak begins to walk forward and the horde shuffles along beside her. They're still groaning and whimpering, but none of them are running or trying to tear us to pieces. I want to say that it makes me feel better, but that would be a lie.
    When I hear Dawson praying behind me, I know that we're going to die. Holly, though, has other ideas. Not even a legion of the undead can phase her. She puts the car in reverse and starts to back away. We can't go very fast as there's a wall of bodies behind us, shoulder to shoulder, a sea of rotten flesh and weeping eyes. I listen very carefully for the sound of helicopters that I hear in the distance, wondering if they'll get here while the zombies are tearing us apart or afterward, when we've joined them in death. Maybe they'll mow us down with machine guns and burn our corpses in the street?
    “ Do you think that's a rescue crew?” Martin asks as if nothing in the world is wrong, but when I smell urine, I look back and see that he's pissed himself. We meet eyes and in his, I see my own mortality glimmering back at me from glassy brown. I spin back to Holly and see that she's focused almost entirely on the woman in the black cloak. As if she can sense my girlfriend's thoughts, the necromancer raises her hand and the DeadBorn behind us part like the Red Sea.
    “ What the fuck?” Dawson whispers, voice quivering as he presses his fingers to the window and stares out at the empty faces around us. We continue in reverse until we hit an exit. Holly then puts the sedan into drive and presses her foot to the floor. We haven't even begun to accelerate when one of the fire faces steps out from behind the crowd of lopers and vomits magma onto the road with a piercing screech. It spews flames into the air like a circus performer and then turns its attention on the DeadBorn around us. When the heat hits the rotting flesh, a stench like no other sweeps into the air vents of the car and slaps us all in the face. I can even taste it on my tongue, like burnt skunk and the sweet tang of rancid meat.
    Dawson and I both vomit which only makes things worse; Martin screams at the top of his lungs like a wounded baby and Holly, the only useful one of us all, puts the car back into reverse, spins us around and rockets us down the highway. I roll the windows down just in time for Martin to puke and close my eyes against the images that are assailing me from every corner of my brain. The flames melted the zombies like candle wax, boiled their flesh and split their faces open like grapes.
    “ Look!” Martin screams and I reluctantly turn around in my seat so that I have a clear view out the back window. Black choppers are spinning through the sky like Frisbees. Attached to them are DeadBorn with rotten, boney wings. They're exploding into lumps of flesh, sliced into pieces by the rotor blades, but it doesn't stop them. They smash through the windows of the helicopters and tear the pilots into pieces. Guns are exploding and bullets are peppering the crowd of undead in random bursts that shake them but don't drop a single one.
    Arms and legs