ocalypse (Book 10): Drawl (Duncan's Story) by Shawn Chesser Read Free Book Online Page B

hit the light splash from above, affording Don a clear look at what had just wandered in from the street.
    If he had been staring into a mirror, his face would wear the
same twisted mask as the riot cop and Childress, who owned the entire top floor
of the building resting over his head. The man who had almost pasted these two
street denizens who looked more dead than alive.
    Suddenly the notion of calling Portland Police Homicide
trumped either building security or ordering lunch from La Carreta de Rosa .
In fact, the latter was put on permanent hold. One eyeful of the two from a
couple of yards away had forever spoiled his appetite.
    The teenager nearest Don had a horrific wound on his neck. The
kind he would have pegged as the work of the Columbian Cartel if only Portland
wasn’t the most unlikely of places for a guy to have his neck slit ear to
throat. Don rose off his seat, a roll of paper towels in one hand, the phone
clutched in the other, and saw that the injury was jagged and likely not created
by a quick swipe of a straight razor.
    A moist growl came from the kid’s mouth, causing a fresh
wave of blood to sluice from the yawning half-moon above his bloody shirt collar.
    “Have a seat on the floor,” Don insisted, as he swung his
gaze to the phone and stabbed 9 on the keypad.
    “I’m getting you help.” Focused on the task at hand, he punched
1 and then cried out as a stabbing pain erupted in his right elbow. A meteor
shower’s worth of tracers clouded his vision as, acting against his will, his right
hand snapped full open, letting the handset fall away. A grating sound reached
his ears as incisors cut through flesh and tendon alike. The wet growl
persisted and his knees grew weak as the gnashing teeth slowly made mincemeat
of the soft flesh under his forearm. Then a dull vibration, starting in his ulna—the
foot-long bone running from wrist to elbow—coursed up his arm and a cold hand
palmed his face, the fingers briefly probing the openings there before worming
their way around back and snagging his gray pony tail.
    His weak call for help was drowned out as the silent one of
the pair clambered overtop the first attacker and their combined weight crushed
the air from his lungs and started a symphony in his head consisting of rushing
blood and his waning heartbeat.
    With the dead weight of the two crushing down on him, Don
heard animalistic grunting and tearing of cartilage as his ear was rent from
his body. He screamed. A guttural wail to wake the dead echoed off the ceiling
as hot blood poured into his ear and cold skin pressed against his exposed
neck. A tick later the kid Don didn’t know from Adam, and certainly had no beef
with, grew tired of the nub of ear and went for the underside of his neck,
trapping several folds of hanging jowl there in a crushing, grinding bite.
    A pain like no other hit Don and his body went limp as he
slipped from consciousness. And as his brain was shutting down from lack of
oxygenated blood, the last figment of thought: a lament about dying and not
attending the Blazer’s Big Man Camp in Vegas this year jumped synapses. Oh how
he enjoyed sharing his vast knowledge of post moves and footwork with the
willing incoming centers, even if he could no longer hold his own physically
among the tall trees.
    Then the spark of life left his staring eyes and his large
frame slid off the chair, dragging the attackers inside with him. The last
thing Don saw as darkness edged out the world around him were the gray wads of chewed
gum pressed to the underside of the wraparound counter.
     

Chapter 9
     
     
    Duncan had returned from Charlie’s kitchen clutching not one
fresh bottle of Bud, but two. Mesmerized by what was taking place in downtown
Portland, he took a long pull from the bottle and set it beside the first,
which was already empty.
    Charlie’s television was a flat screen plasma item nearly as
wide as the battered steamer trunk it was sitting upon. Scratch and Dent
sale , he