Only The Dead Don't Die by A.D. Popovich Read Free Book Online Page B

had any telekinetic abilities. A voice inside her head warned, “ Go Now !” She wanted to trust her intuition. But, opening that door wasn’t going to be that easy as an unreasonable fear surged through her veins, chilling her blood to ice.
    Finally, she got the nerve to chance a glance out of the small window. It was almost dawn, and the new morning light seemed to urge her to depart. Clutching the bat, she cautiously opened the door wide enough to get a better view of the backyard. She didn’t see any of them (creepers, she thought). Still, it took all her courage to take that first step outside. She tiptoed past the redwood deck, and to her horror realized she had just walked past two of them . They had been hidden from her view, sitting on the patio with their backs against the wall and their heads slumped over. Passers-by would have thought they were suffering from a mere hangover if it weren’t for their tattered, bloodstained clothing. And the putrid odor.
    Too late, she couldn’t go back to the shed now; she didn’t have the nerve to go past them again. So, she continued on, edging herself against the side of the house towards the front yard, gathering the courage to check out the street.
    There’s my car! The strangest thing, the plane crash survivors—creepers were everywhere, scattered around her car. Only, they weren't staggering around. No. They seemed to be asleep, asleep in the oddest positions. It looked as if they had all been zapped by a Cosmic-Taser gun and had just flopped instantaneously to the ground in whatever contorted state they had been in at the moment of being zapped.
    Could she do it? Could she sneak to the car without waking the creepers? What if the car didn’t start? Did I leave it running? It could be out of gas . . .
    “Just go. NOW!” The voice inside her head warned. Her shin throbbed from last night’s accident with the tricycle; she impatiently shrugged the pain away and crept lightly to the car while her heart threatened to jump out of her throat.
    Scarlett tiptoed to the car, carefully stepping over several charred-mangled bodies, and she found herself holding her breath at the foul stench wafting in the air, like the smell of a decaying animal left under the house to rot, the smell of death. She counted the steps. The car was only three feet away, but it was surrounded by creepers, writhing about on the pavement in an apparent restless, sleep-like state.
    They were waking up—right now. And she was standing in the middle of them. And all she had to do was take one more step and open the car door. But her body went numb. Petrified. A series of thoughts flashed through her head: What if the door’s locked? What if the car didn’t start? Should she run back to the shed? No. They will find me this time. The words came to her from out of the blue.
    She swallowed hard and reached for the door handle. One more step . . . her foot was stuck; she couldn’t reach the handle by an inch. Scarlett gasped as a gnarly hand latched onto her lavender, kitten-heel pump, scraping her ankle with his knobby-bloodstained fingers. Just one more step , one more step before he really wakes up. With half-closed eyes, he lethargically put her lavender pump in his mouth like a sleepy toddler seeking the comfort of a pacifier. She didn’t yank her foot back, afraid of waking him while she balanced herself on one foot, trying to decide on her best move. If she fell, she’d land on at least two or three of the disfigured bodies writhing about on the pavement below her.
    She tried to release her foot from the pump, but her feet were sweaty, and her sockless foot stuck to the fake-leather sole with the tenacity of Gorilla Glue. Suddenly it let out an unbearable moan and lurched up from the ground unexpectedly only to collapse back down on its back, claiming her shoe in the process. Scarlett could not stifle her scream; it just came out.
    Suddenly they all woke up at once, but they seemed to find it