The Black Death by Aric Davis Read Free Book Online

compartment of the van, Matt gave a look to the bag. Somehow, leaving it with these two assholes was worse than whatever it was that they were making him clear out of the van for. Resigning himself to the reality of what was happening, Matt stepped outside of the van and slid the door shut behind him. Fast movement just ahead of him caught his peripheral vision enough for him to see Free’s arm extend the shotgun out of thevan. Matt dove to the earth as Free fired the heavy-gauge into the air. Matt’s ears were ringing from the concussion of the gun, but not so much that he couldn’t hear Free call out to him, “Best get up,” as he rolled up the passenger window of the van. Matt did a quick push off the ground in order to stand next to the van. Someone of his experience wouldn’t need to be told that something very bad was going to happen, but he figured just about anybody could have read the signs here. Wondering what was coming, Matt didn’t have to wait long.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    It sounded like a dog running, but Matt had never heard a dog big enough to make the kind of noise that whatever was coming for him was making. Putting his back to the van, Matt took stock of the situation. He was unarmed, something was coming for him, and there was almost nothing he could do about it.
    As the sound grew louder, the impossible-to-ignore instinct to either run or fight came over Matt, and he slowed his breathing as best as he was able, steeling his nerves and pushing fear into a little pebble in the back of his mind so he could stare deep into the zero, that place where fear cannot live. From the blackness, the creature came roaring toward him.
    The beast was the man Free and Danimal had brought to the bar earlier, and he was running like an animal, just as the teenager who had attacked Frank had.
    Matt watched the scurrying pattern of the man, a man he felt quite sure had eyes colored obsidian and a dust of burned corpse worms coming from his nostrils. As the thing leaped for Matt, he dove to the ground, just as he had an eternity earlier when Free had fired the sawed-off from the van. The man’s leap was interrupted by the van as the space that Matt had occupied was emptied, and the sound of him hitting the vehicle was like a steel drum.
    The man collapsed from the van to his side, howling like a wounded animal, before righting himself as Matt ran around the van and headed to the trailer, its front door open but an impossible distance away. The headlights from the van cut swathes in the darkness, and Matt moved toward the house as the noise of footsteps on pine needles and packed earth began again in earnest.
    Diving to the ground at the second the noise stopped, Matt pulled his head up just in time to see the man illuminated by the beams of the van and blocking his path to the trailer. The man was down on all four limbs, his eyes jet and yet still focused on Matt. Closer to the trailer now, Matt was momentarily distracted by the smell of rot coming from it. Then the beast was moving toward him again, and Matt let it come, tense on the balls of his feet.
    This time when the man leaped toward him, Matt was aware of two things: it was exerting massive amounts of energy in the all-or-nothing attacks, and if it got him on his back as that kid in town had done to Frank, it was going to be all over. Ready to pounce as the thing doveat him, Matt pivoted on his right foot, letting the man turned animal soar past him, and when it was at the apex of its jump and level with his shoulder, Matt hammered a closed fist into the back of its head, sending it tumbling hard to the ground, much slower to recover this time. Taking the opening, Matt jumped to the porch and ran into the trailer, leaving the door open behind him, on the hunt for a weapon.
    The inside of the trailer was a mess. The glass pipe that had been in the van when Danimal’s torch had mercifully run out of fuel sat on a table littered with fast-food trash and empty beer