The Dead Live On by Julie Cooper Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

down, but it did not stop her, she stumbled but she kept running. The camera operator followed the chase. The man caught up to her, you could hear him yelling though you couldn’t hear what he was saying. He reached out as he closed the distance between them, got a handful of her hair and yanked her backwards. She was screaming bloody murder and he began screaming as well as he tore into the back of her head with his teeth. The operator of the camera was getting bold, and nearing the scene. You could hear the people that had gathered, saying, “Oh, my God.  Let her go, dude.” People began crowding around them, you could see that they wanted to try to help, but they were in shock of what they were seeing. While the woman still screamed, the man was taking chunks out of her face then spitting them out. He threw her down and his hands went up to grasp his head and he screamed into the air and was crying, the bystanders were petrified and no one seemed to move any closer to them at that point. The woman tried skittering away, begging him for her life, but he saw her and pulled her back to him, fell onto her and tore into her breast. They were both covered in blood and the camera man was getting even closer. The man was crying in great anguish and now we could hear that he was screaming that he was sorry. He stopped biting her long enough to vomit on the ground beside her. Then with a look of disgust he continued to tear into her body.
    The woman had stopped screaming by then, but the cries of the man continued as he ripped something out of her and resumed eating. His face was a mass of different emotions, but the emotion that showed mos t on his bloody face was pain. The camera guy got a little too close, the man saw him and his expression changed into one of a predator, then he sprang up off the ground quick as lightning and rushed him. The camera fell to the ground. The people began screaming and running in all directions. The video was over.
    The soldier went on to explain to us that not all of the people infecte d became this way, just a few. It was something to do with an individual’s immune system. They were actually normal except for the Hunger controlled them, and they had uncanny speed. That after about three hours of being in this state, they then became your ‘regular ole zombie’. He told us that all infected were taken over on Bayshore to the Sweet Bay parking lot to be put down and burned with the rest of the Infected in a great big bonfire. He also said that since our neighbor hadn’t returned yet, that she was most likely roasted by now, and if we took a big whiff of the air we would smell her burning, and he said all that with a smile. He told us not to mention what we saw on the video to anyone, (knowing we would) and then he told us to get on back in our house lest the same thing happen to us. He was feeling pretty good about his new found position of authority.
    I found myself taking a deep breath through my nose and saw that Evan had, too. I could sure enough smell the faint stench of burning flesh.  A wave of anger swept through me and I raised my hands as if to grab his throat and choke the life right out of him. Evan grabbed me just in time; he bear hugged me from behind and folded my forearms down across each other in front of me. The fucker laughed at me.
    How fucking dare he, I wanted to slap the smile off his face so bad I could hardly control my limbs, I was shaking with self-restraint, trying not to fight to get away fro m Evan and box that boy’s ears. I was so mad that I felt my face burning as if I could suffocate from the heat of it, and I became a little faint. Sue was not just my neighbor, I considered her my friend. She had a husband and two little boys waiting at home. As I thought of these things, I stood in his face and a long, loud scream of rage broke from my throat. He flinched and raised his gun, but he kept smiling.
    Evan was angry as well, but remained in control to keep me