The Hungry Dead by John Russo Read Free Book Online

he was examined.
    Tiffany pushed the rear passenger door open and jumped down onto the gravel.
    Spaz and Blake prodded the Mathews folks with their rifle barrels and ordered them to get out pronto.
    â€œGo ahead,” Tiffany said. “Take them in and cage them.”
    The two hired thugs herded Albert, Meg, and Stevie into a barnlike building.
    Then Tiffany cooed to Hawk, coaxing him seductively. “Come on, don’t be afraid. You can follow me. I won’t hurt you.”
    After a little more coaxing, Hawk stepped down from the van and let Tiffany lead him by his hand. The fang marks on his neck still glistened, oozing a bit of blood.
    â€œThat’s it, Hawk,” Tiffany coaxed softly. “Come on, now . . . come to Tiffany. You’re such a good boy, Hawk. You’d follow me anywhere, wouldn’t you? You know that I gave you your life back. Now come with me. If you behave, we’re going to feed you.”
    Tiffany was used to her strange powers now, and she actually relished them. At first she had hated finding out that, after she had recovered from porphyria, she had developed a blood craving. But she enjoyed it now, not just the taste of human blood, but the fact that along with the craving came a special power. If she bit someone and drank enough of his or her blood to cause death, the victim would arise again as a zombie and would be under her complete control. This made her feel invincible, all-powerful. Hawk was a big man, stupid but strong, and an ordinary woman would be no match for him if he turned brutal. But this cut no ice with Tiffany. She enjoyed dominating big, blustery men like him. And she could do it any time she wanted to.
    She hated the underlying stench of the cages in the barnlike building that adjoined her father’s laboratory. It was masked by an exorbitant use of bleach and disinfectants, but Tiffany’s sense of smell was as strong as a bloodhound’s, and the odor of old or dead things came through to her in spite of extraordinary attempts to mask it.
    However, she wanted to visit the new captives that Spaz and Blake had brought in two days ago, for she was always curious about people who seemed to lead the ordinary sort of lives that she felt had to be quite boring and useless; in fact, it gratified her to think that because it made her more satisfied with her own circumstances. That’s why she had decided to lead Hawk into his cage while they took care of the Mathews family and got them into their new accommodations.
    After Hawk was prodded into a cage by himself, still muzzled so he wouldn’t, in his hunger, start gnawing into his own arm, Tiffany went over to the cage that imprisoned the known serial killer Chub Harris. He didn’t know it yet, but he was going to become zombie feed. Or maybe he did actually know it by now. Maybe he had figured it out.
    â€œHow many women have you raped and killed?” Tiffany asked him.
    â€œWhat’s it to you ?”
    â€œI like murderers,” she said. “They turn me on. If what you have to say pleases me, I could set you free, get you out of here.”
    â€œHa! Why should I believe you?”
    â€œBecause my father owns this laboratory.”
    â€œThen he’s not going to risk letting me go. I might tell on him.”
    â€œTell on him for what?”
    â€œKidnapping. Holding me against my will.”
    â€œHaven’t you done that to quite a few women?”
    Chub’s dry, chapped lips formed a sly, gloating smile, and the lip-stretching smile made one of the chapped places crack open and bleed.
    Tiffany looked at the trickle of blood on Chub’s lips, but she had absolutely no urge to lick it. Everything about this creep turned her off. She felt that his blood would poison her. Just looking at it made her want to puke.
    â€œI fuck the women’s brains out,” Chub boasted. “Then I make sure they can’t give their filthy pussies to anyone else but