Undead L.A. 2 by Devan Sagliani Read Free Book Online

taking bites out of cows and other livestock as they went. He could feel himself drifting again, the heavy pull of sleep attempting to take him back under. He was utterly exhausted. He caught a glimpse of his dream once more and allowed it to fully form in his mind's eye.
    It's like a vision of hell, he thought, or something as close to hell as I ever want to see.
    He'd been dreaming he was at a fast food restaurant, some place like McDonalds only closer to a bad retro television commercial version of the restaurant than a real one. All the customers were undead ghouls, faces dripping pus from angry boils, pale greenish skin, blood streaming from their eyes and noses, and chipped black teeth. They were making that bone chilling sucking sound they made between feedings, like a foreign tongue from a place you never wanted to visit. The manager, a fat, middle-aged fuck with a chipper smile plastered on his face, was taking their orders just like they were still real, normal, living people. He'd ask them what they wanted, and then translate their grunts and moans while hitting register keys.
    “Okay then, so that will be a number five, hold the sauce, with a regular Coke, and a number sixteen with extra cheese and a large Diet. Can I interest you in an apple pie with your order today sir? No? All right then that will be sixteen seventy-five, please.”
    Each time, the order and number were different, but the response was just the same. When he was done gabbing his rosy fucking cheeks off, the hungry corpse would reach up with his dirty, blood streaked hands—in some cases with the skin peeling off to reveal bone and sinew—and hand him a single gold coin. He'd then turn around, grab a shiny rectangular plastic tray with a wounded crow on it, and hand it to his eager customer. The zombies twisted those injured birds like they were balls of fresh baked bread, stuffing the helpless creatures into their grayish mouths and chewing hard, while plumes of black oily feathers fluttered in the air, obscuring their terrible gnashing teeth. A loud ruckus from the back resounded, as if hundreds of birds were back somewhere in the kitchen, awaiting their gruesome fate.They grew so loud they seemed to be coming from all around him. Then, without warning, they came from behind the manager and flooded into the restaurant like living smoke.
    The monsters broke from their single-file line, flapping and screaming, and began chasing the birds as the fowl looked for an exit from the locked room full of big plate glass windows. The crows shrieked out in panic as they were plucked from the air mid-flight and jammed into a mesh of biting teeth between dead lips. The last thing Tyler saw was the manager, swarmed by black flapping wings, his bloody hands pounding on the plate glass as the fiendish ghouls tore bloody chunks from his back and shoulders. Gold coins fell from his torn pockets, and the incessant demonic cawing drowned out his screams.
    Tyler awoke again, the sound of the birds echoing in every direction outside. Something was stirring them up, possibly some other living beings. He could hear them swooping around, calling and responding to each other.
    Fuck, Tyler thought. How long can we wait in here before the building gives in and they swarm us? Why did we lock ourselves in here in the first place? How the hell did we get here?
    He knew exactly how he'd ended up trapped in a shed for the official end of the world party. He'd been running through the neighborhood looking for his girlfriend, Emily. It didn't matter that there were zombies outside at the time. It didn't matter that he'd just lost both his parents and his little sister, or that his older brother, Sean, was begging him not to go. He knew he didn't have a choice. He had to go find her; that's all there was to it. Emily was, and always would be, his whole world. He was closer to her than he'd ever been to another living soul.
    There isn't anything I wouldn't do for her, Tyler