Dead City - 01 Read Free Page B

any kind. He was empty. The eyes seemed to look through me into nowhere.
    “Stay down! I’ll hit you again. Stay down!”
    I aimed my next shot more carefully. I took my time and centered the ghost ring right in the middle of his chest.
    He was less than five feet away when I fired, and he took the full force of what a twelve gauge can do. The blow knocked him backwards, off his feet, and laid him out flat on his back.
    At that distance I wouldn’t be surprised if I smashed his sternum into dozens of little pieces.
    I racked the shotgun again. That noise usually clears every room that hears it, but none of those people seemed to care.
    They didn’t run, or blink, or look to each other for support. They never paused at all. Their pace never varied, even when they reached out to grab at us. Every move was slow and plodding, like an old woman trying to climb a flight of stairs.
    More of them were coming around the front of the car now and I fired two more beanbags as quickly as I could at the first two in line.
    The one closest to me went down.
    The one behind him staggered back, but didn’t fall.
    “Stay back!” I yelled. The air around us was filling with gun smoke, and there were so many of them coming at us that, even with the shotgun, I couldn’t keep them back.
    The first guy I bean-bagged walked into my car again. I jammed the barrel into his chest and fired. I fired again as he fell to the ground.
    Chris and I backed up.
    We were out of shells and the shotgun was useless without them.
    I went for my Glock.
    “What are they, Eddie?”
    “Move! Move!” I said, and pushed Chris along the side of the car. I almost had to carry him to get him to go because he was having trouble supporting his own weight. He couldn’t run at all.
    As we reached the back of my car, I froze.
    From between my car and Chris’s car another man stumbled into our path.
    He turned and faced us and in that one moment I lost all composure. His face and his arms were a mess. There was blood everywhere, and his face was so badly shredded that I could barely recognize his features.
    What looked back at me wasn’t a face at all. There was a massive gash starting just below the left eye. It was blood red and protruding from the socket like a squashed grape. The gash opened downward in a jagged triangle that spread around the jawbone, ending at a flap of skin that was caked over with dirt and hanging uselessly from his neck. Gleaming white pearls of teeth showed through the sinews of what remained of his cheek.
    His right arm was just a bloody stump, but he reached for me with it like there was still a hand attached.
    I lowered my weapon in confusion and disgust, then snapped it back up. “Stop! Don’t move!”
    But he kept on moving.
    I fired a single shot square into his chest, and he rocked back on his heels, teetering for a moment before regaining his balance.
    His gory arm came up again, and he reached for me.
    I aimed with both hands.
    My gun barked three times, and all three shots slammed into his chest. Again he rocked back, but I couldn’t make him fall.
    My training told me that it was body armor—nobody can take that kind of pounding unless they’re wearing body armor.
    When he came at me that last time, I aimed for his face and fired a single shot. The bullet struck him in the cheek, and a gory bloom of blood spray and bits of flesh and bone and teeth spread out across the white hood of the police car behind him.
    The man flew backwards, landing on the car’s push bumpers. I watched him struggle to regain his feet and more than anything else in the world I wanted to run as fast and as far away as I could. The shock of what I had just seen and the juice pumping through my system made me want to throw up.
    I grabbed Chris by the shoulder and pushed our way to his car. I tossed him in the backseat and forced my way back to the driver’s seat.
    So many people had gathered around us. They were everywhere, hands tugging at my