Devouring The Dead (Book 1) Read Free

about nothing. He would spend the day in a nice warm office, meet some new people, and go home a little bit richer than when he started. Sadly for Tom, he was wrong; he would never go home again.
    * * * *
    Sally ran so hard; she thought her lungs were going to burst. As a trained nurse, she knew that was not possible, not literally, but she had seen other things today that she knew were not possible; not in the world she lived in, and yet she had seen them. The unimaginable horrors she had seen would not be shaken from her; she forced herself to forget and think about home. She had to get home. Her son would need picking up from school soon. She had to get out of here. Her son needed her.
    Sally kicked off her shoes as she ran and left them behind. Her bare feet hurt on the road , but she could run faster without her shoes slipping in the rain. She glanced over her shoulder; they were still coming.
    When they had brought the body in , they hadn’t known the true issue they were dealing with. A male had been found in Stepney Green Park, apparently attacked, the victim of a mugging, and left for dead. First reports were that he had suffered a heart attack, but he had suffered facial wounds consistent with a beating. Whoever had called it in, had been a poor judge, as they had told them that the man was dead. When he arrived at the hospital, he was very much alive. They had to restrain him as he lashed out whenever they tried to help him.
    They had taken him straight to ER and worked on him , but he died shortly after. They thought it was a simple mugging gone wrong, although gouging someone’s eyes out for twenty quid was unusual. The police went to inform his next of kin, while they, Doctor Collins and Nurse Tina, noted the time of death and began tidying up. The man had fought for his life; he had regained consciousness very briefly before the end, spluttering something about the dark before passing out. His body had been wracked with convulsions and he had vomited blood everywhere. From the state he was in, she had wondered if it really was a simple mugging gone wrong; now she knew better.
    As she cleaned the blood off the floor, she heard Tina cry out. Sally had looked up to find the deceased jogger sitting up on the hospital bed, and biting Tina’s arm. As Tina tried to push him off, the man bit her harder, ripping skin and tissue away. As the blood poured over Tina’s uniform, Doctor Collins tried to push the man back down. Sally could see the Doctor was confused. He had been declared dead two minutes ago, and there was no way they had got it wrong. Sally had to admit she had frozen. She had been trained to deal with angry patients, dangerous ones, and people with mental problems or on drugs; but a dead man coming back to life?
    By the time she sounded the alarm , it was too late. Doctor Collins was dead and Tina lay dying. The deceased ran out into the corridor, oblivious to Sally, and she could still hear the echoing screams from the corridor now. After that, it was total mayhem. People were been running all over the place. She heard the police firing shots, something she never dreamed would happen in her hospital, ever.
    Venturing out into the corridor , she saw bodies everywhere, people bleeding all over the floor, bloody hand prints on the wall, and a trail of blood and vomit indicating where the deceased man had gone. Doctor Collins rushed out of the emergency room behind her and grabbed her. Luckily, he slipped in a pool of blood and crashed into a gurney. Sally had frozen once again, incredulous that the Doctor could be back on his feet. She had seen his throat being ripped out only minutes earlier. She saw other people in the hospital too, patients she had treated earlier, running around, biting, and clawing at anyone moving. An old wheelchair bound woman, Edith Smyth, crippled with Parkinsons, was holding a young boy up against the wall, sucking at his ragged neck like a vampire. As a doctor ran past, Sally