Die Dead Enough Read Free

in a heartbeat, leaving scratches in the paint from her fingernails and they heard her bloodcurdling screams as they devoured her alive.
    At either side, dozens of the undead appeared, hands against the windows, smearing them with blood, pulling on the doors, the van rocking with the weight of their bodies. Conor rolled the van slowly forward as zombies came from everywhere, converging on them, bashing themselves against the front and sides.
    "Where is she?" he said to himself, sitting up in his seat, trying to look over the front of the hood.
    "Just go! Don't worry about her. She's dead," Aiden said, his arm locked in the door handle, pulling it shut.
    The van slid sideways as Conor smashed the gas pedal to the floor. The mass of the creatures was almost too much for the vehicle to overcome, but after a few seconds it began to creep forward, crushing bodies beneath the tires. They heard automatic gunfire from all around them and several of the zombies dropped, their heads exploding on their shoulders. The muzzle flash drew their attention to the top of one of the nearby buildings. As the roof lit up again, they could make out the silhouettes of several gunmen, sweeping the undead crowd with a hail of bullets.
    One shot passed through the back of the van, dangerously close to Gibby's head.
    "Whose side are you guys on?" he screamed, rolling into a ball.
    There was a lull in the automatic weapons fire and they could hear the shooters shouting over the sound of the nearby sirens and screams of terror.
    "Get out of there!" they could hear. "We'll try to clear the way, but you got to go!"
    The gunshots rang out again, blasting chunks of flesh from the zombies, dropping dozens more. Conor stomped on the gas pedal and shoved his way through the crowd, the van picking up speed as the rear end swung to and fro, tires spinning on the guts and gore that now covered the pavement. Then, as one, the creatures turned their heads toward the rooftop, their mouths stretching open in a unified roar, and they bolted for the building.
    Aiden could see it happening from the passenger side as the van peeled off down the street.
    "No... oh, man...they are fucked. These things are attracted to sound," he moaned as he stared back behind them at the disappearing stampede that converged on the source of the unforgiving bullets. He could see the zombies crashing through windows and doors, some climbing the very walls to try to reach the gunmen. "They saved us, but they doomed themselves..."
    The intersection was jammed with cars, several now on fire as people ran in every direction, many chased by zombies. Conor had to jerk the wheel to the left to avoid a mindless group of men, running haphazardly across the street, one holding the bleeding stump of his arm. The van's tires squealed as the vehicle changed direction, now heading west down Laclede's Landing Boulevard.
    "Watch it, man!" Gibby called out from just behind Conor's head. "This is a one-way street - and you're going the wrong way!"
    Conor didn't have time to talk as he weaved around stalled cars and try to avoid the clusters of maddened monsters that had now taken over the city. Everywhere people were dying, devoured by the things.
    Fires had broken out in many places, throwing stark shadows into the street as they raced past. On their right they passed an alleyway, a flurry of action grabbing their attention as they witnessed a large man defending his woman with a tire iron. He was swinging the thing viciously around his head in a circle as the zombies surrounded him, half-rotten faces intent on tasting his flesh.
    "Hold it," Aiden said, staring intently through the glass. "Conor, isn't that Klaus?"
    "What?" Conor replied as he slowed the van to take a look. There was no mistaking his friend, big dude, white goatee. Conor called him Klaus the Viking. "Jesus, it is!"
    Conor paused for a moment, staring at the steering wheel, conflicted.
    I can't just ignore this. Klaus's been my friend for a