Die Dead Enough Read Free Page A

long, long time.
    "Slide the side door open, Gibby," Conor said, glancing around outside.
    "Fuuuuck that!" came the response.
    "Goddammit," Aiden cursed, spinning and jumping in the back seat, shoving Gibby to the side. He quickly peered over the seat into the rear for some sort of weapon. Microphone stand. He leaned over, snatched one from the back and disassembled it, spinning the base free and throwing it to the side.
    Aiden quickly slid the door open, mic stand in hand.
    "Klaus! Klaus! Over here!" he shouted and immediately, dead-things spun on their heels, bodies swaying as they considered this new attraction. "It's Aiden, Conor's brother!"
    Klaus turned, searching for the source of the voice, his wife clinging to him, trying to hide her face in his back. He split another zombie's skull and then noticed the van, his eyes growing wide with hope. They could see him mouth something to his wife and her head pop up as Klaus kicked out at another pair of monsters as they came for him.
    "Come on, man!" Conor called out, noticing groups of zombies beginning to stampede toward them. "There's no more time!"
    Klaus made a break for it, cracking another across the skull with the tire iron and shouldering it to the side. It fell to its back, its arms and legs still jerking and clawing out for victims. Klaus pulled his wife along, a blonde-haired woman a little on the large side, who was not making his job any easier. She was too frightened to cooperate and each time she saw another zombie, she froze in place.
    They were only a hundred yards from the van.
    "Hurry up!" Aiden said as a zombie reached the van and lurched toward him, its jaw hanging oddly on its face, Cardinals baseball cap seemingly welded to its decayed forehead. Aiden kicked out, sending the thing stumbling backward, but another joined it, grabbing Aiden by the jacket and nearly pulling him from the van. He had almost lost his balance and pitched headfirst into the street, but Gibby grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back into the seat.
    Aiden drove the microphone stand into the thing's eye. It went deeper than he expected - perhaps because the tissue had been dead for some time - the stand breaking through the back of the skull and shooting black, chunky brains everywhere. The microphone stand became stuck, the zombie impaled on it, reaching out for Aiden, its remaining eye focused on him with an animal hatred.
    More were on their way.
    Aiden braced himself and kicked out, yanking the stand out, falling back into the seat.
    Klaus and his wife had nearly reached the sidewalk, but suddenly the woman fell. They could see that a legless zombie had grabbed her around the ankle and ripped her from Klaus's grasp. Klaus spun and shouted her name, racing back to stomp on the thing, his heavy boot caving in the front of the thing's head. He pulled her to her feet, but another group of zombies had reached them, fingernails and teeth reaching out for them.
    "Shit!" Aiden said and jumped from the van, sprinting toward them. He ducked as a zombie came from behind a parked car, its arms outstretched, reaching for his head. It missed him completely, but headed for the open door of the van. Gibby, upon seeing this, nearly shit himself, reaching back for the door handle. He was shoved back as Conor launched himself into the back seat.
    "You close that door and I'll kill you. We're not leaving my brother here to die," Conor said in anger. The zombie reached them, jaws chomping as it leaned into the van. Conor kicked out as hard as he could, the thing's sternum cracking as his Doc Martin caved in its chest. All those years of Tae Kwon Do finally paid off, it seemed.
    The creature was not deterred, only coughing up a black foam and returning.
    Conor glanced around him for some sort of weapon, but there was nothing near at hand. On instinct he grabbed the door handle and jerked the van's door closed on the zombie's head, globs of cold blood leaping from its eye sockets and hitting the