Raven Moon Read Free Page A

compact away. Ravens, even in human form, loved preening as much as any other bird. She shifted. After rousing her feathers into place, the velvet black raven flew off to meet the zombie road party.
    Rave landed beneath an oak tree, shifted to human form and waved. “Poultry over here!”
    Like a sea of minnows, they changed course toward her, a human. A crescendo of moans and snarling mews headed her way. She casually strolled away, the Pied Piper of zombies. Every once in a while, she twisted to make sure they were off the road and heading her way. About twenty draggers still littered the road. “Come and get me!”
    Finally, the stragglers left the road and scrambled into the mixed woodland, seeking out the other white meat.
    As she climbed a hill, a swarm suddenly appeared and limped, shambled and half jogged toward her. “Holy shit.” Trapped. She stepped back to shift when a male twenty-something beach blond zombie grabbed her shoulder.
    Rave’s adrenalin spiked to Defcon 1 and she slugged an upper cut to his jaw as he moved to bite. He staggered back. His mouth bloodied, he gazed at her as if ready to say, ‘dude, what was that for?’ Zombies clawed toward her. She shot surfer dude, secured her weapon, and shifted.
    The zombies moaned a hungry, ‘huh?’ Their meal had vanished.
    Rave almost went into bird paralysis. Oh, shit. On the ground surrounded by stinking confused zombies was not the time to freeze. She hopped in between rotting legs. Trampled to death by zombies was a shitty way to go. How was she going to get enough room to spread her wings for flight? The view was equally gross and fascinating in a ghastly way.
    Their shoes were threadbare. Not a big surprise after what must have been hundreds of miles of aimlessly roaming around in search of humans. Quite a few walked in bare feet, having lost their sneakers to the weather or over use. Their ugly purple blistering feet were in various stages of grossness that included broken toes, missing toes and bones protruding out like porcupine needles. Their clothing was bloodstained and in tatters. She almost wished she had brought her sketchbook, imagining drawing them from the safety of the tree above. Of late, her art subjects were zombies rather than the usual werewolves. Her witch friend Dora called her art gruesome but from a doctor’s point of view most informative. Rave thought her art would someday land in future museums like the art during the Black Death, depicting skeletons and the angel of death in the Dance Macabre. In a twisted way, it honored the death of the innocents.
    Not if I get trampled. She pecked at ankles, and the zombies reacted but not in pain, just in their mindless ability to avoid pressure from something keeping them from a good food source. Her new trapped friends. A female zombie slipped and landed on her, smothering her in a blanket of rotting odor and slime. Ooh, was she melting? Good thing the zombie was a thin girl of maybe sixteen years of age and small, otherwise, Rave would have been crushed. Shifters, especially the avian variety could easily be killed, unlike the more powerful werewolves and bear shifters. Each time the girl moaned, her foul breath threatened to gag the smothered raven, flapping her wings in desperation. She cawed in disgust, a mistake because the sound caught the clumsy zombie’s attention. The girl sniffed her but Rave managed to drag herself away from zombie girl.
    Rapid gunfire erupted. Rave clung on to a tall zombie’s blue jeaned ass, avoiding being trampled by the riotous zombie mob as they veered toward the sound. Cashel shouted, “Zombie scum, over here!”
    Rave reached the zombie’s head as clumps of his oily hair fell off and she fluttered to the tree. Once on the safety of the branch, she puked. The van sped down the road, heading in the direction of the Megamarket. She flew back to the building’s roof, shifted and whipped out her compact. Slime covered her shoulder-length hair and