The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel Read Free Page B

ablaze. A big orange fireball shot up so high the tops of the pines out back started burning as well and even from afar I was buffeted by this wind so hot that it nearly took my breath. A few seconds earlier, I'd heard tires screeching and turned just in time to see a pickup plow into the station. There was just enough time for me to start recognizing some of the people piled into the bed of the truck before they were all engulfed by the explosion.
    But even then one of them was still coming for me. He was all lit up, covered from head to toe in flames and leaving burning footprints in his wake. If he felt any pain as the skin and muscle crackled and dripping fat hissed like frying bacon, he didn't give any signs. Just kept staggering down the middle of the road. Like something from one of those movies I used to love so much. Only this wasn't some stunt man in a special suit covered with flammable jelly. It wasn't even really a he: this human shaped torch was all that was left of what had used to be Bob Hightower .
     Me and 'ole Bob had grown up together. We played little league and went fishing and shared most of the same classes when we finally hit junior high; the first sip of beer I ever had was filched from Old Man Hightower's cooler... the first breast I ever saw was from peeking through the keyhole as his sister undressed for the night. But if he coulda made it to me, he wouldn't have been reaching those fiery arms around me for a brotherly hug. I knew this as surely as I knew that no living man could be so engulfed by fire and live longer than a minute or so.
    And, at that moment, I knew things would never be the same again.
     
    Shit, I'm cold. So fucking cold it feels like I should be able to see my breath. At the same time, though, there's this sheen of sweat on my chest and my hair is so damp it's practically plastered to my skull. And that damn gash just keeps right on oozing.
    I'm almost out of clothes to use and flies have started buzzing around the ones I've thrown to the side like it's a flippin' buffet or something. When I switched out the t-shirt for the sweater I've got pressed against me now, I stole a little peek at the wound. Can't believe I'd actually almost convinced myself that maybe it wasn't really so bad. That maybe it was just a flesh wound that was bleeding like hell.
    But looking into that bite was like gazing into a canyon of meat. Crags of torn muscle jutted out from the walls of the chasm and I could see glints of bone down there, like the fossil of some extinct beast preserved for all eternity. And at the bottom of the canyon there was this crimson lake that seemed to throb and pulse with subterranean forces.
    I saw a fish leap out of that pool, it's scales flashing brilliant silver in the mid-day sun before splashing back into the thick, red liquid. And, nestled between a clump of gristle and a severed artery, a lizard poked its head out as if making sure no predators were circling overhead before committing itself to basking on the canyon walls.
    And then I felt like I was falling, the wind buffeting my hair and whistling in my ears as the bottom of the chasm grew closer with each passing second. There was no fear, no moments of regret or wishing my life had turned out differently: I saw myself reflected in the lake of blood below and was perfectly content to simply watch as my scarlet twin grew ever larger.
    When I hit bottom there was a blinding flash of pain that dissolved the world into an infinite field of white. I heard screaming, the sound distant and hollow like it was reaching me from the far end of a cavern or tunnel.
    The scream grew louder and I began to feel a burning in my throat; at the same time I realized that the voice calling out in such agony and torment was my own the blank whiteness shattered like an exploding light bulb. These tiny shards of reality pierced the wound in my side, brought everything back into sharp focus real quick like.
    But for a moment, delirium