Zombies II: Inhuman Read Free Page A

streets
below. Yellowed teeth, slick with something red and warm, gnawed at
him as ragged fingernails dug into his flesh.
    A knock that sounded like machine gun fire
tore him out of his nightmare. As he awoke he realized Apparition
had been with him in his dream. The man had screamed three words
over and over again as the dead ripped Thorne apart and the ghost
watched on. "Victor. . .The end. Victor. .. The end."
    Thorne pulled himself out of bed as the knock
became even faster.
    "Hey man, you dead in there or what?" he
heard Nate yell.
    Thorne opened the door. Nate stood in the
hall with a plate of food. "Figured you'd want breakfast amigo.
Victor wants to talk with you pronto so I didn't think you'd have
time to hit the kitchen."
    Thorne eyed the plate, his mouth watering.
"Are those real eggs?"
    "You bet," Nate answered. "Snagged them from
a farm just outside of the city."
    Thorne took the plate sitting down at one of
the room's worktables.
    He shoved a computer to the side and started
shoveling the eggs in his mouth.
    "Take it easy man. You're not going to be
starving anymore like you were out there."
    Thorne looked up at Nate to say thanks but
Nate was long gone.
    He took a bite out of a piece of toast and
wondered what Victor really wanted from him. He longed to take a
look into Victor's mind but he'd promised he wouldn't and his life
depended on that promise if Victor really had a way to know when he
used his gift.
    Thorne found Victor waiting for him on the
roof. The tall blond man stood like a king on top of the hospital
looking out at the horizon.
    He paid no attention to the thousands of dead
who wandered about below. "I trust you slept well," Victor stated
not even bothering to glance at Thorne.
    Thorne moved to stand beside him. "It was
certainly a change from being down there."
    "Thorne, I am not going to lie to you. The
room you are staying in belonged to my father, Samuel. He hurt us
all badly."
    "Samuel," Thorne answered. "Arc mentioned him
yesterday. She said he betrayed you, switched sides."
    "It's true. The world may be dead but we're
still at war, Thorne. I'm not talking about the dead. They are
seldom a real threat to such as we. It's the norms that are the
danger and it's them that my father left us for."
    "You mean people? There are still people left
alive out there?"

    "Yes. The last great holdout of mankind lies
just beyond this city. When we first took shelter here my father
approached them and sought an alliance with them. He thought that
together we could start over, bring the world back from its knees
rather than merely watch it slide slowly into death's waiting arms
as it is now. But can you guess how they reacted?"
    Thorne shook his head.
    "They came for us Thorne like a mob hunting
down Frankenstein's monster. They called us freaks. They feared us
more than they did the dead. Some of them even blamed us for the
dead tearing their way out of the ground. They sent a group of
heavily armed killers in place of a diplomatic party to eliminate
our threat to their existence once and for all. They broke into our
home, wounded Nate and Arc before I could intervene and would've
killed us in cold blood if they had been able. I fed them to the
dead in pieces. It was clear to me then, Thorne, that if the world
is to be reborn, it must be people like us who take charge.
    "My father disagreed. Even then he couldn't
be made to understand the truth. We held a meeting and the other
four of us of agreed that we would take the norms sanctuary by
force. They would be made to see that we were not a threat. They
would serve us and help us begin again. My father would have
nothing of it. Outvoted though, he had little choice but to go
along with our plans. When the day came, he turned on us. You see
Thorne; my father is a tele-mechanic and a genius. He understands
machines in way no one can. Even in this barren world I have seen
him create technological marvels beyond anything mankind ever
achieved in all its