Undead Series (Book 1): Blight of the Dead
Page 17
“Take Riley to get some food and let him have a couple hours rest. Then pick out four good men and be ready to go out. Take the Deuce.” Angler turned his gaze back to Riley and Fred, sunken eyes sparkling maliciously, hungrily. “You will lead them to this encampment, subdue the woman and bring them back to me.”
Fred nodded, lips pursed. Disapproval was clear in his expression before he quickly controlled his face. The President did not notice, which was lucky for Fred. Angler had fierce punishments for disobedience. There were six bicycle lockers at the back of the property, man-sized metal boxes with a lock and key. They grew quite hot and humid after a day or two enclosed within, leaving many a man and not a few women to swelter and scream to be let out. Then there was his bullwhip. The President kept it locked in his office in an old metal safe. Angler was not shy in its use. Many of his people sported thin scars that trickled down their backs and buttocks.
“Collect all of the food and supplies that you can but the woman are the priority.”
The room fell silent, only the pattering of rain on the roof could be heard. Riley’s stomach rumbled again and he felt light headed with fatigue.
“Dismissed!” the president declared.
“Come on, man,” Fred grumbled, grabbing Riley by the arm and leading him from the room.
They moved outside through the main doors. The pounding rain swallowed the sound of President’s maniacal laughter. Riley felt better away from Angler and filled his lungs with clean air. He followed Fred toward the solders’ barracks with a lighter heart.
The End … For Now
Erin’s Bio
Erin E. Breckenridge lives in North Sacramento with her husband, Danny, a large dog and many cats. She has been enthralled with reading most of her life and it was only natural to take up the mantle of writing.
Art in all its many form runs through her family tree, decorating it with sculptors, painters, singers, musicians, tattoo artists and writers. Erin’s father and mother fostered her talents and interests from a very young age, encouraging her to explore music and art. She struggled for a time, having some talent with the piano and saxophone, sketching and singing, but never found her true passion. In her mid-twenties, she took a series of writing classes and discovered her medium. Erin fell in love immediately with writing and hasn’t regretted a moment.
Blight Part 2 … Coming Soon
Henry stood tall over the desecrated corpse of a dark-skinned woman. She was nude from the waist down and there were slashes in the meat of her thigh, white bone showed through the carnage. Her face was contorted in a final scream.
A rain scented breeze blew through the clearing, bringing with it the smell of decay. Henry wrinkled his nose and blinked his eyes to keep them from watering. He brushed his hair, which had grown too long and was in need of a trim, from his face absently and leaned over the corpse.
“She hadn’t turned,” Henry spoke, peering closely. The telling red lines that marked the undead were missing from the woman’s outstretched arms. Slender and graceful, they reached above her head, fists half curled with emerald painted nails.
“Someone did this while she was still alive?” Redmond asked, disgust clear in his voice. His face washed pale then greenish and he turned away, breathing shallowly.
“It’s hard to say,” Henry responded, moving the woman’s leg with his boot. It flopped back flaccidly, rigor mortis come and gone.
“This is too much,” Raven spoke, eyes a little wide. She took a green bandana from her back pocket and covered the woman’s privates. Noticing a clear set of teeth marks on the woman’s inner thigh, Raven met Henry’s eye and knew he saw it too. The bite imprint and mutilation made her think of serial killers and that was a thought she did not want.
Henry turned to her and mouthed, Jeffrey Dahmer.
Raven sighed and nodded. A growl of the undead sounded in the distance. It was followed by a scream that caused sparrows in a nearby tree to protest and take flight.
“We should go,” Raven spoke, glancing again at the mutilated woman and thinking that this added yet another problem. Add a psycho killer into a world full of flesh eating zombies with a splash of a mad man who called himself the President and Raven felt like the character in a horror novel. “If Bee wakes to find us gone she’ll worry.”