Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds Novella): From The Ashes by Hicks Michael Patrick

Author:Hicks, Michael Patrick [Hicks, Michael Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Post-Apocalyptic | Infected
Publisher: Kindle Worlds
Published: 2016-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

D'Andre's dog was barking furiously, joined by three other, much smaller, canines. The dog was named Dottie, a curiously gentle name for an animal now frothing at the mouth and being forcibly restrained by her owner. She pulled at her collar, choking herself, spittle flying from her lips. Then she turned and took a quick nip at D'Andre, not enough to break his skin, but enough to startle him into letting go. As soon as she felt his hand release, she darted into the fray like a bat out of hell, hackles raised and making enough noise to drown out the cries of the infected woman.

Edna was barely recognizable. Her lips were deformed and swollen, her hair mostly gone, and what little was left was limp and stringy as it hung around her scalp. Her skin had gone from a smooth brown shade to sickly translucent, her cords of muscles and veins straining to push through the sheath of flesh.

Like Melissa, Arvin had met her the previous night. She had told him stories about the riots of 1967, the last time she had seen a National Guard presence patrolling the streets. Things had been bad then — more than forty dead, over a thousand injured, more than two thousand buildings destroyed, all over the course of less than a week. But, she had admitted, even that could not come close to what they were going through currently.

As for Edna, there was simply no comparison between the woman that had arrived at the shelter on a National Guard transport truck, and the creature that now inhabited her form. A frail, hunched-over woman less than a day ago, she was now standing straight, and was sickeningly quick. As she stood erect, Arvin could hear the snapping and clicking of her bones shifting to straighten her spine. Her limbs and torso moved in unnatural ways, popping and cracking, and moving with ruthless efficiency.

The American Red Cross nurse lay dead at her clawed feet, blood oozing from her wounds. A dark red crust encircled Edna's leech-like mouth, her clothes wet and freshly stained.

Arvin couldn't help but appreciate the fluid beauty of the woman's movements, despite her grace leading to a terrible end for those people unfortunate enough to be in her immediate vicinity.

Edna leaped over the corpse, her legs and arms coming up in a perverted, primal sort of display that reminded him of a flying Kung Fu move, her limbs pistoling out to ensnare a much larger man. It was like watching a spider pounce and trap its prey. Her claws were buried in her victim's skin, her mouth twisting and sucking savagely at his neck.

Dottie rushed forward, leading a trio of other dogs into the carnage. She leapt onto Edna's back, taking both the creature and her victim to the ground, biting at the once-frail woman and tearing loose strips of fabric. The other dogs encircled them, darting in to snap at the creature. A poodle's mouth latched onto Edna's thin arm, but she was unfazed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.