Read Online Dark Chocolate Demise by Jenn McKinlay - Free Book Online

her friend and back and back again. She grabbed Oz and hugged him hard. Relief hit her like a brick to the temple, and she didn’t pause to stop and think but instead launched herself at her two friends.
    â€œYou’re alive! Oh, thank god, you’re alive,” she said.
    She wrapped her arms about both of her friends and squeezed them in the tightest hug she could manage.
    â€œCan’t breathe,” Angie cried.
    Mel quickly let go and stepped back. Oz reached around her to give Angie a bear hug before giving her back to Tate.
    â€œI love you guys, too, really, but what’s going on?” Angie asked.
    Just then Officer Henry bustled through the crowd. He was talking into his radio and he knelt beside the body of the woman on the ground. The sound of a siren in the distance alerted them to an arriving ambulance.
    Henry pushed aside the last of the woman’s hair and veil. She was young and pretty, like Angie, but not Angie. He checked her over and with a sad shake of his head, he stood and began talking into his radio again. Mel didn’t need to hear him to know that he was reporting that the woman was dead.
    â€œOh, wow,” Angie said. “She’s dressed as a bride like me.” Then she put it all together. She looked at Tate and then at Mel. “You thought that was me.”
    Mel nodded, still not really sure she was up to talking. The men who had helped to lift the woman out of the coffin began to back the crowd up to make room for the other bicycle officers who arrived.
    â€œWhat happened?” Angie asked. “How did she get here?”
    Tate looked at Mel as if he was wondering the same thing. Mel cleared her throat and started to explain.
    â€œShe was in the coffin. When I saw her, I thought you were pranking me,” she said to Angie. “I couldn’t see her face, because she was on her side, but her dress looked like yours so I just assumed . . .” Mel pushed back her toque with a shaky hand and saw a smear of the woman’s blood on her hands. “I think I might be sick.”
    â€œCome on,” Tate said. “Let’s move to the side, where you can get some air.”
    They circled around the van, where Marty and Oz joined them. Marty borrowed a folding chair from the T-shirt vendor next to the van and helped Mel sit down.
    â€œPut your head between your knees if you need it,” Marty said. “I’m going to keep an eye.”
    Mel wasn’t sure if he meant he’d watch the body or the coffin, but she suspected he meant the coffin.
    Oz went into the van and came back with a cold cloth that he put on the back of Mel’s neck. It helped a bit.
    Marty stood by the corner of the cupcake van. He was peering around the corner, reporting the goings-on.
    â€œAmbulance guys are here,” he said. “Oh, no.”
    â€œWhat is it?” Tate asked. He was standing with an arm around Angie’s waist as if afraid to let her out of his sight again.
    â€œThere’s a commotion,” Marty said.
    â€œI guess an actual dead body at a zombie walk would do that,” Oz said.
    â€œNo, this, ah.” Marty stalled out of words and rubbed the back of his head as if he could generate the right explanation with a good scalp massage.
    â€œMarty, what is it?” Mel asked. She felt her anxiety spike. Was the dead woman reanimating like a real zombie? What?
    â€œAngie!” An anguished cry reached their ears, and they all glanced at one another.
    â€œYeah, Roach just arrived,” Marty said.
    Angie glanced at Tate and said, “I have to go to him.”
    He gave her a quick nod.
    Angie hurried around the van while the rest of them followed.
    Roach was flailing and fighting the officers who were holding him back, trying to keep him away from the body.
    â€œRoach!” Angie cried. “I’m here. I’m okay. I’m fine.”
    But the crazed rock star couldn’t hear her over the