Read Online Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Maberry
Tags: General, Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Social Issues, Death & Dying, Horror & Ghost Stories
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broad and forced.
“A necklace.”
“Oh . . . nice. What kind of necklace? Is it a ruby necklace like a princess would wear?”
Eve looked at the red loop of yarn around the burlap throat of the doll. Then she slowly turned her face to Riot. The smile was so bright and happy.
“No, silly,” she said, “it’s like the one mommy wore. Remember? Her necklace was all bright and shiny.”
“Necklace . . . ?” Riot murmured. The heart in her chest turned instantly to ice.
Eve’s mother had indeed worn a necklace of shining red. She’d worn it the very last time Riot and Eve had seen her. It was not a necklace of rubies, of course, or even of garnets. The reaper Andrew had cut Eve’s mother down with a scythe. The blow had taken the woman across the throat, and the red that had glistened there had been her own bright blood.
Riot looked at the doll and then at Eve. The little girl smiled and smiled, bright as the summer sun, and behind those innocent blue eyes something shifted and moved.
Something very dark and very wrong.
17
T HERE WAS NO TIME TO scream.
Four cold hands grabbed Nix from behind and tore her away from Lilah.
The Lost Girl started to yell, but then a red-mouthed thing ran at her.
Ran.
It came so fast, hands reaching, lips peeling back from cracked and jagged teeth. The zom slammed into Lilah, caught her off guard, knocked her backward. They fell over and over down the slope, hung for a moment at the edge of a sheer six-foot drop into an arroyo, and then toppled out of sight.
There was no way for Nix to tear free of the hands that grabbed her from behind. Teeth snapped inches from her neck and shoulders and ears. The angle was impossible for swordplay, so she did the only practical thing she could: She opened her hand and let Monster Cutter clatter to the ground. Then Nix threw herself backward as hard as she could, using all the power of the zombies’ pull along with the strength of her own legs. The extra momentum spoiled what little balance the awkward creatures had, and the two zombies fell hard ontothe ground, with Nix’s body landing slantwise across them. With humans, a fall like that would have jolted the air from their lungs, but these were dead things. Luckily, Nix made herself exhale on impact—as both Tom and Joe had taught her. The exhale relaxed her body for the impact, but the jolt was still heavy enough to explode fireworks in her head.
There was a strange, wet quality to the bodies she landed on. Were they recently dead? Were they still filled with blood and other bodily fluids? Her pants and the back of her shirt felt warm and damp.
The gripping hands were still there, so Nix raised her arms straight up, hands almost touching above her, then slammed her elbows down as hard as she could. Her left elbow hit a zom in the nose and knocked its head back against the rocky ground; her right elbow struck the second zom in the ribs. In both cases, the blows jolted their bodies and gave her a split second to pull free and roll away. She scrambled to her feet and faced the dead. One of the two zoms lay still, the back of its head smashed to a pulp. The other struggled to right itself.
“Lilah!” Nix yelled, but there was no answer. She heard scrabbling sounds from the arroyo, but it was impossible to tell if that was Lilah fighting for her life or another zom coming up the slope to join the attack.
Nix had no weapons. She’d dropped her sword, and her gun belt was hung on a tree limb up the slope. The second zom was on its feet now, and Nix saw that it was one of the recent dead, probably another of the party of refugees Riot had been leading from the destroyed town of Treetops to Sanctuary. The zom was a Latino man, not tall, but broad-shoulderedand powerful-looking. There was a faint red smudge around its mouth that wasn’t blood. It looked like powder of some kind. There was more of it sprinkled on its clothes. She wondered if it was some kind of pollen.
The zom
“A necklace.”
“Oh . . . nice. What kind of necklace? Is it a ruby necklace like a princess would wear?”
Eve looked at the red loop of yarn around the burlap throat of the doll. Then she slowly turned her face to Riot. The smile was so bright and happy.
“No, silly,” she said, “it’s like the one mommy wore. Remember? Her necklace was all bright and shiny.”
“Necklace . . . ?” Riot murmured. The heart in her chest turned instantly to ice.
Eve’s mother had indeed worn a necklace of shining red. She’d worn it the very last time Riot and Eve had seen her. It was not a necklace of rubies, of course, or even of garnets. The reaper Andrew had cut Eve’s mother down with a scythe. The blow had taken the woman across the throat, and the red that had glistened there had been her own bright blood.
Riot looked at the doll and then at Eve. The little girl smiled and smiled, bright as the summer sun, and behind those innocent blue eyes something shifted and moved.
Something very dark and very wrong.
17
T HERE WAS NO TIME TO scream.
Four cold hands grabbed Nix from behind and tore her away from Lilah.
The Lost Girl started to yell, but then a red-mouthed thing ran at her.
Ran.
It came so fast, hands reaching, lips peeling back from cracked and jagged teeth. The zom slammed into Lilah, caught her off guard, knocked her backward. They fell over and over down the slope, hung for a moment at the edge of a sheer six-foot drop into an arroyo, and then toppled out of sight.
There was no way for Nix to tear free of the hands that grabbed her from behind. Teeth snapped inches from her neck and shoulders and ears. The angle was impossible for swordplay, so she did the only practical thing she could: She opened her hand and let Monster Cutter clatter to the ground. Then Nix threw herself backward as hard as she could, using all the power of the zombies’ pull along with the strength of her own legs. The extra momentum spoiled what little balance the awkward creatures had, and the two zombies fell hard ontothe ground, with Nix’s body landing slantwise across them. With humans, a fall like that would have jolted the air from their lungs, but these were dead things. Luckily, Nix made herself exhale on impact—as both Tom and Joe had taught her. The exhale relaxed her body for the impact, but the jolt was still heavy enough to explode fireworks in her head.
There was a strange, wet quality to the bodies she landed on. Were they recently dead? Were they still filled with blood and other bodily fluids? Her pants and the back of her shirt felt warm and damp.
The gripping hands were still there, so Nix raised her arms straight up, hands almost touching above her, then slammed her elbows down as hard as she could. Her left elbow hit a zom in the nose and knocked its head back against the rocky ground; her right elbow struck the second zom in the ribs. In both cases, the blows jolted their bodies and gave her a split second to pull free and roll away. She scrambled to her feet and faced the dead. One of the two zoms lay still, the back of its head smashed to a pulp. The other struggled to right itself.
“Lilah!” Nix yelled, but there was no answer. She heard scrabbling sounds from the arroyo, but it was impossible to tell if that was Lilah fighting for her life or another zom coming up the slope to join the attack.
Nix had no weapons. She’d dropped her sword, and her gun belt was hung on a tree limb up the slope. The second zom was on its feet now, and Nix saw that it was one of the recent dead, probably another of the party of refugees Riot had been leading from the destroyed town of Treetops to Sanctuary. The zom was a Latino man, not tall, but broad-shoulderedand powerful-looking. There was a faint red smudge around its mouth that wasn’t blood. It looked like powder of some kind. There was more of it sprinkled on its clothes. She wondered if it was some kind of pollen.
The zom
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