Read Online The Black Death by Aric Davis - Free Book Online Page B

Sally, and it wasn’t until he was past the bathroom and into the short room at the end of the hallway that he realized she wasn’t there.
    Free was tied to a chair and had a red rubber ball gag in his mouth. He was sweating profusely and struggling at the restraints holding him, but his eyes got a little hopeful when he saw Matt and Danimal.
    “If you’ve got a knife, start cutting him loose,” Matt barked to Danimal before he pulled the rubber ball from Free’s mouth. It plopped onto Free’s damaged neck, making the wound glisten with saliva.
    “Hurry up,” said Free. “She’s coming back!”
    “Where did she go?” Matt asked. “Why did she just leave you here?”
    “She was on her cell when she left, covering the mouthpiece to talk, and then she took off. If she was calling who I think she was calling, it’s not going to be good.”
    “Who, Bucky?” Matt asked. “Would he be able to approve her offing you for delivering another light load?”
    “You talk too much,” said Free to Danimal, who cut through the second leg restraint, and Matt loosened the one on Free’s left arm. Free stood, rubbing his wrists, the ball gag still slung around his neck.
    Matt smirked at the sight and added, “Now you’re free. Let’s get out of here.” Matt led the way, with Free and Danimal behind him.
    Free gasped when they were out of the hallway and he saw the body on the floor. “Damn!” he said. “You killed Henley? He was good people.”
    “He didn’t look too nice when he was aiming a gun at me,” said Matt. “Take his rifle. We don’t need somebody else shooting us in the back with it.”
    Free grabbed the rifle off the floor and took his pistol from Henley. Matt opened the door, then walked outside. The men with their cigarettes were still there, but it wasn’t until the three were walking among them that Matt realized all of them were watching him, Free, and Danimal with coal-black eyes.
How did they all get so high so fast?
The thought was dashed from Matt’s head when he saw Sally and realized they had a very serious problem.
    She was standing at the far end of the group of men with a knife in one hand, a cell phone pressed to her head in the other, and fury in her eyes. She clicked the flip phone closed, her eyes shifting from Matt, to Free, to Danimal.
    “Get ’em, boys,” she said. “They die, and the ass is on the house tonight.”
    The group of men fell on them immediately. Matt barely had time to get his ax up as a black-eyed man lunged at him. He shoved the man away from him and brought the ax down onto the top of his attacker’s head, splitting his skull and dropping him to the ground.
    Next to Matt, Free and Danimal were cracking shot after shot into the torsos of the men who were rapidly advancing on them. Some of them came bare-handed, but others held tire irons and other clubs.
    Another black-eyed man, fissures of rotting flesh lining his forehead, charged Matt with a large bowie knife. Matt waited until the last possible second, then sidestepped the attack and brought the ax down on the back of his head, making it pop off his shoulders before the body and the head were joined on the ground.
    From behind him, Matt heard a gunshot. It was close, so it had been either Free or Danimal shooting, but that didn’t make things any better. More would be coming, and if they were all turned, Matt, Free, and Danimal were going to be overwhelmed on the lawn. Matt cracked another skull as one of the things came after him, and he bashed another with the backside of the ax as it headed for Danimal.
    “Run!” shouted Matt, but they’d waited too long, and all that was left to do now was stand and fight.
    Danimal had apparently realized that, in order to kill, he needed to shoot the drug fiends in the head. Matt saw snippets of Danimal firing only when they came close enough that he was sure not to miss. Free was still fighting as well, though as far as Matt could tell, he’d given up on the