A Plague of Zombies: An Outlander Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

decided. There was no point in disturbing the man’s rest. Questions could wait for the morning.
    The sound of feet coming up the stair dispelled his sense of uneasiness, and he gave his orders quietly. The sentries were to keep guard on this door until relieved in the morning; at any sound of disturbance within, they were to enter at once. Otherwise …
    ‘Stay alert. If you see or hear
anything
, I wish to know about it.’
    He paused, but Warren continued to snore, so he shrugged and made his way downstairs, out into the silken night, and back to his own room.
    He smelled it first. For an instant he thought he had left the tin of bear-grease ointmentuncovered—and then the reek of sweet decay took him by the throat, followed instantly by a pair of hands that came out of the dark and fastened on said throat.
    He fought back in blind panic, striking and kicking wildly, but the grip on his windpipe didn’t loosen, and bright lights began to flicker at the corners of what would have been his vision if he’d had any. With a tremendous effort of will, he made himself go limp. The sudden weight surprised his assailant and jerked Grey free of the throttling grasp as he fell. He hit the floor and rolled.
    Bloody hell, where was the man? If it was a man. For even as his mind reasserted its claim to reason, his more-visceral faculties were recalling Rodrigo’s parting statement: “
Zombie are dead people
.” And whatever was here in the dark with him seemed to have been dead for several days, judging from its smell.
    He could hear the rustling of something moving quietly towards him. Was it breathing? He couldn’t tell for the rasp of his own breath, harsh in his throat, and the blood-thick hammering of his heart in his ears.
    He was lying at the foot of a wall, his legs half under the dressing table’s bench. There was light in the room, now that his eyes were accustomed; the French doors were pale rectangles in the dark, and he could make out the shape of the thing that was hunting him. It was man-shaped but oddly hunched and swung its head and shoulders from side to side, almost as though it meant to smell him out. Which wouldn’t take it more than two more seconds, at most.
    He sat up abruptly, seized the small padded bench, and threw it as hard as he could at the thing’s legs. It made a startled
oof!
noise that was undeniably human, then it staggered, waving its arms for balance. The noise reassured Grey, and he rolled up onto one knee and launched himself at the creature, bellowing incoherent abuse.
    He butted it around chest height, felt it fall backwards, then lunged for the pool of shadow where he thought the table was. It was there and, feeling frantically over the surface, he found his dagger, still where he’d left it. He snatched it up and turned just in time to face the thing, which closed on him at once, reeking and making a disagreeable gobbling noise. He slashed at it and felt his knife skitter down the creature’s forearm, bouncing off bone. It screamed, releasing a blast of foul breath directly into his face, then turned and rushed for the French doors, bursting through them in a shower of glass and flying muslin.
    Grey charged after it, onto the terrace, shouting for the sentries. But the sentries, as he recalled belatedly, were in the main house, keeping watch over the governor, lest that worthy’s rest be disturbed by … whatever sort of thing this was. Zombie?
    Whatever it was, it was gone.
    He sat down abruptly on the stones of the terrace, shaking with reaction. No one had come out in response to the noise. Surely no one could have slept through that; perhaps no oneelse was housed on this side of the mansion.
    He felt ill and breathless and rested his head for a moment on his knees, before jerking it up to look round, lest something else be stealing up on him. But the night was still and balmy. The only noise was an agitated rustling of leaves in a nearby tree, which for a shocked second he