Battle of the Network Zombies Read Online Free PDF Page A

at Birch, its claws spread out and knuckles cracking with tension.
    The wood nymph seemed overly confident, considering he’d fled our conversation at the first hint of trouble. He balanced his weight on one hip, tilted his head a bit and sang.
    Yeah. I said sang.
    It didn’t seem appropriate to me, either.
    Neither did the song, which at first sounded like Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” but turned out to be something else entirely. Johnny peppered the lyrics with a volley of “ Mmms ” and “ Oh yeahs .” He swiveled his hips seductively at the beast.
    I held back the vomit and considered looking away. Johnny’s track record of conquests would take up a scroll. Who’s to say that this creature wasn’t a spurned lover, some backwoods ex come to exact a little Deliverance on his ass? Maybe I’d misjudged the entire situation.
    It could just be entertainment.
    The yeti lunged at the nymph—again, hard to blame it—crossing the floor in three lumbering strides. Birch raised his arms and then his voice. What was once cheesey lounge singing became something different entirely. Even, dare I say, beautiful? The words were gone, or rather, the English was stripped out of the vocalization. What was left was a soothing melody made form that arced and swam in the air. With each note the sound became denser until a swirling mist turned the room and the play into a dream.
    The monster stopped dead in its tracks and cocked its head to the side, arms slack and eyes following the streaks of tone.
    Birch walked circles around the creature, continuing his song—which, while mesmerizing, wasn’t exactly chart-ready. I’ll give him this, the notes were otherworldly. I began to understand how the little horndog got laid with such frequency—you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing him slobbering over some flavor of the week as if she were a scoop of dark chocolate chip. 10 I even found myself drawn to the lilting refrain and before I knew it had crawled out from under the truck and stood a few feet away from where both Birch and the creature stood.
    Gil left his hiding place, too. His mouth hung open, tongue out and teetering over his bottom lip. I reached up to see if I was doing the same, intent on shoving my lolling tongue back in. Thankfully, I’d managed a modicum of civility.
    I slipped in beside him. “Slut.”
    He looked at me and then down at my hand. “I’m not the one fondling truck balls.”
    I shrugged, though the weight of the things was likely giving me a totally unattractive hunch.
    Birch swept his fingers through the air like a conductor, as though playing the notes he’d already sung.
    Nothing happened at first.
    Or at least nothing I could see.
    Fury burned in the thing’s black eyes, lips drawn back from its fangs and quivering. I was pretty sure Birch was gonna end up Yeti Chow, and despite a pretty healthy sense of self-preservation, I couldn’t resist the urge to watch the feeding.
    But even the yeti’s growls were slowed and there was nothing between them but the wood nymph’s careful refrain.
    Then the air seemed to thicken like fog lazing on glass and that image solidified as a frost, as though the whole scene were trapped in an oil painting. Birch’s fingers circled and churned the air, spinning gossamer eddies into the wet mural of the room. The curls stretched and struck the wood floors, where silver sparks jumped and tendrils of new growth shot up from knots. The nymph backed away as sprouts turned into branches that thickened and espaliered around the creature like a cell.
    A living cage.
    Pine needles sprang from pores in the bark. And all through this Birch sang, his cadence rising and swirling around us like a blanket. To say I was impressed would be an understatement; he’d won me over; I was, in fact, almost a fan.
    Which is totally weird for me, I think you know.
    It turns out Birch wasn’t a complete waste of air.
    Damn close.
    But not totally.
    When he was done, the