Black Scars Read Online Free PDF Page A

through the trees. Soft stones shattered into pale dust beneath their boots, and their feet cracked apart dry twigs and brush. The floor was littered with pine needles and bits of wood and steel. Torn clothing dangled from dead branches.
    They came upon the first body about twenty paces into the woods, a crumpled human in dark armor. His flesh was scalded and his head had snapped back against a dead pine. He’d fallen from the ship as it had exploded and crashed. A .44 Magnum revolver was held in a hip holster, but he bore neither badge nor insignia.
    Dillon nodded at Cross. They moved on without a word.
    Cross’ spirit coiled around him like a hungry snake. Her touch burned against his skin, and she slithered over his mind like warm oil.
    The trees were just thick enough to block easy sight of what lie ahead. Cross hadn’t thought the trees ran that deep when they’d viewed them from afar, but after several minutes he and Dillon still worked their way through a veritable forest.
    They found more wreckage, and two more bodies. Cross stopped, and Dillon followed suit.
    His spirit found an area up ahead that she refused to enter on her own. Cross considered coaxing her on, but he decided against it. He signaled to Dillon that there was danger ahead. They crept forward.
    The hull of a wrecked airship lay smoldering on the ground. The crash had formed a clearing. The ship had barreled over a stretch of trees and flattened them, creating an open area that was several hundred yards across. Broken trees, still aflame, lay like sticks all over the dark forest floor, and the earth was torn and black. Smoke and ash hung in the air, and gusts of cold wind enveloped everything in diesel smoke. The air was a fog of vehicular fumes.
    Cross and Dillon emerged a few yards away from what looked like the tail end of the crash, where they found the aft end of the ship. The shattered remains of the foredeck, Cross guessed, were what accounted for the wreckage they’d already found. He saw blood and broken limbs amidst the burning refuse. Everything smelled like factory fires in a slaughterhouse.
    “ Cross,” Dillon said quietly.
    There was a body on the ground in front of them, and it was still moving. Greasy innards dangled from its waist where the legs had been torn away from the torso. Thick chains, still attached to a bulkhead, held the severed limbs just a few yards away.
    The vampire clawed its way across the ground. Its black nails ripped into the soil, it’s clothes were tattered and ragged, and a deep cut in its forehead oozed a copious volume of pale blood that pasted its dark hair to its scalp. Dark, undead eyes regarded Cross and Dillon coldly, and the creature’s ashen face contorted in hunger, rage and pain.
    This was a prison ship.
    Cross looked at the smoking aft and saw the word DREADNAUGHT chiseled in letters across the dark wood. Most of the bodies they saw must have been those of prisoners, as they were dressed in the same crumbling rags as the vampire, but Cross saw another body that had been impaled on a broken shard of wood. That body, Cross reasoned, must have been one of the jailers, as he wore leather armor and had a .44 Magnum in a side-holster, just like the body in the trees.
    “ Black Scar?” Cross asked aloud.
    “ That’s my guess,” Dillon nodded.
    The vampire snarled and hissed. Its black tongue slathered hungrily out of its massive jaws. Cross smelled the creature’s carrion stench and grave-soil musk.
    Dillon unsheathed his machete and sliced off the vampire’s head with a quick strike.
    They heard movement. It was difficult to see the interior of the Dreadnaught’s aft-end wreckage, but they had a clear view of the shattered deck, much of which was still ablaze.
    Cross stepped closer to the ship with his HK ready. His spirit wound about his free arm. Her anxious state almost rendered him numb, and her whispers clawed at his ear. Dillon moved into a covering position.
    After a few steps, Cross