Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours Read Online Free PDF Page B

pinning from a nightmare collection.
    Presumably, he’d been riding the motorcycle.
    Blood pooled about him. Thick and glistening in the dying light.
    Maroon coloured tracks led in several directions. The pattern petered out like an irregular wheel.
    Irregular spokes from a dead centre.
    “Oh Jesus, Mary Mother of God.”
    Gallagher wasn’t considering the evidence of activity.
    He was just looking at what was left of the man.
    The pinned leg was the most whole part of him. Even that was incomplete. Large chunks were missing.
    The rest of his body was ... mauled . That was the word that popped into Pearcey’s mind. But it wasn’t quite right.
    The rider had been ripped apart and partially consumed.
    Eaten.
    Through his clothes.
    Eaten through his clothes.
    What remained of them were shredded and blended with his flesh. Soaked with his blood. A mixed material collage from the hand of a gruesome artist.
    Bone was visible in many places.
    One entire arm was missing.
    The chest and abdomen were empty. Gaping, torn cavities. Gnawed bone, glistening, stained red.
    He’d been wearing a full visor helmet.
    It was shattered, the helmet, broken open like some hideous black egg. Covered with red and grey lumpy smears.
    Gallagher muttered and turned away. Placed his hands on his knees and threw up weakly on to the road.
    Breathing heavily again, like he’d been for a run rather than simply getting out of the car.
    He wiped a hand roughly across his mouth and turned back to Pearcey.
    “Sorry. Sorry.”
    Shook his head and turned back to the body in disbelief and disgust.
    “Fuck this, let’s just get it out of the way. I’ll take the handle bars. You grab whatever you can and we’ll drag it clear.”
    Pearcey nodded and moved to take hold of the rear of the bike.
    Neither of them mentioned the man and Pearcey had a feeling that neither of them were going to move him. He didn’t know for definite about Sonny, but he’d drive over the corpse rather than touch those remains.
    Pearcey had been in war zones, seen mutilations at first hand.
    A long time ago now, but those type of memories had a habit of lingering. He doubted that they ever left you. They just receded, poorly hidden behind a gauzy curtain of time and conscious avoidance.
    And this was different anyway. Not something he’d encountered. It was more akin to what he imagined an animal attack to be like.
    And by the looks of the tracks, more than one animal.
    He thought about the creatures they’d just encountered outside the CIMC bunker.
    Those things could do this.
    Those things that, not so long ago, had been human beings.
    Mother, fathers, daughters and sons.
    The City Flu bug was difficult to accept.
    Millions of people being infected and slipping into coma. Everyone that he’d met who was immune was struggling to one degree or another.
    Struggling to come to terms with what was happening.
    The new developments put it all on another level.
    An unimaginably horrible new level.
    The fact that the fallen had undergone some sort of staggering mutation.
    The fact that they were waking. Changed and terrible.
    Savage and awesome.
    Those facts were messing with his head.
    Pearcey was accustomed to adjusting to circumstance.
    He’d been in the army and had moved into security. His life was one long story of dealing with the unexpected.
    Expect the unexpected was a sensible credo in his line of work.
    The unexpected made a certain sense.
    Up to a point. Once that point was exceeded, the rules dropped away, the sense disappeared.
    Then it was a different game.
    Then it became craziness.
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    He heard a soft scraping sound before they’d even gotten a proper hold on the machine.
    His eyes moved up and his body straightened.
    The bike instantly forgotten.
    The knife and gun were in his hands without conscious thought.
    To his right.
    The noise was to his right.
    It was dragging itself from behind a van that had been abandoned, the vehicle slanted at the Thames and left