Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 01 Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re right.” She picked a finger from the nightstand, popped it in her mouth, and wiped down the surface with a fresh Pledge wipe.
    Wendy and I became so proficient in our dining that we rarely left a drop of blood behind. So the evidence was not piling up. The bodies were simply gone. Mostly, we only took those who wouldn’t be missed. Usually. Though it’s not our style, any youth, between sixteen and twenty-two, is a fairly good target. They tend to be flighty and could take off for Hollywood at any second. Unless their parents enjoy pornography, they are rarely seen again. The leftovers are an easy fix, thanks to the cleaning aisle at Target.
    The knock on the door was light, almost inaudible.
    “Who is it?” I said, countering their hesitance with a conspiratorial whisper.
    “Is this where we go for the—um—gang bang?”
    Wendy nearly shook apart with laughter. “Shut up.” I threw open the door and took in the view of the most pathetic creatures to cross my path in months. “Steve” and “Lou” looked far more suited to the type of role-playing that was done over a game board with their wizard friends than the handcuffs and butt plugs shit they’d been promised, a real couple of blue-ballers. These boys had definitely reached the crescendo of their lives. It was never going to get any better than the idea of this moment, and isn’t it comforting to know that?
    “Absolutely, this is the gang bang,” I whispered into one’s ear, an unfamiliar thickness of breath crawling out past my lips. “Oops.” If I crossed my eyes, I could see the change in temperature floating briefly between us; a pale white wisp of smoke curled and hung for a moment. My mind drifted to another time, a small, enclosed space.
    I was not alone.
    The boy’s eyes ballooned. He gasped, slurping my solid breath from the air like a hit of linguine.
    “That shouldn’t have happened,” I said.
    “Huh?” The boy’s teeth filled up half his face in an overly eager grin. His eyes bounced from my face to my chest, to Wendy’s chest, to the sad bulge in his jeans. “No, no. It’s okay. You can blow in my ear.”
    “What’s up?” asked Wendy, disregarding the boys’ presence. The fun had left. Her face was slack with concern.
    “The breath,” I told her.
    Wendy puzzled a look from me to “Lou” or “Steve” or whoever he was, back to me, and then to him she said, “You’re fucked.” To me her eyes bulged, they beseeched, and seemed to say “eat quick, bitch!”
    He turned to his friend, a question dangling. In the time it took to move his head, Wendy pulled the other one into the room, slammed the door, and unhinged her jaw like a living Pez dispenser. Her mouth opened with a slew of ratcheting clicks. She shook and twitched with each transformative widening. The boy’s face registered terror, for only the second before that shark mouth clamped down. Wendy caught a stray spurt of blood ejecting from a large hole at the base of his neck, and moaned. My boy’s head jerked back to look at me, and I took off half of his face, while pinching his windpipe closed. He struggled for a moment and then went still. I binged, for the second time that evening 20 .
    In the denouement, my thoughts returned to the breath. The breath was wrong, all wrong. I had never made it before, neither had Wendy, nor do we know how. The dead do not breathe, except to reproduce, and not every zombie could do it. It’s a rare gift. I guessed I was the lucky recipient. Somehow, I didn’t feel like I’d won the lottery. The breath, of course, brought up the memory…

Chapter 4
Of Donuts, Hair Plugs and Rude Wingtips
    It only takes a breath to start that undead wheel a rollin’…
    —“The Ballad of the Zombie’s Apprentice” by Chuck W. Hickock, Jr. (from Supernatural Country Hits : Volume 1 )
    Five months earlier…
    On my way in to Pendleton, Avery and Feral, a familiar stitch crept into my stomach. I noticed a quickening of breath.