Pavlov's Dogs Read Online Free PDF

alternate route to take the next day, in case the investigation took that long.
    Jorge whistled over the phone. “Damn, bro. This is pretty gruesome. I think I can smell it.”
    Ken wrinkled his nose. “Try not to breathe deep. You know what that is, right, when you smell something? Little particles of whatever it is, all up in your nose?”
    Jorge hurked on the phone, and Ken smiled. The humor faded quickly as he remembered the reason for his friend’s hurking, and he immediately felt bad for cracking a joke.
    “How much longer, do you think?”
    “ They’re not breaking any speed records, and... hang on. Well this guy is okay. You should see it, this guy’s freaking out. I should be recording it, and... what the hell?”
    “What?” Ken said. “What?!”
     
     
    Farther up the highway, Jorge’s hand came away from his ear, taking the cell phone with it.
    “There’s a fight,” he said, lifting the phone to his mouth again. The last person out of the bus had wrapped bloodied arms around the neck of the paramedic and was biting . “One of the, uh, victims is freaking out and attacking the, uh...”
    He stopped talking as all along the shoulder, figures with sheets draped over them started sitting up. On the overturned bus, the remaining windows broke as hands and fists came through, grasping at rescue workers.
    “ What’s going on? ” Ken said, sounding tinny over the phone.
    “I think I drank too much.”
    “ Jorge!”
    “Right. Uh, people are getting themselves out of the bus, and, Jesus, one of them just tackled a cop. This is nuts! They’re biting everybody!” He took a couple of steps forward. “Oh, sick. I think I... I think I see chewing.”
    “ Get back to the car.”
    “Yeah, okay—”
    One of the victims stood up and faced Jorge. Vacant eyes locked on his, and the phone fell from his numb fingers. Jorge’s hearing went loopy, as if he were suddenly standing in a wind tunnel instead of the highway, and his vision narrowed drastically to include just the figure advancing on him. Motes danced around, colliding with each other to the mad music repeating in Jorge’s head.
    He. Has. No. Face.
    He. Has. No. FACE.
    Where the man’s face should have been was just a red stain. Only shreds of pink skin remained in the crimson mess between chin and hairline. Most of it dangled like a torn mask from the man’s neck. Deep runnels of black and dark red ringed the man’s wide, staring eyes, and his jaw fell open as he took a step toward Jorge. An arm, bent backwards at the elbow, came up, its fingers hooked and twitching.
    Screams from either side of him shook Jorge out of his daze. The people who had been lying on the shoulder were now up and leaning in through the windows of cars, heedless of their own gaping wounds as they attacked the motorists.
    “Get me out of here!” Jorge yelled.
    Back in the Blazer, Ken couldn’t make out what Jorge had said, but from the sounds coming over the phone, he knew it wasn’t good. He rolled down his window and put Big Bertha into gear, bumping the back fender of a car in the left lane. The driver, a bald-headed man, looked back with a what-the-hell set on his red face. Ken just leaned on his horn and bumped him again.
    Of course I’ve got to be stuck in the middle , Ken thought.
    The bald guy opened the driver-side door of his small brown coupe, and Ken dove across to Bertha’s passenger side. He ripped the gun case out from under Jorge’s seat. Glancing out the windshield, Ken fumbled the case open and grabbed the revolver, then sat up with it.
    The bald man saw the gun, and his hands came up to his shoulders.
    “No trouble,” he said. Then he yelled it. The cacophony of honking horns and people shouting was almost deafening.
    Ken waggled the gun at him to get back into his car, and then honked the horn again. The red-faced man, who had gone rather pale, fairly jumped back to his coupe and moved it forward three feet. Not a lot, but enough for the old