Tankbread 02 Immortal Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jirra said, a grim smile splitting his face. “All that noise and we bring them to us. They come to take us home. Welcome us . . .”
    Else looked up. A group of ten evols had stumbled out of the darkness of the tree line and were now making their way towards them. “Where is my baby!” she howled at them. The line of approaching dead groaned and writhed in response.
    “Push the boat out; we can make for the water. They can’t get us out there.” Jirra pulled himself back into a sitting position at the rear of the skiff.
    Else stepped out of the boat and pushed back on it. The skiff slid in the wet sand until the edge of the current tugged at it.
    “Come on, get in, aye?” Jirra panted.
    “Not without my baby.” Else scooped Lowanna out of the sling and carefully put her in the bottom of the skiff. “I’ll be back when I find him.”
    “You’re fucking crazy!” Jirra shouted at her.
    Else walked up the beach. The machete felt good in her hand. A solid piece of killing steel. She scanned the dead faces in front of her. With over twenty-five million zombies in Australia the chances were slim, but she looked each one in the eye, and still all of them were strangers.
    “Let’s get this done,” she said to the advancing line. The first one reached for her, his blind eyes scarred by the scouring of windblown sand.
    Else swung her blade. It tore through the dead man’s head, splitting him between his gaping jaws. She moved on as he fell, spinning and using her momentum to tear the next rotting head from its shoulders. There were those among them that had not been dead for so long. Their clothes were cleaner. Their dead flesh showed little signs of the ravages of the elements. They were all hungry. They came down on Else with savage snarls and raking claw-like hands. She hacked an arm off, then blocked a grasping hand and shoved the tip of the machete into a gaping maw that bled black.
    An evol caught her hair, dragging her head back. Else dropped to one knee and slammed the machete up and over her shoulder. The end of it buried in a zombie’s chest. He looked down, releasing her and tugging at the steel now sticking out of him. Else jerked the blade free and took his head. The dead pressed closer, mindless of each other and everything except for their need to tear at the warm, wet meat they could almost taste. Dark drool oozed from the mouths of the fresher ones. The older dead had little moisture left in their bodies.
    Else rolled to her feet, kicking at a zombie who tried to bite her leg. Her booted foot crushed his nose and smeared it into a black paste across his rotting cheek. A girl with lobotomy eyes gaped at Else. The little control she had over her dead limbs made them thrash aimlessly. Else smashed her face into the sand. The back of the girl’s head was a gaping crater, half of her brain already gone.
    In the moment it took Else to straighten up, a man with black and broken teeth bit into her sleeve, narrowly missing her skin under the loose shirt. With the machete blocked in her right fist, Else punched her fingers into the eyes above the biting mouth. The grey orbs burst, sending stinking pus spraying out. The man moaned, his head thrashing, tearing the cloth away from her arm. Else snarled and shoved the zombie’s head back.
    Dropping the machete, she kicked upwards, catching the back of the heavy blade on her booted foot and sending it flying up to within reach of her other hand. With three hard blows she hacked the evol’s skull into chunks. Panting, she circled slowly. The sand was thick with black slime and broken bodies. Nothing moved. Else took stock—the fresh corpses were all dressed the same. Frowning, she searched them. They carried odd possessions: seashells and bullets, keys and colored tags. They all had the same tattoos on their arms that Else recognized as an anchor with a lightning cloud above it.
    Hacking an arm off, she carried it back to the boat.
    “Jirra,” she said. “You