The Queen of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    Carter’s sharp wail stretched the volume of his vocal chords beyond their limit. Greedy hands tried to rip him out of the backseat, but DJ pointed his gun through the window and fired. Gore splashed DJ’s face and soaked Carter’s body while he continued screaming. Arms stretched through the other passenger window and grabbed DJ’s shirt. While Carter’s body slid out of the car, DJ shot Carter several times.
    “Fuck it!” Louis opened his door and got out, and Chanell did the same.
    Her brother’s wrist twisted while the Uzi sprayed bullets into the faces of people who stood around him. Gunfire lit up his eyes, and Chanell was mesmerized by the bullet casings that rained out of the gun.
    Somewhere, DJ was still screaming.
    She turned and saw them, and all of her willpower, all of her strength, fled at once. Their faces were covered in blood, and chunks of flesh slid out of their mouths as they looked upon her and began to approach, dragging their twisted ankles or broken legs across the cement, their bodies a gory rendition of damnation; they were mutilated and shattered, with pieces missing and clothes shredded.
    Carter’s bullet-riddled corpse lay on the cement, and several of the former people knelt down and tore away at his skin with their nails, raking across his flesh and pulling it away like melted mozzarella. Blood oozed between their fingers as they casually shoved as much as they could into their mouths.
    Chanell’s knees wobbled and betrayed her. She looked up into their faces and she knew that Vincent was going to save her one more time.
    The flames loomed over their heads, and somewhere, Louis called her name, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from them. Hands and fingers upon her shoulders pushed her to the concrete, and she thought of Jerome, lying inert upon the floor of the heroin den. She knew she should fight back, or at least try to stand up, but never had so many people wanted her, or needed her. Vincent had been the only one whose affection was genuine, right up until this morning, when he left the house wearing only a wife beater and jeans. She’d asked him why he wasn’t wearing a suit, as he usually did. She asked him when he was coming back, if she could call him, if he was going to call her, if they were going to have dinner together... questions, questions… he’d closed the door behind him with his 9 tucked into the back of his sagging jeans. He didn’t wave goodbye, and she watched as Fireball drove him out of the driveway and into the city.
    Louis was calling her name.
    They grabbed on to the easiest, most exposed part of her first. They ripped away her clothes, and she could feel the fiery pain warm her head as their hands shredded her and exposed her. Their dry, cold lips wrapped over her flesh.
    A burst of gunfire exploded the top of a corpse’s skull, and chunks of skull and clumps of hair decorated her naked stomach. Another slumped over her legs.
    “Vincent, yes, I’m here!”
    The pain in her shoulder caused her entire body to writhe beneath the corpses, and she opened her mouth to scream while another set of crusted lips clamped down upon her throat. Everything felt wet, and she could smell the coppery blood. She was aware of a tongue that raced itself along her jugular for one brief moment, and she felt the edges of teeth as her skin stretched further than it could, and it seemed to be stretching forever. Within her peripheral vision, she saw a haggard old woman chewing on something while blood dripped over her chin.
    Now that she wanted to scream, she couldn’t.
     

GRIGGS
     
    Whatever happens, we can only do what matters to us.
    Words he’d said while standing in front of Vincent on the lawn less than an hour ago popped into his head, a coda he violated by letting Mina and Traverse escape. He let that bastard take the girl who was supposed to love him, and it was all he could think about while he dragged Vega away from a crowd of