The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(98)

Steve’s hand first went for the 9mm in his jacket. No. He stopped himself. If the M4 was damaged or lost, his Glock would be their only ballistic weapon. Plus, he thought, his finger’s closing on familiar sharkskin hilt behind his back, it just wouldn’t be fair to Musashi.

SSCHHIING! The ninjatō’s twenty-three-inch blade glinted in the noonday sun, as bright and clear as the day Sensei Yamamoto had presented it to him in Okinawa. “Its name is Musashi,” the old man had explained. “The Warrior Spirit. Once drawn, its thirst must be slaked with blood.” Well, he thought, let’s hope that syrupy crap those Stinkers have in their veins counts.

A zombie loomed in the blade’s reflection. Steve spun, catching it cleanly under the neck. Bone and muscle separated like ice under flame as the still snapping head rolled harmlessly under a torched minivan.

Ground and center.

Another zombie reached out to grab Steve’s collar. He ducked under its right arm and came up behind its back. Another head went rolling.

Breathe and strike.

A third took Musashi’s blade right through its left eye.

Dodge and swing.

A fourth lost the top of its head. Steve now stood only a few paces from Naomi.

Ground and center!

A fifth Stinker found its skull cleaved right down the middle.

“Steve…” Naomi looked up, voice weak, eyes unfocused. She was alive.

“I got ya, babe.” Steve yanked her to her feet, simultaneously slamming Musashi’s blade through the ear of a ghoul slouching between them. He thought about trying to find the M4, but there just wasn’t enough time. Plenty more where we’re going.

“C’mon!” Steve pulled her through an encroaching swarm and together they ran to the overturned Buell. When he felt the engine roar beneath him—Made in the USA!—he wasn’t surprised. Another roar could also be heard, dull and faint and growing with each passing second. Steve tilted his head to the smoke filled sky. There it was: their ride out of here, a small black speck set against the crimson sun.

“You call a cab?” Steve said, smiling at Naomi. For just the briefest of moments, the beautiful egghead smiled back.

They were only a hundred yards from the lab’s open double doors. No problem there. Four flights of stairs. Steve patted the motorcycle. Again, no problem. “We just gotta get to the heliport on the…” Steve trailed off. His eyes locked on someone—no, something. A ghoul was shuffling towards them from behind a smashed SUV. It was short and slow, and even on foot, he and Naomi could have left it in their dust. But Steve wasn’t planning on leaving. Not just yet. “Keep the engine running,” he said, and for once Naomi didn’t question him.

Even with the rotted skin, the dried blood, the lifeless, milk-white eyes, she’d also recognized Theodor Schlozman. “Go,” was all she said.

Steve dismounted the bike and walked slowly, almost casually over to the approaching ghoul.

“Hey, Doc,” he said softly, his voice cold as arctic death. “Still tryin’ to save Mother Earth from her spoiled children?”

Schlozman’s jaw dropped slowly open. Broken, stained teeth poked through chunks of rotting human flesh. “Huuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaa,” rasped the former Nobel prize winner, his bloody hands reaching for Steve’s throat.

The Marine let him get almost close enough to touch. “As you used to say…” he smirked, “arms are for hugging,” and swinging Musashi like an honor guard rifle he sliced off Schlozman’s fingers, then hands, then forearms before leaping into the air and smashing the Paleoclimatologist’s head sideways with a roundhouse kick.

The brain that had once been hailed as “Evolution’s Crowning Achievement” exploded from the shattered skull. Still intact, it went spinning towards the Buell, landing with a wet splat right at the base of the front tire. Touchdown.

The Marine sheathed his assassin’s short sword and walked slowly back to Naomi.

“We all done?” she asked.

Steve looked up at the approaching Blackhawk. Five minutes till they hit the roof. Right on time. “Just had to take out the trash,” he answered without looking at her.

He gunned the engine and felt Naomi’s arms grip him tightly around the waist. “Back there,” she said, tilting her head to the spot where he’d rescued her, “did you call me ‘Babe’?”

Steve cocked his head in perfect innocence and spoke the only French he would ever want to learn: “Moi?”

Steve gunned the engine and the brain of Professor Theodor Emile Schlozman splattered under spinning rubber like an overripe tomato. Steve smirked as the bike thundered towards…





Fred closed the book. He should have stopped several pages back. The pain behind his eyes had now spread to his forehead and down his neck. Most of the time he could ignore the constant headache. Most of the time it was just a dull pulse. The last few days though, it was getting almost debilitating.

He lay flat on his back, his skin sticking to the smooth granite floor. He rested his head on the oily, crusty rag that had once been his T-shirt and tried to focus on the center of the ceiling. The light fixture above him almost looked like it was on. At this point in the afternoon, sunlight from the small window struck the bulb’s prism glass bowl. Rainbow sparkles, dozens of them, marched beautifully across the cream-colored wallpaper. This was by far his favorite part of the day, and to think he hadn’t even noticed it when he first arrived. It’s the only thing I’ll miss when I get out of here.