Read Star Drawn Saga (Book 2): Lost Among The Dead for Free Online

slough and tear beneath her fingers.
    Knowing she was about to lose her grip, she quickly stabbed down with her knife, piercing the skull around the ear canal, ripping through the brain tissue beneath. With a wet ‘cracking’ sound Fran knew the job was done.
    ‘Wow!’ she coughed, suddenly covering her nose with the crook of her elbow as the corpse shuddered and then became still between her legs; the stench erupting from it turning her stomach. ‘You’d better hope there’s no door policy at those Pearly gates, man, because…’
    She was about to continue when a shadow fell across the lifeless cadaver’s face.
    ‘Oh crap!’ sighed Fran, looking up to see the body of what appeared to have once been a ten year old boy stumbling silently towards her through the tall grass; the missing lower jaw and absent tongue making it impossible for it to vocalize the hungry excitement that burned within its milky stare.
    Jumping to her feet, Fran ripped her knife from the now motionless cadaver’s skull, the sucking sound as she pulled the blade free a sickening precursor to the splatter of rancid brain matter that followed in its wake.
    ‘Great,’ she muttered, flicking her wrist to remove a stubborn blob of purple-tinged gore from the groove running the length of the blade.
    Even as the offending gobbet of matter dislodged itself to fall to her feet, Fran knew it had been a pointless exercise for already the Dead boy’s arms were reaching for her beseechingly, as if begging for the merest taste, and she knew her blade would once again be dipping into the usual well of rotting flesh and putrid fluids.
    ‘Come on then,’ she murmured, stepping over the lifeless body at her feet to grab hold of one of the Dead boy’s outstretched wrists.
    With a sharp tug, she abruptly pulled the boy’s body towards her, knocking him off balance before easily sidestepping him and tossing his skeletal and abused remains to the ground.
    ‘I haven’t got time for this,’ she said to herself, trying in vain to ignore Tom’s shouts from above her as she quickly placed her foot on the back of the boy’s emaciated neck, the pressure easily keeping him in place.
    The Dead boy clawed uselessly at the ground, jerking his head back and forth, oblivious to the tearing of its skin and cracking of delicate neck vertebrae beneath Fran’s foothold. Sure that the creature was now pinned securely beneath her foot she swiftly leant forward and with one sharp stabbing motion aimed at the relatively thinner bone at the base of its skull, her knife at last gave the child’s corpse the gift of true death.
    ‘ I’m sorry… rest in peace ,’ she found herself fleetingly thinking, as she coolly pulled her blade free from the small skull and ran to the side of the house; leaving the two bodies lying forever motionless behind her in the tall grass at the base of the tree.
    Pressing her back against rough brickwork, she began to edge her way to the corner of the house, crushing overgrown and weed-choked flowerbeds beneath her feet as she went. As she came to one of the ground floor windows, its shutters hanging loose, pealing and dilapidated after years of neglect, she paused wary of passing directly in front of it; after all the last thing she needed was a Dead horde rushing the dirt streaked glass if they caught sight of her. But with a large thorny rose bush growing beneath the windowsill preventing her from ducking completely from sight she knew she had only one choice; she’d just have to chance it.
    ‘ Well, here goes nothing, ’ she thought, dropping down as far as the expansive rose bush would allow before darting across.
    Sparing a brief glance into the forlorn looking room as she sped past, Fran couldn’t help but notice the rust-brown splashes and handprints that littered the walls inside. Instantly she recognized them for what they were, for these were the calling card of the Dead and dying; and it had happened within the last week or two,