Read In the Dead: Volume 1 for Free Online

down the beach where Duncan had gone. “What guy?”
    She motioned toward the visitor to their beach. “The guy, Randy! There’s something wrong with him.”
    Randy looked down the beach where she was motioning. The stranger was moving at a steady clip toward them and was now about a hundred yards away… but he wasn’t really walking. He was… dragging toward them, one shoulder hunched downward and his left leg didn’t lift, but pulled a trench in the sand behind him.
    “ Oh my God,” Nadia cried as she moved toward the man. She could now see his face was bloody. “Are you okay?”
    The man didn’t answer, but continued up the beach with a faint moan that dissipated on the air like smoke. She moved to get closer, but Randy caught her arm.
    “ Nadia, go in and call 911, okay,” Randy said.
    She blinked as she looked at him then stared at the man who was coming closer with every step. His eyes were so blank. And red.
    “ Be careful,” she said, squeezed Randy’s arm, then ran for the house.
     
    #
    Every hair on Randy’s arms and the back of his neck stood up, kind of like they had the last day he’d been at work and everyone was whispering about investigations and jail terms and staring at him like he had sprouted a second head that was humming the National Anthem.
    He’d always had the knack to know when bad shit was about to go down and looking at the stranger who continued to stagger toward him, he figured the guy couldn’t be bringing good news.
    “ Hey, mister,” he said, taking one step closer. “Are you okay? You get hurt in a car wreck or something?”
    He didn’t believe that was the case when he said it. After all, the road was almost a mile away. It wouldn’t really make sense for someone to come all this way. Though judging from the way the man moaned in response, maybe he was just so fucked up he didn’t even know where he was.
    “ Sir?” Randy repeated as the man reached him.
    Instead of answering, the man vomited up black sludge all over the front of his white t-shirt. Randy gagged, but managed to keep his own puke reflex at bay and grabbed for the man’s shoulder.
    “ Shit, you might have a concussion or something. Sit down and-”
    He didn’t get to finish. Before he could, the stranger grabbed for his hand and sunk his teeth into Randy’s palm.
    “ Mother fucker!” Randy screamed as he punched his attacker square in the face.
    The man grunted as he staggered back and his jaw loosened enough that Randy was able to pull his hand free. He stared at his palm. The skin was broken and the outline of ragged tooth marks was already starting to be blocked out by blood and some kind of weird black material.
    “ What the fuck, man?” he asked the intruder. “Who the fuck bites someone?”
    The man moved forward again with another moan and this time there was no doubt he had bad intentions. He reached for Randy and caught his shoulders, pulling at him with surprising strength for a person Randy was pretty sure he outweighed by a good twenty pounds (he’d stress-eaten a few donuts since he ran from the law).
    He shoved back, but the stranger clung tightly. His jaws snapped toward Randy’s face and he drooled that disgusting black material down his chin as he snarled and muttered.
    As they grappled, the door to the cottage opened and Nadia came down the steps carrying the cordless phone in one hand and her disposable cell in another. “Hey, all the lines are dead-” she started and then she caught sight of Randy’s predicament.
    She tossed both phones on the sand at the bottom of the steps and ran toward them at a full spring.
    “ Get off him!” she screamed as she pushed the stranger.
    Even with their combined weight, though, the intruder clung to Randy and wouldn’t let go. Nadia hit him this time with a right cross that Randy swore she’d learned from UFC, but all the man did was snarl in her direction and keep snapping his teeth at Randy.
    “ What the fuck is wrong with