Read The Farm - 05 for Free Online Page B

seat. The reek of the dead filled the air, along with the brighter, coppery scent of fresh blood. The girl was no longer screaming, and to Biggs’s utter horror, she could see she had already been torn asunder by the abominations behind her. One of them was crouched over her, feasting on her lips and cheeks, ripping them away in great, gouging bites, ignoring the nonfatal bullet wounds to its shoulders and chest. Biggs managed to get her rifle into a decent firing position and popped the stench right in the skull at close range. The corpse fell forward over the girl’s body, but then another one shoved it out of the way and began ravaging the girl even further. Beside her, Powers was weeping, his tears cutting swaths through the grime that covered his face, as he struggled to load one of the Magpul magazines from the house into his M4. Biggs was surprised to see the window behind him had imploded; she hadn’t heard it, as she was half-deaf from the close-quarters gunfire and the never ending moans of the dead. A dozen hands pawed at Powers, dragging him backward, and Biggs knew that he wanted to reload his weapon so he could fire one last shot: the one that would end his life before the dead could do their work.
    Biggs turned and fired two rounds into his face without a word. The soldier’s lifeless body flopped and went limp, but that didn’t seem to bother the dead. They still hauled Powers’s fresh corpse out of the vehicle like kids tearing open presents on Christmas morning. And that’s exactly what they did to Powers—tore him right open before Biggs’s eyes.
    And then, more squeezed in through the shattered passenger door window, reaching in for Biggs.
    Her ammunition lasted longer than she’d thought it would, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.