Not Dead Enough

Chapter 2-2

The town of Greenwood was just as much of a shithole as Brett suspected it would be. Nose wrinkling, he waited in the shadows as Fredericks cased the house. The police had long gone, but Brett could smell that they’d been here. Hell, he could practically still hear their heartbeats and, if he lapsed into his new senses too far, he’d be able to track each and every one of them back to their homes. Break down the doors that separated him from the hot, sweet flesh and blo—

“Keep it together, mate,” Dominic Fletcher’s rough voice broke through his little daydream. He turned his head. Dom had one shoulder propped up against the fence, but his eyes were steady on Brett’s.

“How’d you know I wa—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, but the expression on Dom’s face said it all. He shrugged.

“You were tweaking,” he said, shaking his head rapidly to the side. Brett easily followed the movement, but to anyone else, it would be too fast. Like a DVD caught in a rapid replay loop. “Figured the ’mares had gotten you.”

“Yeah.… Hard to shake them off sometimes.” Brett let a heavy sigh escape him and leaned back against the fence. His gaze slid sideways to Dom, to the width of his tattooed chest and shoulders and frowned. “You gettin’ bigger, dude? Or did you find a weight-bench at the last place? And eat it?”

Dom looked down, and grinned as he tensed. The dressings pulled again as his abs popped into high relief. “No. At least if we gotta be zombies, we’re f*****g ripped zombies, hey? Think the ladies will like me like this?”

“Nah, muscles like that they’ll want a monster prick. And yours… even with the increase, we’re talking maggot at best.”

Dom chuckled, his face splitting in a broad grin. “Wanker .”

“Asshole.”

The conversation degenerated into comfortable name-calling and then fell into silence for a moment until Dom spoke again. “Seriously though, whatever they put in that s**t worked. If they could get rid of the side-effects, they’d make a f*****g fortune in gyms.”

Brett arched his eyebrow. “You mean like… having no f*****g heartbeat? And generally being dead?”

“Yeah, that.” Dom kicked at the dirt with a booted foot. “Bit of a downer that.”

“No shit.”

The side door opened, the sound bringing them both to attention, only to relax when Fredericks and Kelwood emerged from the shadows at the side of the house. There were no lights on; they didn’t need them.

“Definitely Bloods,” Kelwood rasped, the first time any of them had heard his voice for a couple of days. Of all of them, his sense of smell was the keenest. “And a human female. She managed to shoot one before they took her.”

Brett frowned. “They didn’t kill her?”

Kelwood shook his head, his pale blue eyes focused for once. They were red-rimmed, but no one commented on it. They had more s**t to deal with than bothering a guy about a tear or two.

“If they did, it wasn’t here.” He looked back at the house, a frown on his face. “Which is odd. Generally they kill their vics on-site and leave, but that makes at least three they’ve kidnapped.”

“And we haven’t found the bodies yet.” Fredericks looked around the group. “I’ve never seen a Blood consume a whole body, you?”

They all shook their heads, but it was Dom that spoke. “Nope, they usually just drain their vics. Never seen them take so much as a bite.”

Fredericks’ lips compressed into a thin line. Brett suppressed a shiver. As a human Evan Fredericks had been an easy-going, affable sort of guy. Post-infection as a SARA, the dude was f*****g scary, even for them.

“Okay,” he said. “That means they’re taking these women for a reason. Kel, can you track the scent?”

Kelwood took a breath, his eyes unfocused as he concentrated. He nodded. “Yeah. It’s faint, but I can follow it. We’re going to need to go on foot though. They took her over the back here.”

Fredericks nodded. “Okay, let’s grab our gear and move out. I want to know what the f**k they’re doing with those women.”