Braun Path of the Horseman

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9938758-1-6
Verlag: Distributed via Smashwords
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 168 Seiten

The Four Horseman are trapped in the world they desolated. Their only purpose now is to exist amongst the ruins. All of that changes with a small group of survivors...

Autoren/Hrsg.

Braun, Amy

Leseproben

Chapter 1

Six Months After Tribulation

I couldn’t believe how long it took for them to see me. When they weren’t excited, they were the speed of a rolling pencil and about as smart, but I was a walking buffet. I had to shoulder into some of the idiots to get them to notice me.

Though when they did, the plan started getting dangerous. There wasn’t a lot a Plagued could do to me, but I could still get hurt. Getting crushed by a bunch of decaying corpses was not on my list of death wishes. good times.

Their shambling picked up as I jogged through the crowd of Plagued. Raspy moans and guttural growls followed my back. Good to know I got their attention.

I needed them to surround me. Yeah, I could have taken them out one at a time, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, it had been so long since I used my powers that I was beginning to feel human.

Definitely not as fun as being the Real Me.

So I ran to the center of the town, making as much noise as I could. Knocked over a garbage bin, threw a rock into a window, shouted for help, the things only moronic people did.

Not that there were any stupid people alive anymore, thanks to my brothers and me. No Good Samaritans, either.

I slowed down and stood at a four way stop, looking at every intersection and counting all of the Plagued. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty… Twenty-three? That’s it? Damn. Last week’s haul was better.

But it wasn’t the Plagued I was really after. Oh no. I’m a guy who tries for the bigger game. Yes, I turned humans into flesh-eating zombies. There, I confess. But the real monsters? The ones who were fast, strong, and literally bloodthirsty? I didn’t make those.

Scout’s honor.

I watched the Plagued shamble closer, keeping my eyes on the windows of the busted shops and the alleys. They could come out during the day, but they hated it.

Still, I was fresh meat. Something I knew they wanted. As far as they knew, I was a nice juicy human. The rarest of rare for their palates.

Come on out, you bastards. Take a bite of me, and choke.

I swear the Soulless were less patient than their brain-dead brethren. They eased out of the dark like pools of oil dripping into shadows. Stealthy and languid, they were the jaguars hiding in the jungle. There were four of them. Less than I accounted for. I would have gone back to recheck my numbers, but the converging circle of Plagued was tightening. The smell nearly made me gag. Think sleeping next to a rotting corpse in a dumpster is bad? Try standing in the middle of over twenty decaying corpses whose body odor alone will have your stomach rethinking your lunch.

The Soulless weaved faster through the crowd of undead. I could see them being shoved aside. The Soulless wanted first bites, the selfish jerks. There was enough of me to go around.

I kept my hands loose at my sides, relaxing my mind and pulling up the ancient power inside my body. It grew like the maw of a yawning lion, wide, roaring, and showing all its teeth.

I shouldn’t have been using it, but… it felt fucking good.

The power shivered under my skin as the Soulless gave up on subtlety. The Plagued were feet away, and they wanted early dibs. The closest Plagued were just stretching out their withering fingers when the Soulless burst through the lines. They hissed like feral cats, bloodshot eyes narrowed in hunger, black tipped claws pointing out like shards of glass from their fingertips, dried blood caked around their crocodile toothed mouths.

The Soulless thought they were the top dogs. Highest on the food chain. Untouchable.

But they were nothing compared to me.

Their claws barely scratched my arm as I let all that pent up power go. A living disease exploded out of my body in a wave of black smoke and ash. I controlled the smoke, watching its tendrils snake into the mouths of the Soulless. They skidded to a stop and screeched as I turned the smoke into a corrosive bacteria that devoured their insides. The hungry bacteria tainted their pale blue veins, turning them into black cracks on their dirty, alabaster skin. The four Soulless gave a collective scream before collapsing onto the ground. Their pale complexions turned grey, and I knew my job was done.

But did I stop there? Of course not. I was surrounded by walking corpses and too lazy to fight my way out.

I pushed the hazy disease toward the Plagued. I narrowed my smoke, condensing parts of the vapor to the size of hornets. My locusts. It had been so long since I used them.

And they were hungry.

Holding onto my smoke, I let the locusts fly at the Plagued. They latched onto the walking dead instantly, through their already decaying flesh. Dead things don’t feel pain, so they didn’t scream or howl. They just twitched and jerked, like they were dancing in a possessed rave while the smoke machine poisoned them.

Took another minute for the Plagued to collapse onto the ground next to their freshly dead Soulless pals. I pulled the locusts back, dissolving them into fumes that I pulled into my skin. By the time the disease was back in my body, I was light-headed and seeing stars. It had been a long time since I’d used the locusts, and I’d forgotten how draining they could be. I had a lot of power, but no idea how much longer it would last me.

Playing human was a bitch. Stupid Bosses should have told me that much.

I shook the dizziness off and breathed steadily, then looked at my work.

Twenty-three Plagued lying in chunky heaps of bone and clotted blood, four black veined and grey skinned Soulless staring with sightless eyes.

Not a bad haul, actually.

***

After effectively vaporizing the overeager vampires and their brain-dead cousins, there was nothing left for me to do in Boulder City. This had been my sector since that little apocalyptic party my brother and I hosted six months ago, and I hadn’t been to one since. Not even a Sunday dinner. Not that there was a lot to eat since Simon did his job.

Some days I wondered if the Bosses Upstairs knew what would happen to us after we cleansed the earthly slate. Actually, I’m pretty sure they did. We were just tools to them. The ultimate stain remover, no money back guarantee required. Except what do you with the bottle when those stains are gone? You toss it. The stain remover did its job, and you don’t need it anymore.

So we were stuck down here with the leftover dead and might-as-well-be-dead, wandering back and forth because we had no direction. When we finally picked our spots, we stayed in them. It wasn’t like anything could really hurt us.

Too bad that like the stain remover, we had an expiry date. Nobody was coming from on high to take us back to the clouds and throw us a thank you party. They couldn’t even be bothered to seal us back up again. I wouldn’t really want to be locked in the pit with my sociopathic siblings again, but a change of scenery would be nice. I was sick of the sandstorms, the sunburns, and the smell of old death.

In the end, that was what made me leave my little Boulder. I needed some kind of adventure. Anything to kill the time while looking for something to actually kill.

I trudged through the now completely empty city, kicking up dust and stepping over debris. With no street crews alive to maintain the roads, the whole of downtown looked like the desert was swallowing it up. The sand was ankle high at some points. I walked past the bloodstains and emaciated corpses I’d spent the last six months talking to. I didn’t have much for company these days since we’d split up. Some days I wished I hadn’t let Bacillus go. He’d been my one loyal friend, and I locked him away. Couldn’t even think about the guy without thinking about what he’d helped me enthusiastically do.

The roads were littered with cars. Most of them were crammed into the middle of the streets, like metal sardines in a brick casing. I didn’t have a lot to pick from in terms of style, but I did find a black Jeep Cherokee near the corner of the four way stop. Three other cars had been smashed together, probably two sets of cars trying to speed to safety. Of course they didn’t pay attention, thinking the Plagued were more dangerous than their fellow commuters.

Irony, thy name is humanity.

The sand softened the crunch of glass under my military boots. I looked inside the Cherokee to make sure it hadn’t been turned into a Dead Hobo Hyatt. Good news was it was empty. Bad news was I couldn’t see anything remotely close to survival supplies. I figured food would be out (damn you, Simon), but anything else would have been nice.

I’m invincible when I’m using my powers, but my skin suit is not impervious. This is something many Soulless have discovered, but haven’t been able to tell their friends. I’m not sure what will kill me. Simon will probably die of starvation, Kade will burn himself out, and Logan will be the last man on earth before he commits suicide.

Turns out we weren’t the only suckers for that bitch called Irony.

I tugged on the car door. It didn’t budge. So I made my way through the maze of crushed cars, found a fist sized rock, and picked it up. I turned and walked back to the car, then smashed the rock into the driver side window. I was stronger than your average mammal, so I took it out in one hit. I wasn’t worried about the noise, since everyone on the planet was dead.

I reached into the broken window and pulled up the lock. There wasn’t a car alarm, thank God. I hated...