The Rabid (Book 1) (30 page)

Raising his aim, Duke let the little day glow bead of the sight follow the tie up to the neck, from there to a pale drooping chin over the open mouth, and centered it between two deeply sunken eyes.

“Just come a little closer,” Duke said softly. Too softly, he thought, to be heard by the thing in his sights, but he was wrong. The eyes that had been
dark, flared with new heat and burned right across the quiet yard to lock onto Duke.

It took a step, thick legs twitching in an awkward motion. Another step and the thing lurched forward, settling into a broken gait, moving straight toward Duke who watched only the eyes. No matter how unsteady the step, the gaze never wavered.

More than halfway across the yard, it reached the bumper of the truck, knocking against the pitted chrome without notice. It was in easy range now and the eyes beyond the sights of the shotgun showed themselves to be faded of color, lifeless, yet full of intent. They were the hard hungry eyes of a predator stalking.

Shoulders hunched and flexed forward to bring the stiff arms up in a clumsy motion. Filthy, scabrous hands clawed the air reaching for Duke. Some of the fingers of the hands were broken and hanging at angles. Two were just nubs of white bone. Dry, brown blood, was all over them, but nowhere were they bleeding.

Another staggering series of steps brought it beyond the old truck and within a few feet of the porch. Duke’s finger tightened slowly on his trigger just as the thing in his sights began to glow with a soft, amber light. He hesitated just long enough to register the growing engine noise and the grinding of tires on gravel. With the thing illuminated in the headlights of the oncoming truck, Duke took one last look into the hard eyes that were stalking him, then pulled the trigger.

At that range, the head exploded in a brutal wet shower that glistened more black than red in the approaching headlights. As brakes squealed and knobby tires dragged in the dirt of the drive, the body slumped silently down into the shadow of the derelict Chevy.

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