Monday, January 20, 2014

Eviscerating Excerpt from "All Together Now: A Zombie Story"

Fiendish author Robert Kent has good news for zombie lovers. He is working on a new book about the hungry undead. Until Robert delivers his next nightmare-inducing novel, he's provided us a taunting taste of All Together Now: A Zombie Story.

Eviscerating Excerpt

Michelle, Levi, Chuck, and I got back to Harrington this afternoon. It took us four hours to get here from Brownsborough—a trip that used to take 25 minutes by car.

We walked in the fields that run parallel to I-65. We only saw three zombies during the whole walk, aside from Chuck, of course.

The first two weren't a problem.

In our first hour of walking, we came across a green truck lying on its roof, its wheels in the air like the stiff limbs of a carcass.

It was in the center of a field, but we could tell from the thick tracks leading up to the wreckage that the truck had come from the highway.

A side mirror lay in the grass several feet away and I had an idea the truck had flipped over at least twice, breaking off its mirror before rolling to a stop on its back.

Levi wanted to walk around the wreck and I thought that was smart, but Michelle marched straight to it. "They could've packed food or weapons," she called over her shoulder.

That was a fair point.

I hurried to catch up, but I stopped when Michelle brought our only gun out of her jeans and pointed it through the truck's windshield.

She knew not to fire it. A gun's good for getting out of a tight spot, but the shot will draw the attention of every zombie in hearing distance.

I had my bat up, ready to swing before I knew what the danger was.

Then I heard the muffled thumping. There were two corpses pounding on the windshield from inside the truck.

"They're out of food," Levi said.

When I looked where he was pointing I felt faint and my vision clouded with black spots. If this had happened a week ago, I would've thrown up. But I've seen a lot since then.

At first I could see only the zombies lying on the roof of the truck's cab, Mommy and Daddy. Both of them had the dark-rimmed, all-white eyes of the dead, sunken because the pale grey skin surrounding them had gone lax and hung off their skulls like dough.

Mommy was wearing a blue summer dress, stained maroon all down the front. Daddy had broken his neck and his head lolled on his shoulder. An unnatural bulge protruded beneath his jaw and stretched the skin there to near bursting.

Then I saw what Levi meant by "food."

Hanging upside down behind Mommy and Daddy was a car seat. It was still strapped in, despite the seat belt straps on either side having been gnawed through.

The soft grey lining of the car seat was stained red and black and covered in flecks of skin and hair.

They're trapped in there," Levi said.

How can you tell?" Michelle asked.

Levi shrugged. "If they could've got out, they would've. Let 'em starve."

He kept walking. Michelle followed.

I stood a while staring at the car seat, but when I heard a faint crack in the windshield the zombies were pounding on, I got moving.

The third zombie wasn't trapped. He came right at us.
 
To read more, check out All Together Now: A Zombie Story at Amazon.
 
Chase down Robert at his blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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