Better off Dead A Lucy Hart, Deathdealer - By Eva Sloan Page 0,80

clawing their way out of their coffins.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

And if the rather nasty state of James and Julie Adams freshly animated corpses was any indication of what was to come crawling out of the rest of the graves, Lucy was glad she’d already thrown up the contents of her stomach.

Covered in dirt, stitches clearly holding their flesh together over their faces, Mrs. Adam’s head had obviously separated from her shoulders, the stitches bulging since her entire head lulled to the side. They hadn’t bothered trying to stabilize or reinforce the neck. Lucy hoped, for Abbey’s sake, that the funeral had been closed casket.

Mr. Adams had had the top of his skull chopped off, and they had simply stapled it back on top of his head. And as he stepped out of his grave, his suit wrinkled and caked with soil, Lucy saw that his left leg was crooked—probably broken during the accident.

Lucy couldn’t keep her eyes on Mr. and Mrs. Adams. It wasn’t their disturbing appearance…it was that corpses were breaking through the ground all around her. Some faster than others, some almost completely skeletal, some almost looked like they were in good enough shape they could’ve passed for living. Must have been gentle deaths, and the embalming procedure had frozen them that way.

But most were stooped, rotting bags of mottled flesh, oozing fluids and eyes bulging or drooping out of their sockets.

Lucy fell to her knees beside Abbey, trying to shake her awake. If they ran they might have a chance.

Are they zombies? If they are, will they eat us? Lucy cried out Abbey’s name. Or just our brains?

Suddenly Abbey’s eyes snapped open, she gasped and brought her arm up over her face, moaning. And then she was screaming. She’d caught sight of a zombie crawling out of his grave—there was only half of him left. She scrambled to her feet, spinning around, gasping between screams, looking to Lucy, her terrified eyes barely registering her. But then she just stopped screaming, stopped moving, wasn’t even breathing for a moment.

“Momma…Daddy?” She gasped and gulped breath as she started to stagger toward her parents’ animated corpses.

Oh god. Lucy reached out and tried to grab Abbey, caught her elbow and dragged her back to her. Abbey tried to push Lucy away, but Lucy wouldn’t let go. Abbey turned on her and pushed again. “Let go of me!”

“Abbey, we’ve got to get out of here!” Lucy tried to pull her toward the only clear path she could see. The only way that didn’t have a corpse dragging itself toward them. But Abbey couldn’t take her eyes away from her parents, and she just kept calling to them, and pushing at Lucy, trying to get free of her.

“They’re not you parents anymore!” Lucy said. She shook her friend and turned her to face her.

Abbey’s eyes flashed, the whites of her eyes huge, her mouth now open in a snarl. She reared back and slapped Lucy across the cheek, hard enough Lucy lost her hold on one of Abbey’s shoulders, but she kept hold of the other for dear life. She couldn’t let her get any closer to her parents.

She couldn’t feel much anymore, there were just too many dead people walking around, fighting with each other. But she could tell two things: there were no spirits in any of the zombies, just energy filling them, making them move; and she could feel hunger rolling off every single one of them.

Guess that answers the “will they eat us?” question.

Lucy gasped when she saw a skeletal hand clasp down on Abbey’s shoulder, a rotting face appearing out of the darkness, its teeth flashing as it went for her throat. Lucy swung her fist and punched the gruesome creature in the face, knocking out one of its slimy teeth. But just then something grabbed Lucy by the ankle, making her fall to one knee and scream.

A light flared around Lucy and Abbey, scorching the air and illuminating the entire graveyard. Something whipped through the air, crackling with blurry speed, sending the two corpses attacking Lucy and Abbey flying through the misty air.

Lucy looked up and saw an unbelievable sight. There stood her grandmother in her nightgown and robe, her hair braided in a long white rope. In her hand she held an old wooden baseball bat—the one from the hall closet. But now it was glowing, shimmering with light.

“Gram?”

Her Grandmother moved forward and swung the bat, catching a zombie in the back of the head,