Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row by Sean Robert Lang

glorious moment, inhale it like his favorite cigarette. Taste it like his favorite whiskey. Feel it like his wife’s electric touch. Love it as he’d loved Kate’s pure and innocent soul. He’d live it as if it were his last moment to live.
    Be that moment. Become it.
    He’d thumb back the hammer, hear it click splendidly. Another blast of crimson and steaming pale flesh, the barren glow gone from David’s eyes a second time. Forever, never to glimmer again.
    A near orgasmic sigh left him as glass met his lips, and Doc took a small pull from the whiskey bottle, savoring the bite. He desired a cigarette with his liquid lunch, but didn’t chance one. Not with Alamo Assisted Living and Retirement residents just across the way, working to ferret him out. He needed to be cunning and smart, not give away his location with smoke signals. Smells.
    Over here, ladies and gentlemen. Follow the traces of tobacco smoke crumb trails.  
    Stupidity and carelessness got folks killed in a hurry. Was true before the dead roamed, was true now. Be smart. Stupid kills. He thought he’d read that on a bumper sticker once.
    Leaving stray drops on parched lips, he squinted, trying to gather clues as to the group’s progress. There was pointing, yelling. The pool full of biters a source of contention. Temporarily, at least. One of the men got in another’s face. Shoving. More pointing, arguing.
    A house divided. How delightful.
    Tom’s little gift had made waves, created a rift fueled by fear and the unknown. Proposed questions with no answers.  
    How did this happen? Where did he come from? Where was he?Inside the fence? How? Why would someone do this? Why, why, WHY?
    Ask motherfucking David Morris. Ask him, why?
    Doc had stirred serious emotions. Mix those with alarm and terror, along with a dash of the unknown, and things would go his way, by his plan. Not that he had much of a plan…
    How he yearned to have been that famous fly on the wall, witnessed David’s face when the cardboard released its secret. He could only imagine for now, but his imagination was vivid, and he smiled. He’d be sure to ask David about it before squeezing the—
    The whip-crack of the rifle shot and exploding bark beside his head snatched him from his musing. He lost a breath, dropped to one knee.
    Another shot sullied the peace, and he was certain, positive, that lead had found flesh. Had heard the sickening punch of bullet through body and bone. He patted himself, convinced he’d caught it, been that mark. And he’d be partly right.
    Tom—his identity— was the mark, the intended target. His physical body, however, did not catch the metal meant for him. Another entity mistakenly thought to be him was sacrificed, unwittingly stood in for him. A divine intervention allowed Tom’s life to continue while freeing the decomposing soul of another, now twice dead.
    On the other side of the tree, the ghoul gurgled in its death throes. Knees giving out, it hit the ground with two distinct thuds .
    Tom breathed hard, thankful breaths.  
    Musing—and slightly tipsy—Tom had been blind to the dead man beside him. Assuming he was alone, he’d been careless, self-absorbed, unobservant… stupid .  
    Be smart. Stupid kills. You know what they say about assuming, Doc. Makes an ass of u and —
    I know what they say.
    Do you, Doc? Do you know what they say? Do you know what they’re saying about you right now?
    Who? That bemused and befuddled group of inbreds across the field?
    Whom else would I be talking about, Doc?
    Perhaps you’d prefer conversing with company that gave a fuck.
    Tom tuned out the contentious voice yammering away incessantly inside his head, deciding instead to listen to his gut. And it screamed at him loud and clear:  
    Get the hell out of here . While you still can .

Chapter 6

    David swung his legs out of the bed, and the box fell to the floor. But the hand—his wife’s precious hand—remained firmly within his own. He would not let