Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand by Daniel Cotton Page A

just have to find a new route since the Washington Bridge
appears to have fallen into the Charles River.
    A rumble coming from the right causes him to
pause at the mouth of the hotel’s drive. A semi-truck is barreling
down the road. It pushes vehicles aside, inadvertently blocking his
progress.
    “Are you kidding me?” He watches the large
vehicle depart. “Inconsiderate fuck!”
    He’s trapped. If he wants to drive out of
here, he’ll have to get out and clear the cars in his way. Armed
with his semi-automatic pistol that is no longer semi-automatic, he
exits and cautiously examines the mess before him. It reminds him
of a game he used to play on his phone, back when he carried the
thing, it featured a parking lot full of cars, and the point of the
diversion was to move the cars around so the player could drive one
in particular out of the grid. The stakes were never as high as
this, though.
    Dustin finds a powder blue sedan that isn’t
completely blocked. He glances all around the scene while he
reaches into the vehicle to steer it away. A white convertible is
the next to be relocated, leaving a tight passage for him to
squeeze through. Proud of his work, he turns towards the purple car
he is about to steal for the second time that day, and comes face
to face with a walking corpse.
    The dead woman’s throat has been torn out,
nullifying the cautionary moans that would have warned him of her
presence. The skin is gone from her jaw to her cheeks, revealing
bloody teeth and gums. He is taken aback by the gruesome sight, and
is about to fire his pistol, when a stomach-turning sound rains
down around him.
    People are falling from the sky. Zombies are
tumbling out of the devastated panes of glass above him, landing
hard upon the asphalt, only to rise to their broken limbs.
Carcasses smash hoods of cars. The mobile dead roll off and advance
on him.
    Bodies fall from the awning his car is under,
but he can’t get to it. Dustin has no choice but to run away
without his music and means of escape. A mass of zombies grows in
his wake, following on his heels. He hopes he can find a way to
trick them, give them the slip and double back to the Grand. He
takes a corner only to find more awkwardly footed ghouls heading
his way, drawn to the commotion. Dustin slides under their grasp,
scampering frantically to increase the distance between himself and
the zombies.
    Dustin is up and running down the street.
With a healthy lead, he decides to duck into an alley, but hands
greet him immediately. He bats them away with revulsion, however
these hands are not trying to get a hold of him. They push him away
instead, and a voice tells him, “Get the bloody fuck outta
here!”
    The owner of the British accented whisper
hides behind a silver trashcan in a dead end alley. The gun he
points makes it perfectly clear that protest and begging will get
Dustin nowhere.
    He has to go. The dead are coming.
    Dustin trips over a trash receptacle as he
retreats from the alcove. The drum clatters noisily onto the
sidewalk. He grabs the circular lid as he dashes off.
    Dustin hides behind a car, biding his time as
the hobbling threats near the mouth of the alley. He tosses the
trashcan lid at the gap between buildings. The metallic discus
propels into the divide he had wished to crouch in. It ricochets
noisily off the brick walls like a pinball, and the clanging
attracts the dead to the niche.
    Screams lure in the rest of the zombies, and
it isn’t long until the sounds of resistance cease. Dustin sneaks
back towards the hotel, using parked vehicles as cover. He tries to
resist but can’t help glancing into the alley. Luckily he can’t see
much more than the backs of the horde bent over their meal as they
feast.

 
11
     
    As a pop icon, Kelly Peel is used to obsessed
fans. She’s received many letters from men declaring their undying
love and devotion, and many from prisoners serving life sentences.
She’s even encountered the rare fanatic that