Star Drawn Saga (Book 1): Death Among The Dead: A Zombie Novel by Stephen Charlick

from the burnt out shell of a small burger stand and unless the young man was hiding amongst its charred remains Fran guessed he must have gone down to the beach. As if to confirm her assumption the sound of a dog barking suddenly drifted up to her through the rolling mounds of sand and tall spiky dune grass; whatever was happening, the animal was clearly distressed about something. Breaking into a run, the loose gravel crunching beneath her boots, Fran took some comfort from the weight of the hefty length metal pipe in her grasp but as she approached the edge of the car park she was even more grateful to hear Tom’s clumping footfalls were not far behind her.
    ‘Hold up!’ he grunted, sprinting across the car park. ‘Fran, wait for me.’
    ‘Try and keep up, Granddad!’ she called back to him, noticing the texture of the ground beneath her feet suddenly change from gravel to smooth slipping sand.
    Glancing over her shoulder to make sure he was following, Fran was surprised to see the figure of an unknown woman entering the cark park behind him, a look of painful determination etched on her face.
    ‘We’ve got company!’ she called to Tom behind her, doing her best to control her descent down the steep slope of the dune. ‘She’s alive,’ she quickly added as an afterthought, not wanting Tom to misinterpret her meaning.
    No matter whom the woman following them was, Fran knew they simply didn’t have time to stop and find out. If the frantic barking of the large dog and the young man’s terrified wailing were anything to go by time they were cutting it fine as it was; she only hoped she wasn’t too late.
    ‘Petey!’ Fran heard the woman calling from somewhere behind her, as she and Tom finally rounded a large mound of spiky grass at the base of the dunes.
    ‘This way,’ panted Fran, following the trail of bloody drool in the sand.
    Running along the natural gullies and tracks formed between the sandy explosions of green and brown grass, Fran was wary of finding a scene of bloody carnage at every turn but thankfully she eventually slipped down the last sloping hill of golden sand and found herself out on the wide empty beach. For thirty meters or so the golden sand held sway, only finally relinquishing its hold along a tide line choked with seaweed and the flotsam and jetsam that laid sad testament of Man’s ultimate decline. After this natural demarcation the sand gave way to a salt and peppering of brown and grey shingle which led down to the softly lapping waves some forty metres away. For a second Fran was taken aback by the beauty of the seemingly endless ocean spreading out before her but with the barking Alsatian and the sound of something else a lot more terrifying growling in response snapping her back to her dark reality, she shook off her awe and sprang into action.
    With Tom close on her heals and the unknown woman just behind him, Fran ran towards the first set of breakers. The thick wooden planks set deep into the sand every fifty metres along the shore were waist height and covered in huge patches of mussels and winkles. On one particular section Fran could see that some of the mussels had been caught on something as it crashed carelessly into them. Their broken shells still dripped with the perpetrator’s dark blood and knowing this most likely belonged to the Dead old man, Fran hurdled over the breaker praying she wasn’t too late.
    Two things surprised her as she flew over the blood smeared wood. Firstly that the level of the sand was considerably lower on this side and secondly that despite the young man having some sort of mental disability not only had he managed to find perhaps the one hiding spot on the beach but he had also found it fast enough to save his life.
    ‘Shit!’ Fran spat, stumbling slightly after falling further than she had expected to.
    Grateful not to have twisted her ankle, Fran prepared to make her move. She had been right about the blood on the breaker belonging