The Crossing: A Zombie Novella by Joe McKinney Page B

heartbeat. This is how it's done, folks. This is how you tell a horror story in the 21st century. John Sebastian Gorumba's World in Red is savagely cruel, but beneath the violence is a profound understanding of how easy it is to lose one's humanity in our modern world. I can't wait to see where Gorumba goes from here, because this guy knows how to deliver the scares. World in Red is a can't-miss debut from newcomer John Gorumba."
     
    Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and Apocalypse of the Dead
     

The hallway was empty. Maurice cupped one hand under Alexander to reassure himself that the newborn was still there. He walked a few steps down the hall before realizing that he was going the wrong way.
    He turned back in time to see a figure lumber around the corner at the other end of the hall. The man was naked and doused in blood. Leads dangled from his chest, having pulled free of a monitor. The chords trailed behind him like tails. His chest was sprinkled with bullet holes and what only a few minutes earlier Maurice wouldn’t have recognized as bite marks.
    He spotted Maurice and staggered slowly down the hall. His mouth worked. He groaned gibberish. Maurice moved back to the door.
    “ Open the door,” he said. The man couldn’t walk straight. He staggered, stamping red impressionist marks wherever he hit the wall. Maurice wondered if this was the guy the cops had been chasing.
    He panicked when he heard nothing behind the door. Leslie wasn’t going to let him in. It hit him that the first request might have sounded louder in his head, that he might have just whispered it. He tried again, much louder.
    The thing grew excited. It plodded toward him in a shaky toddler-stomp. Its head was misshapen; the left side seemed dented, sunken. Its arms reached out for Maurice even though it was too far away to touch him. He heard the nursery door begin to open and he reached his hand out to help it, unable to look away from the naked man. He saw Leslie in the corner of his eye and then something slammed into his back.
    “ Maauuriiiice. ”
    He spun, his back striking the wall, and he crashed onto his ass. Cassie stomped toward him, arms outstretched, heavy breasts swaying. She leapt onto him, and he threw his arms up to protect Alexander, scrambled backward, driving his foot into her face.
    He heard an excited groan from the naked man, much closer now. He was almost free when Cassie frog-hopped forward, tangling his legs with her body. He felt her breasts against his legs, and again felt embarrassed by her.
    She buried her face into his crotch and bit his inner thigh. He shrieked. The scalpel was on the ground again, completely out of reach. Alexander was motionless against his chest.
    He thought about Shawnda, about how Leslie had said that he had killed her, how Shawnda said a bite got you sick. He thrashed, his knee connected with Cassie’s jaw, and her head rocked backward. There was a muffled squeal from the sling.
    His hand went to Alexander—the child felt wrong. He was twisted in the sling, and Maurice could feel the tiny bump of Alexander’s nose pressed hard against the fabric.
    The shadow of the naked man fell across Maurice’s body. It let out a growl that sounded like delight without the words to express it.
    Maurice’s pants were whole. Cassie hadn’t broken through his jeans. His shoe found her jaw. She kept clawing, unaffected by pain or reason. Her jaw looked off somehow, and he was sure he’d broken it.
    “ Baybeeeee,” she gurgled, eyeing the sling. She came at him and he cocked back his leg for another kick when the man descended upon him, smiling. He was engulfed in naked flesh.
    The naked man had fallen too far forward, its head near Maurice’s cocked leg, which prevented it from lying flat upon him. Its flaccid penis mashed into Maurice’s cheek. Blood had congealed in its black pubic hair, which choked Maurice’s nostrils with a sour, coppery musk.
    “ Baybeeeee. ”
    Cassie was on his legs