Zombie Ocean (Book 2): The Lost by Michael John Grist Page A

her father. Down a shadowy weed-sprung alley she walked, past large blue trash boxes on wheels, until she reached the side door of the battered brick building.
    It was metal painted a cracked blue, with a round and dented handle. She turned it and the door swung open outward easily, leading to a dark and musty corridor walled with pipes. Further on there was a shard of weak evening light coming in through the front windows.
    "It's OK now," Anna called down the hall. Her voice echoed weirdly off the pipes. "You can come this way. Pull your pants up, if you like."
    No sound of footsteps followed. "The ocean's really close," she added. "Just a hop-skip away."
    She was about to step in and lead them out by the hand, when a low growl sounded from behind.
    It sounded familiar. It came again, perhaps coming from between the two big blue trash boxes. Anna started back down the alley and looked into the shadowy gap between them.
    Something was standing there: a dog. At its feet squirmed a handful of baby dogs, puppies like hungry little oysters, and Anna's heart melted. They looked just like the Hatter. At once she started to cry.
    "I missed you," she said.
    Then the dog jumped at her. It was so fast she couldn't do a thing. Its jaws closed on her head and bit down, jerking her neck savagely. There was a horrible crunch, red sprayed out before her like shooting stars, and everything went black.
     
     
    And came back. She was crawling on the rough tarmac alley, with weeds between her fingers and blood in her eyes. It hurt to look and it hurt to move. Something was snarling somewhere, something was groaning.
    With immense effort she rolled to her side, and saw. Two gray people were fighting the dog. It was the chef and the waitress with their trousers down. The chef lay on his back with blood all over his white apron, holding to the dog's neck while it tore at his belly. Long stringy bits of gray meat came out of him, like rotten sausages.
    The dog was biting him and he was trying to bite it too. He had his mouth up against its back thigh, chewing at furry meat and spilling deep red blood. The waitress was on her knees beside them, bleeding darkly from the throat and twitching strangely. Her glowing white eyes stuttered on and off like a broken flashlight. She held the dog's back paws but didn't seem to be doing much more.
    It was ghastly and Anna only wanted to crawl further away, to find somewhere that her thumping head could grow calm, like a nice bed with tight covers to burrow into, but that wasn't fair.
    These two had saved her. Now she had to save them.
    She pushed dizzily to her feet. Blood dripped from her head to the dark tarmac. It ran hot down her cheek and the back of her neck, staining her blue Alice dress. She raised a hand to the wound and it came back sopping red.
    That wasn't good.
    The dog was growling and the waitress was lying down now, hardly holding onto its back legs at all. The chef was still biting but making much less progress than the dog. It grabbed a good hank of his innards and shook its head violently, sending shreds of gray spraying out like cereal-stars.
    Anna stumbled over. A half-brick lay by the chef's side and she picked it up.
    "Bad dog," she said.
    It looked up at her with its snout covered in gray, squatting to jump again.
    She hit it in the head with the brick. It wasn't hard, and swinging her arm almost made her vomit with dizziness, but the brick connected with a solid thunk and the dog stopped growling.
    The chef bit into its shoulder and it whined. Anna hit it again. Thunk. It drooped deeper into the chef's clutches. He got his hands around its neck and pulled it in.
    Thunk, one more time and he got his teeth into its throat and bit.
    Blood spat out and covered his face, and the dog calmed quickly. Anna fell to her knees. It was sad to see another Hatter die, but what choice did she have?
    "Thank you," she murmured.
    The chef ducked his head and ate, just like her Daddy. The waitress clicked