Dead Man Running Read Online Free Page A

scanner. Maybe they were being sucked towards it and hitting the outside. But surely Ace wouldn’t be so careless?
    Thud-thud. Thud. Clank.
    â€˜Hello?’ Six called. ‘Ace?’
    No answer.
    He still had the remote control. There was a red button which would abort the scan and eject the bench. Six didn’t want to have to use it – MRI scans were costly in both time and energy – but he also didn’t want to get stabbed with a flying bone saw. If there were loose magnetic tools in the room, he needed to get as far away from the machine as possible. He pushed the button.
    The machine whined as the magnet started to slow down. Theoretically there was no power flowing to it any more, and therefore no magnetism to propel objects, but Six covered his head with his arms anyway as the bench slid out of the scanner.
    He’d expected to hear a jingling sound as the magnetic objects fell to the floor. But there was none. He looked back at the scanner – nothing was stuck to it. Then what had made the thudding sounds? He sat up on the bench and looked around the room. Nothing seemed to have changed . . .
    Except the door of one of the morgue drawers was open.
    Six stared at the dented steel. Had someone come in to remove one of the bodies? Then he looked down. If anyone had, they hadn’t succeeded – there was a corpse slumped at his feet, half-shrouded in a white hospital gown.
    It had once been a man; large, strong, bald. There was a bullet wound in the back of his head, and through an armhole of the gown, Six could see another one in his back, about where his heart would be.
    Six wondered, Why would anyone open a morgue drawer, remove the occupant, drag him towards the MRI scanner and then flee? Perhaps there was something magnetic inside him, something that –
    The dead man grabbed Six’s ankle.
    Six shrieked in terror, pulled his leg free and tumbled backwards over the bench, landing on the other side. The dead man followed him, crawling under the bench, long-fingered hands clenching the air. One veined eye was fixed on Six – the other was missing, blasted out by the gunshot.
    Six scrambled backwards across the tiles, his pulse thumping in his ears. ‘Uh, sorry!’ he said. ‘You scared me. You shouldn’t have been locked up in there – we thought you were dead!’
    Because how could someone survive being shot in the brain and the heart? screamed a voice inside his head.
    The man kept dragging himself towards Six, limbs moving stiffly, mechanically, leaving a snail trail of drool on the tiles behind him. He showed no sign that he’d heard or understood.
    â€˜Ace!’ Six screamed. ‘Help!’
    His voice reverberated around the soundproofed walls of the morgue. No help was coming. He had no weapons – his backpack was propped against the wall nearby, but the only thing in it was a decommissioned nuclear warhead.
    He scrambled to his feet. The one-eyed man was between him and the door. But Six was very strong and highly trained – maybe he could overpower him.
    The man stood slowly. He glared at Six.
    â€˜I don’t want to hurt you,’ Six said. ‘Just stay back, and I’ll get someone who can help you, okay?’
    The man lurched sideways, smashing his elbow into the glass panel of a wall-mounted box. An alarm wailed as he pulled out a fire axe. Broken glass crunched under his bare feet as he advanced on Six.
    â€˜No, no, no!’ Six yelled. ‘Put that down!’
    The man swung the axe.
    Six ducked, just in time – he felt the rush of air as the blade swept by over his head and shattered some tiles on the wall. As he rose, Six grabbed at the handle, but the man put his hand over Six’s face and shoved him backwards with surprising speed and force. His skin was as firm and cold as a refrigerated steak.
    Six dived backwards as the man swiped at him again with the axe. The blade sliced his shirt and