Transformation: Zombie Crusade VI Read Online Free Page B

through.
    “That’s the second time I’ve been shushed today,” Maddy replied indignantly. “I’ll take it from Luke, but not from you.”
    Zach sighed. “Sorry, but what you said made sense for a change. They didn’t see him like they saw us—the infected see us as prey, but I don’t think Luke registers as potential dinner for them anymore. For whatever reason, now that he’s survived the infection, Luke is no longer on their menu.”
    Maddy nodded, “I think you’re on the right track, but I also think there’s more to it. When he was staring at that last hunter, I really felt like they were communicating somehow. I agree that, if today is any indication of future behavior, the creatures no longer see Luke as food. But I’m not sure exactly what they think he is. And, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think Luke knows exactly what he is either.”
     
     
    The massive male hunter stood with his head cocked, listening to the distant sounds of Food. His upper lip curled into a snarl as a memory slowly snaked its way into his consciousness. One hazy memory led to another before a flurry of experiences exploded in his mind, and he remembered. . .
    He had been face to face with an alien pack-leader, unlike any he’d ever seen. The strange creature had held him in his gaze, and it was both alarming and exhilarating. The power pulsating from the Strong One was overwhelming. With his own alpha-pack destroyed, it would have been natural to join with the Strong One, but something wasn’t right. Self-preservation had directed him to flee, and he had run for an unknown period of time.
    Long before all that, he had been the alpha of a pack of eight mostly young and male hunters far to the north of the place where he now lived. His mates hunted the edges of the city where Food had once been plentiful, but after a time they mostly lived off the many substitutes for Food—warm blooded, mostly furry creatures whose meat was almost satisfying. But their flesh never completely satiated the hunger for Food.
    The hunter felt dizzy as he remembered the day when the machine-birds soared through the sky above the city and he lost control of his pack. A piercing vibration had cut through all thoughts as the black beast flew overhead, and he had had no choice but to follow the crowd stumbling through the littered streets and highways and spilling out onto the prairie. He was soon in the middle of thousands of his own kind, feeding on huge animals with dark fur and horns. The swarm would run, eat, and rest. Run, eat, and rest.
    He didn’t know how long he’d been a part of the swarm before it discovered a tantalizing supply of Food and erupted in chaos. He’d pushed forward through the shouts, snarls, and howls of pain all around him, only to find a landscape riddled with the bodies and disconnected body parts of his brothers and sisters. He saw mounds of the dead piled so high that he could have climbed their broken bodies to get closer to Food, but he hesitated. His instinct for self-preservation told him to run, and somehow he resisted the urge compelling him to pursue Food over all else. A searing pain ripped through his head, but he managed to work his way back through the mindless advance and away from the swarm.
    He’d eventually found a few others like himself, and they’d formed a new pack, but the leadership was never clear. They were all alpha males, and they each had managed to eventually resist the compulsion to follow the machine-birds. They were huge and strong, and they had been unstoppable. Until this morning. Now the pack no longer existed, but something had taken its place—a growing self-awareness that was both intoxicating and frightening. It had been triggered by the oddly powerful creature he’d encountered after his pack-mates were killed. The hunter instinctively knew that he’d crossed paths with the strangest and most impressively dominant pack leader he’d ever seen, and he’d been lucky to