Wormwood Dawn (Episode IX) Read Online Free

corpse said nothing.
    He checked the cylinder, finding it full-except for one round, of course. It was a .357 Magnum, probably some cheaper brand; a Taurus maybe. Good enough. There were several boxes of rounds on the table beside the corpse, two of them full, two of them mostly empty. He stuffed them all in his pocket, saving one round to refill the revolver.
    He took another swig of the whiskey. It wasn’t bad, and it felt good. He could probably sit here on the couch and finish it off if he wanted to, but considering there was a corpse sitting beside him he decided to stand and explore.
    The rest of the house was as expected. There were canned foods, bottled water, and even a half empty case of warm beer. Maybe the old guy had some pills, too. He looked around for the bathroom, finding it near the bedroom, and opened the medicine cabinet. It was full of old man pills; blood pressure meds, joint relief, etc. Nothing worth taking.
    Then, he heard a thump from the bedroom. He stuffed the revolver in his belt, pulling out the machete, and went to investigate. He listened at the door, hearing a number of moans and groans inside. He peeked in, seeing the stumbling forms of a few shufflers inside. He backed away, pulling the door shut.
    “Fuck this,” he said.
    He went back to the kitchen, grabbing a few bottles of water, and went out the back door. He would wander around for a while and drink, maybe finding a place to crash for the night. Surely there were other cabins along the road.
    He only had to find an empty one.
     
    “It was a town or something,” Cliff said as the others gathered around him. “A whole city or something down in that quarry.”
    “The limestone quarry?” Travis asked.
    “Yeah. They had built some kind of shanty town out of sheet metal and used studs. There were dozens of them. Women, children, all of them cannibals.”
    “Fuck,” Drew said. “Did you see them eat people?”
    Cliff nodded, his face seeming stunned and disgusted. “They dragged a corpse outside and gutted it, and all the others came running to snatch it up. It was like feeding time at the pig farm.”
    Gena made a strange face, and Max explained. “Pigs will eat anything, even a human corpse. They can strip a human clean in less than…”
    “Yeah, I got it,” Gena said. “That’s freaky. And you destroyed it?”
    “I think so,” Cliff said. “There were still others left, though. The ones that attacked us. I’m not sure where they came from.”
    “Describe the thing that came out of the scavenger’s mouth,” Grace said.
    “I didn’t really get a good look at it,” he said. “But it was long and thin like a snake. Maybe an eel. It wrapped around my arm and started chewing on me.”
    “Wow, man,” Travis said. “You got lucky. I know you lost your arm and all, but if Dan hadn’t cut it off, you might have been infected.”
    “I don’t think the scavengers are contagious,” Grace said. “But then they’ve obviously changed. We never saw anything inside them. No parasites or anything like that.”
    “Man, I wish I could take a look at it,” Travis said. “We’re talking about some kind of alien parasite. Something totally different. Maybe it’s similar to the strange organ inside the shufflers. I don’t know.”
    Jake came over and clapped Cliff on the shoulder. “The important thing is you’re still alive, and still black as the Ace of Spades.”
    “Right,” Cliff chuckled. “Thank God for that.”
    “We should go look for Dan,” Toni suggested. “He’s been gone for hours.”
    “He’ll be back,” Drew said. “But if he’s not back by the morning, I think we should go then.”
    Toni sighed, folding her arms across her chest. “I just worry about him,” she said. “I know what it’s like to feel like you failed somebody. I had the same feeling when my niece got infected.”
    “He should have known I could save him,” Travis said. “I’m the best doctor in the world.”
    He smiled