by Thomas S. Flowers
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Darker Worlds Publishing
Date of Publication: Jan 21, 2019
ISBN: 1791994369
ASIN: B07KMMP2ZM
Number of pages: 100 eBook
Number of pages: 137 paperback
Word Count: 27,500
Cover Artist: Michael Bray
Tagline: The Dead Have Risen to Eat the Living!
Book Description:
Houston, Texas, 1985, while investigating the affluent and seedy Gasper family, Rachel Hawkins, a junior reporter with the Galveston Daily News, stumbles upon a story that will make her career.
Billy Gasper, son to the billionaire tycoon Gasper Family is missing. His yacht found near the Port of Galveston, abandoned all but for a seemingly deranged captain. Where are the crew? And where is Billy?
Meanwhile, while searching for his missing sister who was last seen with her boyfriend Billy Gasper, RadioShack manager Mark joins an ex-military security team hired by Mr. Gasper to find his son. Hidden away, Hawkins joins Mark and the hired goons as they race across the Gulf of Mexico to a private tropical island resort.
All attempts at radio communicate with the island have failed. Its as if the entire resort with hundreds of vacationers and staff have disappeared.
What is really going on? And what will the rescue team find when they get there?
Chapter 1
Mary screamed.
Shocked by the sound of her own voice, she pressed her hands to her mouth, muffling the terror rising from her lungs in hitched breaths, spasming violently. She hugged her elbows against her sides, could see them. A slow lurching gait, shuffling outside her hiding place. Someone was shouting, a piercing howl as if they were experiencing the worst pain they had ever felt. Swallowing hard, she peered between the planks of wood of the hut. Pool equipment and toys and floats piled around her. If she moved—God! They would hear. And they would come. And they would consume her flesh. Just like they had Billy, her boyfriend. And Greg and Stacy. Pam. Vicky. Sammy, too. And most of the resort staff. Torn apart and consumed just like in a movie she saw once about cannibals in the rainforest of South America—except these flesh eaters were dead.
What was left of the pool boy Bruce bumped against the hut.
Mary whimpered into her hand, trying not to look at the ruined corpse walking—somehow—despite all rational sense that he should be dead and buried, not moving around, not eating the flesh of the living. His once muscular arms were now riddled with purplish-yellow bite marks, chunks of meat and nerve exposed. Fingers gnawed to the bone. And his eyes were the worst, glassy and bloodied and horrid, but that wasn't just what bothered her. They were vacant; soulless orbs. As if whatever made him human was gone and lost forever.
He groaned and bumped into the hut again.
Did he know she was in there?
Did he hear her? Smell her?
Breathing rapidly, Mary's hands trembled against her mouth, elbows pressed hard against her ribs. Suddenly she could hear the Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams blasting from the tiny foam speakers around her neck.
"No!" she hissed, fumbling with her Walkman clipped to her large plastic yellow belt, searching for the large red button, silencing the music.
Mary looked between the wood planks again.
More of the flesh eaters converged on the hut. Drawn by the rhythmic music, herding together like a pool of slow-moving sharks circling in the water.
She stifled a yelp, but not completely, cursing herself silently for accidently rubbing against the Walkman. The living dead began to bang on the outside of the hut. Gnashing teeth and bellowing a loathing, famished lament.
"Please!" she cried.
The wood of the hut groaned against the pressure of the horde of flesh eaters.
Moaning impatiently, cracks began to splinter. A large section busted inward as a bloated waxy arm shot through, grabbing hold of Mary's windbreaker, smearing dark-red grime against the sky-blue bomber.
"No!" she screamed as the dead man pulled her toward the opening in the hut.
Mary held her arms out, pushing against the wall, resisting—unable to keep her gaze from the splintered section in the broken hut wall and the large wood spike that protruded toward her as she inched closer and closer.
She groaned, swatting at the rotting hand that held her.
"Please!" she breathed.
Closer the dead man pulled her.
The wood spike was inches from her face—her eye.
Excited bellowing erupted around her, outside the hut, as if the living dead could smell the inevitable feast. They pounded against the walls, eager and impatient.
The dead man yanked on her again, tearing her windbreaker, pulling her closer.
She sobbed.
The wood spike pierced her eye.
She screamed—an unfathomable utterance.
The pain shot through her face and into her body like an electric bolt. Trembling, she grimaced, biting down, clenching her teeth as the wood pushed deeper inside her eye. Warm runny fluid flowed down her cheek, tasting of salt and iron.
And then the dead rotting man gave one final wrench.
The wood curved up as she slammed into it, penetrating deep and breaking the wood splinter inside her eye socket. The world spun, and she fainted from shock or blood loss, or both, she fell to her knees, ripping her tennis shorts and the skin of her legs.
All around, the walls came down, and the dead had their feast. Grabbing and ripping away shreds of clothing, hair, pounds of meat. The dead, rotting man that still held Mary's blue windbreaker shoved his head through the wood opening and sucked and licked at the juices on the spike, lapping all the moist cream from her burst orb.
Unconscious, Mary was unaware of the things happening to her body.
Unaware as dead, worming fingers clawed into her flesh.
Consuming.
Chewing.
Ravishing her red, oily innards.
About the Author:
Thomas S. Flowers is an Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom Army veteran who loves scary movies, BBQ, and coffee. Ever since reading Remarque’s "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Stephen King’s "Salem’s Lot" he has inspired to write deeply disturbing things that relate to war and horror, from the paranormal to his gory zombie infested PLANET of the DEAD series, to even his recent dabbling of vampiric flirtation in The Last Hellfighter readers can expect to find complex characters, rich historical settings, and mind-altering horror. Thomas is also the senior editor at Machine Mean, a horror movie and book review site that hosts contributors in the horror and science fiction genre.
PLANET of the DEAD and The Last Hellfighter are best-sellers on Amazon's Top 100 lists for Apocalyptic Fiction and African American Horror.
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