STEEL ROSE
Tour Blitz by Barbara Custer
The denizens of hell attack. The zombies feed. She’s their meal.
Sometimes they come back. At least the Kryszka aliens do. Their
leader injects captured humans with a drug, turning them into zombies. Yeron
escapes the Kryszka Colony, hoping to practice medicine on the humans who fear
him. Alexis—a patient—is afraid too, until his seductive attentions arouse her.
Despite his experimental drug, severe arthritis leaves her too weak to handle
most guns. The Kryszka troops and zombies who break into the hospital are
hungry. Very hungry. How will she fight them?
EXCERPT
Shattering glass. Plodding footsteps. IV poles crashed to the
floor. Glass shards tinkled, punctuated by low-pitched groaning from the rear
elevator, the exit Hoffman had claimed to seal.
“Dear God, help us.” Alexis reached for her gun.
“What are you doing? Guns are forbidden on this floor, and…Oh,
my God!” Ms. Grese cupped her hands over her mouth. Her authoritarian demeanor
vanished, replaced by horror-stricken pallor. “Where are the officers?”
“You think our visitors give a shit?” Alexis scuttled toward the
door, feeling vulnerable. The vest didn’t protect her face or hands, but the
intruders wouldn’t care about that either. She shoved Ms. Grese ahead of her,
pushing with her mind, Yeron beside her. “Run!” she hollered.
As the creatures poured through the ward, a stench crawled down
her throat, the stink of things many days dead. Moaning drowned out the sound
of Ms. Grese’s cries, a continual chant of “hungry.”
Skeletal figures in tattered rags skirted around Mark, who fired
at any who got too close. Their tendons flashed gray against cold cobwebs of
rib and knuckle. The flesh that quivered through widened skin tears had the
sheen of rotting meat. The skin resembled cracked leather. Weeds sprouted on
some of the figures’ necks and hair, the way they did in her nightmares. They
made their way to the desk, where two nurses sat. The two women jumped up, both
screaming. One of them opened fire with a Glock.
The armed woman was her mother.
I’m offering a $10.00 Starbucks gift card to a
random commenter.
Thank you for hosting my book! :)
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