Read BULL: MC ROMANCE (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 6) Online
Authors: Samantha Leal
Within
minutes the bulldozer had reduced the zombie horde to the rough consistency of pasta. Now Cass was just sweeping up a few stragglers to a chorus of cheers from the survivors. Cass was feeling pretty good, until she felt a clammy hand grip her windpipe, choking her. She tried to pry the hand loose as she realized with mounting horror that there was a zombie attached to it this time. It was already climbing over the seat onto her back, its gnashing teeth inches from her face.
Then, suddenly the zombie was knocked clear of her by a solid kick to the torso. Before she had time to even register her relief a fire axe split the zombie's face in half as well. Jack Godwin had jumped onto the rolling bulldozer and attacked. The axe struck again, severing the creature’s arm. The zombie lost its purchase and Jack kicked it over the side where it got caught in the steel treads and quickly pulled under the dozer. In the tussle the bulldozer had been running blind. Cass now went to shut it down as it was dangerously close to the pool. Unfortunately the zombie’s arm was lodged in the throttle. At any other moment it would have taken a second to clear, but in this instance they had needed that second.
The bulldozer crashed straight through the low cinder block wall and into the salt-water pool, unending itself so that the nose and blade went straight to the bottom and the entire dozer flipped over into the deep end. Cass desperately tried to release her seatbelt, but in her disoriented, upside-down state could not get it to budge at all. In her panic she tried to take a breath and choked on the water that threatened to fill her lungs. She was close to blacking out. Being the consummate man of action that he was, Jack had dove in almost as soon as the bulldozer had gone in. He swam down and managed to miraculously undo the clasp and pull her free. They broke the surface gasping for air and earned a round of cheering from the survivors, which only escalated as Jack pulled Cass toward the edge of the pool.
"Oh God, Talin, he's still down there!" She yelled, quickly recovering from her ordeal. Before she could dive to the rescue though, the wicker basket bobbed to the surface. She swam over and towed it back to the deck.
"I'm okay," Talin said, as he spit out half a mouthful of salt water. Disconcertingly, the other half seemed to sort of just leak out his neck
Cass hugged the basket to her chest in relief.
Jack looked at her curiously, "Umm, What have you got in that basket…?"
Cass looked at Jack and shook her head. She wasn’t even going to get into it. After his double rescue of her, all she could say was, “Travel writer my ass." She then took a moment to recover both her wits, as well as her breath, before yelling to the crowd, "Somebody needs to run up the trail and get the old bus. Drive it down here." The survivors stared at her in stunned silence. "Now damn it!" She snapped. That got them moving.
Fawn raced to the pool's edge, "Oh god you're so brave, you saved us all!" She yelled, choking back tears.
Cass felt flattered, "It was no big deal, I just…"
But Fawn threw her arms around Jack, "You're the bravest man in the world."
Cass laughed, "Did I miss something?"
The following few minutes seemed like hours, but the bus finally arrived in the compound. Cass guided it to the edge of the pool.
"Do you want me to load everyone up," Jack asked.
"No, these roads are too dangerous at night, especially with all the rain we’ve had. We can’t afford to get stuck or stranded. For now I think it’s best to stay here. "
"You think we'll be safe?"
"Hell no, there's another swarm of zombies on their way here. And these ones are gonna be extra rotten and nasty, believe me. Now listen, here’s what we are gonna do.” She pointed to the bus, "The resort's water softening system uses salt. I threw twenty huge bags of it in the bus. We need to make a circle around the dining hall building. I’ll explain later. We should then have enough food and water inside to figure something out…or maybe just ride it out. Maybe they will get tired and decide it’s easier just being dead."
"What? What's going to stop the zombies… high sodium?"
"Trust me. Just get a circle made fast."
Cass sat down next to Talin's basket while Jack organized a work party. She popped open the basket and picked up Talin's head. "I hope you can make a bigger circle work the same way you did before, ‘cause I’m kind of banking on it."
"Such a clever girl," He said with a smile, "But remember, I need everyone inside the circle before I can start the incantation.
Cass lifted up Talin's head and pressed her lips to his, "I love you Talin," She whispered. “And don’t you worry, as soon as we get organized we’ll find a way to get you your body back.”
Fawn was handing out bottled water to the workers. She stopped, watching Cass, with a combination of shock, awe and revulsion on her face.
Cass turned to her, "What, you've never seen two people kissing before?"
The exhausted survivors hustled, encircling themselves with the rocky industrial salt as fast as they could. Jack gathered all the weapons and ammo he could find. He handed Cass a rifle and distributed three more among the most able bodied of the tourists. Other survivors were stacking furniture and broken rubble as a rough barrier. Fawn was busy handing out water, pausing intermittently to admire her new hero, and lover, Jack.
Cass picked up Talin's head and handed it to Fawn. "Take him inside and give him a hand if he needs it… Sorry Talin, no pun intended. Do whatever he says…he’s gonna save us." Fawn just stared at the severed head for a moment.
"Hello, my name is Talin." He said, with his most charming smile, "What's yours?"
The smile calmed her down, "umm…hi, I'm Fawn," She held up a water bottle, "Are you thirsty?"
The
magic circle was only two thirds done… but the next wave of extra-dead zombies had arrived. Cass appeared calm, but she was just too numb to register any more shock.
Cass watched the creatures shuffling across the lawn towards the compound. Some of them were surprising agile and quick. "Those are the cemetery zombies! Hurry up people!" She looked down at Talin, "We're lucky it took them so long to get here."
"Maybe they stopped for lunch."
The wave of zombies began to pick up speed, in response to the shouting and barked commands. They began to build a momentum like an oncoming stampede.
"Christ, they're running." Cass said nervously.
"Okay," Jack said to his shooters, "All you can do is slow them down, so aim for their legs. Use short bursts and hit the kneecaps if you can. But don't waste any ammo." The horde came within range, "Fire!"
The first shots were effective. Cass shot the legs out from under at least two while Jack hit three. The other shooters missed but kept firing. The barriers of furniture and rubble slowed the zombies down … but only for a few moments.
"We finished the circle!" Shouted a middle aged balding guy. He looked like he was having the worst mid-life crisis on record.
Cass, Jack and the shooters quickly fell back into the dining hall, barricading the door behind them. Talin began the incantation as the zombies bashed at the doors and windows.
Cass had a horrifying thought, "What if they're inside the circle when the spell is completed?"
Talin just continued muttering the spell, louder with each passing sentence.
A zombie ran headlong into a floor length window shattering the glass. Jack opened fire, shooting its legs out from under it. Another raced in behind it and pounced on Cass. They fell to the ground in a tangle of tanned and decaying flesh as they wrestled furiously. Its hands clasped around her windpipe. Cass felt herself becoming weaker, losing the battle as she did her best to keep it’s gnashing teeth away from her.
Talin's voice reached a crescendo and stopped, "It is complete." He said.
Cass was barely conscious when the zombie suddenly relaxed its grip. It stared at her for a moment…or would have if it still had eyes, until, in a rasping croak it said, "ahh…thank you," as if in relief. Then it went limp.
The other zombies that had entered the circle weaved unsteadily and then collapsed as well.
Cass examined her opponent's body, "It’s dead… again. I mean really dead…like supposed to be dead…oh you know what I mean."
Jack looked out the window, watching in relief as the zombies outside the circle began to wander off into the jungle, "They're leaving," He shouted to the heaven’s as well as to the assembled crowd.
There was tremendous excitement until Talin chimed in.
"The circle makes us more or less invisible to them…but there is no need to tempt fate… So please keep it down!"
The survivors complied.
Fawn raced over to Jack, throwing herself around him with all her might. “Oh Jack, we made it!”
Jack was surprised, as he actually felt his heart skip a few beats with her embrace. She was a cute kid, and truth be told he realized he had actually developed something of a bond with her. Maybe it was just the whole zombie thing that had kind of thrown them together, or maybe there really was something there…
He hugged her back , kissing the top of her head, “Yeah, looks like we are going to be alright after all.” Maybe more than alright, he thought as he held her tight, caressing her back and nuzzling her to him.
Cass picked up Talin's head and cradled it in her lap.
She looked at him and smiled, "How long does the spell last?"
"As long as the circle remains intact we are safe." Talin replied.
Cass was beyond exhausted. It had been a hellish night, but they were finally safe, thanks to a circle of salt. She looked outside and did her best to smile. Surveying the carnage she knew they had paid a heavy price. It had been an insane night. Scores of tourists and soldiers had died, and then come back. Some of those were just so much hamburger, while many were even now wandering the surrounding jungles in search of human flesh. She had not had time to even think about the safety of the other villages on the island. They would be at the mercy of the horde. And then there was the whole my-boyfriend-is-just-a-severed-head thing to contend with. But she was confident that with his magic they could remedy that as well. They just had to bunk down for the night. With the new day they would figure out their next move. At least for now they were safe.
Then the first drops of rain began to fall… thin rivulets of water were already coursing across the earth as it quickly turned into a downpour.
THE END
A Forsaken Riders Standalone MC Romance
Book 3
Samantha Leal
Copyright ©2015 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
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1.
Candy looked into the mirror and adjusted the pink fur around the collar of her sheer, teeny-tiny robe. It was one of her favorites and the moment she slipped it on she stepped into her recent preferred persona of ditzy, dumb blonde.
She was sucking on her trademark red lollypop and curling her hair into tight little bouncy twirls. She was, as far as she knew, the only dancer working at the beginning of the night. Even though she knew it wouldn’t be busy, she still wished she had some back up. Marv wasn’t exactly the easiest man to work for, and ever since he had fired his top girl Lexi, things at the club hadn’t been the same.
Candy strapped on her clear platforms and stood shakily to her feet. Even though she had been stripping for almost two months, she still couldn’t get used to the sky-high heels she was expected to wear. At five-foot-two, she needed all the help she could get to make her look more leggy and model-esque, but every time she stepped into them, she feared she would slip and break her neck.
“That would be just your luck, Candy,” she said to herself.
The changing room was unnaturally cold, especially considering it was the height of summer in Slate Springs. She looked up and noticed the dull thrum of the AC unit ticking away in the corner, and she pulled a chair underneath it.
“Death wish,” she whistled as she climbed up, barely able to stand in the ridiculous shoes. As she flipped the switch and turned it off, the room seemed to instantly warm as the hot outside air seeped in from the small crack in the door leading out into the hall.
Candy carefully climbed down and returned to the mirror. Even though she hated working the earlier shifts on her own, she was always glad of the peace and quiet when she was getting ready. On busy nights there could be five girls working at Red X and that meant a frenzy of make-up, hair spray, perfume and lingerie all exploding across the room as they all fought for their place around the mirror. At least Candy could take her time and listen to some music to calm her nerves. She knew she had to do it, but there was still a part of her that hated the fact she took her clothes off for money. While she loved feeling empowered and thrived on the effect she had on the men who watched her, she always thought that things would have been a little different at this point in her life. Throughout her childhood and all of her training as a dancer, little did she know that she would be using it this way.
“But at least I can have some fun,” she smiled to herself. “Most girls would love to do this, if only they had the nerve.”
She pouted and slicked a hot pink gloss over her lips, smacking them together and slipping the lollypop back between her teeth. Underneath her feet she could feel the vibrations of the music; Marv must have started up the sound system. She took another look at herself in the mirror. She was wearing head-to-toe baby pink and looked exactly as her name suggested.
“Sweet,” she winked at herself before she undid the robe so it fell loosely around her matching bra and heaving breasts.
Candy had only been in Slate Springs for a couple of months, but she had already managed to carve out a role for herself among the people of the town. It was a close-knit community and when she had arrived, she had been instantly welcomed. Although she usually kept mostly to herself, she had made a few friends with other girls who worked at Red X. As she arrived in town as someone completely unknown, she took advantage of the situation and decided to completely reinvent herself. There, she wasn’t prim and proper Candace… She was innocent little Candy. Nobody in Slate Springs knew that she had a master’s degree, or that only six months before she was almost a married woman. When she turned up there and saw its small town ways, she realized it was the kind of place she could disappear, and so she decided to be someone else entirely. She took advantage of her sweet and innocent looks and played up to her image… She let everyone in town think she was ditzy and dumb. Even though it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
She left the changing room and let the door swing lightly closed behind her. The dense air from the desert outside filtered through the fire escape, and she could hear the thunder of trucks powering down the highway. She wondered how many of the customers in there would just be passing through. Sometimes she even enjoyed talking to them. It was as if she was studying them for a project, storing up all the information that came her way for a rainy day.
She wandered along the dark hallway towards the main room of the club. She could hear Marv calling to the new girl to take over the bar and she was scattering around trying to stock the shelves as he barked orders to her from across the room.
Her name was Destiny, or so she said… And Candy couldn’t help but feel as if in some way it was ironic… No one’s destiny should have taken them to a place like Red X. And certainly not to be ruled by a guy like Marv. Candy was lucky she was smart and knew how to handle him. He loved to think that he was in charge and that Candy was some ditz he could order around. She’d even let him for a while, until she convinced him it would be a good idea to take on some extra staff. She’d taken the overtime, even though he’d been reluctant to pay for it, and then she’d made him feel as if it was his idea to make her life easier.
Candy smiled. She was pretty sure no one had figured her out. She was so cute looking and she had the act down to a fine art. There was no way anyone would suspect that she was really a well-bred girl with a stellar education… She pushed up her boobs, glossed her lips, flicked her hair and perfected her doe eye. She had all of the men eating out of the palm of her hand, and she was loving every second.
It was just what she needed to make sure she could start again without anyone asking too many questions, or figuring out why she had turned up in Slate Springs in the first place… Because that was a conversation she was sure she never wanted to have.
“Candy!” Marv hollered to her from on top of the stage. He had his hands on his hips and his beer gut swelled out between them.
“What’s up, Marv?” she asked with an eye roll.
“Destiny here doesn’t seem capable of restocking the bar,” he snorted. “Give her a hand, will you?”
If she didn’t feel so bad for the girl, she would have flipped Marv the bird behind his back and told her to figure it out. But she knew what she had coming, and it wasn’t pretty. The newest girl at Red X always had it the toughest, and because she was recently relieved of the role, she felt as if she owed it to the newbie to be kind.
“Sure,” she smiled sweetly, still sucking on the lollipop.
She turned to Destiny and shrugged, and Destiny chewed her bottom lip.
“Sorry Candy,” she sighed. “You’re all done up and spritzed and everything.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Candy smiled. “I don’t mind.”
She walked behind the bar and opened up all of the refrigerators. It really wasn’t rocket science, but the way Marv liked things was so meticulous she remembered herself how nervous she was of getting something wrong. And if anything went missing…even just one bottle, there would be hell to pay. Candy remembered back to how Lexi had been fired… She had been drunk and helping herself to free liquor, and it had been the beginning of the end of her stripping career.
“How are you finding it so far?” Candy asked as she heaved a crate of beer up onto the bar top, making sure she didn’t snag her lingerie or break a nail.
“It’s certainly, um, different,” Destiny shrugged. “I mean I’ve worked in places like this before, just not in Slate Springs… I’m from Ironhill,” she said.
Candy nodded. She had never been over to Ironhill, but she knew it was about ten miles away. Another small town full of secrets from what she had gathered from the locals who drifted into the club and from what she overheard at the diner.
“How come you’re down here then?” Candy asked, more just for something to say rather than actual interest.
“Well, I didn’t really see eye to eye with my old boss,” she said. “And when I saw the ad for a barmaid, I just thought, hell, it’s about time I had a change.”
Candy nodded and smiled. She knew that feeling.
“Well, it’s nice to have you here,” Candy smiled as she loaded the last fresh bottles of vodka into the optics and wiped her hands on a dishcloth.
“Thanks,” Destiny grinned. “And thank you again for the help.” She motioned to the fully stocked bar and then chewed her bottom lip again.
“It’s no problem.” Candy walked back out the other side of the bar. “Always ask me ahead of Marv.”
Destiny nodded.
“Trust me, it’s not worth the hassle,” Candy winked. She slipped the lollipop back into her mouth and turned on her heel before power-walking back towards the stage.
The music was booming and the doors were now open. The night was just beginning, and she was ready for anything. Even though Candy was the kind of girl who could have been anything, there she was in a small town, twirling around a pole and flashing her body for cash.
It should have made her sad, but it didn’t… She knew where she was going in life, and she knew what she wanted out of it. Things should have been different, but she had plenty of time to change that…and she had a plan. Candy might play dumb, but she was switched on and ready to take charge of her life.
As she hooked her leg around the pole and made eyes at one of the truckers who had just sat down in front of the stage, she could have roared with laughter. She was exploiting them all for her own benefit, and it felt damn good.