Seraphina's Revenge: A Rebirth In The Apocalypse Novel

Chapter 337: It’s Raining Men...And Women

Luci’s growl cut the quiet before anyone realized what the sound meant.

He hadn’t sounded like that since the frogs—that low growl, threaded with warning—and Zubair’s knuckles tightened on the wheel without thinking.

He had made sure to drive slow and carefully, not wanting an unexpected pot hole or crevasse to damage the vehicle. He knew that Sera had other trucks inside her space, but it was also better to have a back up than not.

Besides, he didn’t think that they had the time to spare, not with Captain Harlow possibly breathing down their necks.

Luckily for him, the truck steady in the center of the road. They were the only vehicles to be seen in any direction, which gave Zubair even more of a peace of mind.

The sun remained as it always had, hot and unchanging.

Until it wasn’t.

The air went heavy. The light dimmed so fast it felt like the sun had been turned off and the only thing lighting the way was the lights from the truck. There wasn’t even a single streetlamp to cut through the darkness.

Zubair felt his teeth rattle as he gripped the steering wheel even so hard it groaned in protest.

But he didn’t slow down; he couldn’t.

He kept the truck straight, his hands steady, because now, he wasn’t worried about the potholes or anything else. Now, the truck was the only line between them and whatever sat outside it.

There was no shelter from whatever this night brought, so he could only hope that whatever it was, the truck was strong enough to survive it.

The first thing to hit the metal roof was soft and wet.

It sounded at first like someone throwing handfuls of meat onto a tin roof.

Then it came faster, like a staccato that grew and grew until even their heartbeats seemed to keep track of the beat.

Something hit the hood and slid down the front window, leaving a smear that the wipers tried and failed to push away.

A single hand, still bleeding from where it had been ripped off the rest of the arm. A man’s wedding band on the fourth finger.

"What the—" Elias started, and then his voice was gone under the thunder of impact.

Lachlan laughed once, a bright, short sound that didn’t fit: "Well, I’ve heard of they saying, ’it’s raining men’ but this is quite a literal take on that idea."

He forced the joke out like a shield even as the dormant creature inside of him sat up and took notice.

He shouldn’t have needed one, but the noise filled the truck so full that there was no room for thinking.

Flesh hit the windshield hard enough to smear, slapping like hail on glass ... but strangely enough, not even the worst thing they have ever seen or done before.

Hands were the first thing to fall. Some of them were wearing gloves, other diamond rings and gold jewelry. Pale bodies slammed against the truck’s windows, bouncing off like they were trying to find their own way into the shelter but failing miserably.

Then more came like something out of a horror movie. Elbows and forearms joined the hands and started to tumble from the sky and splattered across the hood in a sound like a wet squishing sound that never could be mistaken for anything else.

Blood sprayed the cab in delicate, obscene patterns. It slashed across the dashboard and ran down Sera’s leather pants in dark rivers.

Sera watched curiously. She didn’t flinch. At the lab, she had done so much more without so much as blinking. Instead, her mouth was a thin smile, sharp and honest. "Is it supposed to do that?" she asked, curiosity bright at the edges.

She wondered for a moment if her creature was going to react to so much blood and flesh, but the thing inside of her simply turned up its nose.

Only the stupid zombies would consider this a feast, it shrugged and Sera’s smile brightened. It’s like comparing ground beef to a bacon wrapped $150 steak. There is no similarities between the two.

Sera nodded her head in agreement.

Who knows, maybe this unexpected windfall would perk up the current stupid zombie population and make things fun for a while.

"No," Elias said, his voice steady but strained. "It isn’t supposed to be doing this. I don’t even know how it is possible." He waded his hand through the windshield’s spray to find the wiper and dragged it across once, twice. Smears stayed like a child refusing to go away. "Close the windows."

Zubair quickly snapped them shut.

Metal rattled as bodies, well... parts of bodies, continued to hammer on the roof.

The truck rocked under the hits, but Zubair refused to stop.

Once, a flat, heavy sound made the whole cab shiver: the heavy torso of a really big man, slammed hard enough onto the bed of the truck that the entire cab section rose in response.

And unfortunately, it didn’t fall away.

Instead, it seemed to cling to the back window with two arms that clearly didn’t belong to it. A head fell down after like a joke from the heavens, landing perfectly on shoulders that could not support isn’t weight.

The head tilted to the side, staying where it was on top of the empty torso so that it looked like a Frankenstein that hadn’t been put back together properly.

Luci’s growl turned to a whine.

A small frog of a thing... wait... no... that was maybe the hand of a small child... stuck to his flank, thanks to a broken window, and clung to him like damp paper.

He shook fiercely and managed to tear it off, and it stuck to the floor with a soft suction. He worked at it with paw and teeth, frantic, until Sera reached down and peeled it away by the wrist.

A bracelet clattered onto her palm: a circlet of cheap beads and a name tag half-melted. Alexei picked it up without looking, keying the letters with an absent thumb.

"At least it’s not selective," Alexei said, his voice low. He said it without wonder; like it was a fact and went back to watching the road. He watched the pieces fall, calm as ever. The world was ending again, and it almost made him smile.

How many people would never be able to close their eyes without seeing this scene?

A night like this almost made the days worth it.