Death of the Zombies

By Karl Tutt

T. K. and Sunny have a conundrum on their hands. A former student haunted by a violent past asked for help from the Ghostcatcher. T. K. doesn't know how to say no. So they embark on a search not sure what they'll find or how to find it. All they know is that a girl is missing. They find out much more as this page burner bolts forward.

Karl Tutt is at it again . . . mystery, mayhem, and a darn good yarn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karl Tutt
• Release date: Jan 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463506837

Karl Tutt

Karl Tutt is a retired English teacher from a dropout prevention program in Florida. He is a veteran cruiser who has published several sailing articles in national publications. His two new offerings, The Children of the Wolf and The House at Hull, continue the mastery of murder and mayhem demonstrated in the Ghostcatcher series with T.K Fleming, and his female sleuth, Dee Rabow, in the Diabla series. Quick, engaging, and satisfying . . . those words describe the approach that has lured thousands of readers to the pages of his murder mysteries.

Book preview

DEATH

OF

THE

ZOMBIES

by

KARL TUTT

Smashwords Edition

2020

Copyright Karl Tutt 2020

All rights reserved without limiting the copyright reserved above. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, brands, characters, places, media and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction which might have been used without permission. The publication use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Thanks to Carolyn, my reader and editor who is kind and generous with her patience and attention.

Prologue

They came again after midnight . . . the bloody faces. Three of them already gone . . . the last one moaning, wailing, jerking in violent death throes. The shrapnel had done its job. The Humvee lay on its side, the wheels still spinning slowly as the sticky crimson seeped into the dirty sand. The driver had gotten the worst of it. His left arm lay across his chest . . . at least what was left of it. His shoulder had been severed just above the bicep, the muscle shredded like a side of beef being hacked into slabs for the market.

She saw the white of bones that had exploded into pink shards sinking further into an unforgiving earth. His lifeless eyes stared, his lips oozing life fluids. They were slightly parted in a plea for reason, maybe a last grasp at survival. Why this? Why me? They told me I was a hero. Where are you, My God?

The other three bodies were broken, shattered, contorted like abandoned puppets that had been tormented, then cast aside . . . hideous sacrifices to some nameless demon. IED . . . perhaps the worst of 100 ways to die in this Godforsaken land. . . leaving stained misshapen forms who had been no more than boys.

She'd seen it before, but now they rose, the Zombies of her nightmares, her hallucinations . . . what had been her realities. They beckoned to her with hands and fingers devoid of flesh. Their mouths gaped, but no sounds except the maw of crows . . . laughing, mocking . . . their red tongues darting in and out like spikes trying to pierce the putrefying flesh . . . a thing soon to ripen and stink as it baked in a sunless sky.

The things had come before. She bounded off the wringing sheets. But I am no longer there . . . I did my two tours . . . I am home. The wraiths should to be in their graves. They weren't. What could she do? Where was the solace, the closure ? Who could she call?

The psychiatrist, the anti-depressants, the Xanax, even the booze had helped . . . but the haunting didn't stop. It pumped into a black emotional abyss like a demented child poking a dirty finger into an open sore.

It was hers.

Chapter One

They called it PTSD, a seemingly innocuous tag . . . a toothless thing to be endured, and . . . after a time . . . merely an inconvenience, a distant memory to be submerged into the darkness and ultimately ignored . . . unless it was you. And it was. Raina had earned it. Trained as Medic, the U.S. Army had taught her two things . . . how to save lives . . . and how to end them. She was good at both.

She had been home for three years, but still the incubus invaded her. A sudden sound, the backfire from a bike, even the slam of a door, the sight of blood in any image, the news of the endless wars that infected the planet, the death of a child. Any of them cast her into the pits of hell . . . the places where the Zombie rules . . . violent, relentless, seeking mounds of flesh, reeking with the rotten smell of death and ever stumbling forward . . . no redemption, no justification, no moral rationale, just the hollow thrill and excitement of destruction of all that was human. She ran her hands through her thick mahogany tresses. It clung to her fingers, damp with sweat . A sour odor oozed from her skin. She inhaled it and a sickness came over her, wrapping her in nausea.

Raina trusted no one. She struggled, praying for some sort of oblivion, but it was impossible. No confidants, no real friends, only the company of the damned and the pitiful few she sought, if only to hear a voice emanate through lungs and reveal a heart that was mortal, that pumped through a body . . . and even a soul.

And now Su Jin was gone, the small raven haired beauty . . . the one with the golden skin and brown eyes like peaceful bottomless pools. She had come close to becoming a friend . . . but if not quite that, at least a companion who she could count on for brief, but important moments of safety, even comfort. She'd disappeared with no trace. Su Jin had worked beside Raina at the hospital, ever vigilant and faithful . . . comforting the aging patients, a constant presence in the Hospice Ward, a skilled hand that healed and brought the breath of a God who soothed and forgave. An angel . . . that's how Raina thought of her. But that angel had folded into the night.

When Su Jin didn't show up for her morning shift, Raina called . . . then again, but the plod of the fruitless ring echoed in her ear, and sent a sense of loss and terror into her ears. It wasn't like Su. It had been three days now. Her Korean angel was always on time and ready. Raina would wait. She had known from the start that the girl was an illegal. Forged papers. Su had family in Miami and a five year old,