Suffer the Children (42 page)
Read Suffer the Children Online
Authors: Craig Dilouie
The Boy grinned. They had to catch him first.
Catch me if you can!
He raised the gun and fired, the shot echoing over their heads, and ran with his pack at his heels. The howls of pursuit filled the air. His black leather jacket made him harder to see in the dark. Well fed, he ran faster than the rest. They scrambled through backyards and into the parking lot of a small office building. Beyond that, he led them into a park, still holding Sister’s hand. He needed to keep her safe. They’d disappear into the trees, go somewhere new, start over. The world was so big and full of choices.
Bright light burned into his eyes. He staggered to a halt.
Spotlights.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw grown-ups on two wooden towers connected by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Beyond, houses. A fortified community. He’d seen them before.
Muzzle flashes burst in the dark. Gunfire roared.
The Boy’s tribe fell twitching into the snow around him. He froze, struck by an ancient memory of standing on a stage with other children, singing in front of a room full of grown-ups while his mom and dad watched. At the end, the grown-ups applauded and took pictures with their little cameras, which flashed and popped.
His mom and dad had loved him.
The Boy raced to the fence, flung his body against it, and held on. Sister followed. The other children forgot the feud. Dazzled by the prospect of a killing feast as rich as those of the old days, they surged at the fence.
The Boy shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it over the barbed wire. He waited for Sister to catch up.
She was laughing when the bullets sheared her off the fence.
The scent of so much warm food distracted him from his grief. The hunger overpowered everything.
He swung over the top and hit the ground hard, feeling little pain in his dead limbs. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw a teenage girl with a rifle sprinting toward safety. He raised his gun and fired until it emptied. The girl was down. He chased after to feed upon the arterial spray.
Behind, the other children swarmed over the wire, leaving a field of dead behind them. The grown-ups retreated, firing their guns. A howl went up. The children flooded the streets, hacking at anything that moved. They pried the boards off the windows and crawled into the houses. The gunfire intensified. So did the screaming.
The Boy drank deep from his kill.
He cried while he fed. Not from sadness, but from joy.
A new world was just beginning, and it belonged to him.
Special thanks to Doree Anne, Peter Clines, Randy Heller, and Timothy Johnson for their valuable editing support and encouragement. I’m also thankful to Agnieszka Halas for providing some useful information about the effects of blood loss on the human body.
CRAIG DiLOUIE
is the author of the zombie novels
The Killing Floor, The Infection,
and
Tooth and Nail.
Learn more and read his blog at
www.craigdilouie.com
.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
authors.simonandschuster.com/Craig-DiLouie
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
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Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2014 by Craig DiLouie
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books trade paperback edition May 2014
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Interior design by Aline Pace
Cover design bu Anna Dorfman
Cover photograph by © Simon Bradfield/E+/Getty Images
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
DiLouie, Craig, 1967— Suffer the Children : a novel / Craig DiLouie. First Gallery Books trade paperback edition.
pages cm
1. Vampires—Fiction. I. Title
PS3604.I463S84 2014
813'.6—dc23
2014000930
ISBN 978-1-4767-3963-2
ISBN 978-1-4767-3964-9 (ebook)
