Insurgent Z: A Zombie Novel by Mark C. Scioneaux, Dane Hatchell Page B

forced Ryn to emit a high-pitched scream and sent a surge of adrenaline through him that redoubled the futile efforts to escape.
    Finally, he managed to jerk his gun arm free. The inmate pulled away with a mouthful of skin and a small chunk of flesh, chewing it greedily only inches away from Ryn’s eyes.
    Ryn bought the pistol to the inmate’s head. The gun fired, spraying red-covered brain matter on the east wall and the chickens behind the thin wire. The discharge was right by Ryn’s ear, and the blast hit him like a sucker punch in a barroom fight.
    The inmate dropped to the ground. Ryn fell to his knees with the pistol raised and aimed to fire again. His arms felt like lead. His whole body quivered, and he realized he had pissed his pants.
    A force hit him from the side and pinned his wrists to the ground. Another inmate was on top of him, and this prisoner was as ghoulish as the other. He brought his chicken-blood stained teeth directly at Ryn’s face.
    Ryn thrust his head forward and smashed the zombie smack in the mouth. He used the top of his head the best he could to keep those teeth away from any fleshy parts of his face. Undeterred, the inmate proceeded to gnaw at Ryn’s hair and tear at his scalp.
    The situation seemed hopeless. Time was running out, and he knew he didn’t have much longer before he would succumb to the inmate’s superior strength.
    As a last ditch effort, Ryn craned his neck toward his gun hand and bit down on the inmate’s thumb. This move put his left ear straight in the path of the creature’s—Ryn couldn’t consider it a man—next bite.
    He pulled on the inmate’s thumb with his teeth, fighting to free his hand. Teeth smashed into Ryn’s forehead as he managed to free his hand from the clutches of the man-eater and twist his head around.
    The first shot went high in his haste to take aim. One second later, he had the barrel of the pistol shoved in the inmate’s eye. 
    Bam! A fountain of blood and grey matter spewed into the air, some of it falling back on Ryn’s face. The monster fell, dead weight on top of him.
    It didn’t matter that Ryn’s strength was spent. He squirmed like a worm on hot concrete until he freed himself from underneath the hulking mass.
    Chickens clucked in the background as he fought to regain his breath. Warm blood trickled down the side of his head from the scalp wounds. His forearm throbbed around the bite and burned like fire. Trembling legs finally found enough firm ground that he was able to pull himself off the dusty barn floor. 
    Ryn stumbled to a wall of shelves and grabbed a handful of rags. His mind reeled as he applied pressure to the bite and fought to accept reality. Two men had just died by his hand. It didn’t matter that they were criminals, guilty of God knows what. They were still human beings. What on Earth had turned them into raw, flesh-eating monsters? PCP? Bath salts like he saw on the news? Ryn reminded himself that the cause didn’t matter. There was no way he could cover this up.
    A dog barked in the distance, and he assumed a manhunt was already underway. Ryn panicked. Surely, the cops would search his house and find his stash of marijuana and cocaine. That’s it. His life was over. He would probably be sentenced to a hundred years for killing those prisoners, because the courts would find a way to tie it in with a drug charge.
    The dog barked again. Ryn collected himself enough to realize it was the familiar bay of his neighbor’s hound dog nearly half mile down the road. Maybe he had a chance.
    The rags were completely saturated with blood. He tore open a sack of flour he used to stop the bleeding on his hogs after castrating them, and patted handfuls of the powder on the wounds. After that, he wrapped a rag around his arm and used his teeth and free hand to tie the knot.
    Feeling more under control, he rushed back to the house.
    Once inside the kitchen, he screamed, “Deb! Where are you?”
    Her voice called from