Excerpt from War Storm [click to head to War Storm’s Amazon page]
The dropship immediately stops descending and I shoot out, downwards. A hundred yards off I can see Shadwell tied to a huge post. They’ve crucified him.
The vial breaks, and cold washes over me. I take on the chemical composition of nitro. I’m a two hundred and sixty pound vial of explosive and they just stand there, firing AK-47 rounds up at me.
Kaboom.
Coalescing as chemical-laden smoke takes time, but it’s also a terrifying effect. Most of the men still alive bolt. A couple of them are gunned down by their own superior officers, who are shouting. I can’t hear them well, not turned into smoke like this, but as soon as I touch rock, I take it. Soon I reach a leftover firearm, which gives me a body made of steel. And a weapon.
And then not a single one of these idiots has a chance.
Enemies fall. I am screaming psychological warfare at them even as I pound through the grenade explosions and another missed rocket.
Whoever this warlord is, he’s an Active. It looks like he’s coated himself with his own blood. Even his eyes are swirling pools of reddish black. Dripping claws of gore tip his fingers. There are piles of bodies ringing him and the cross where Shadwell is nailed. Shadwell moans pitifully. The Active shrieks.
A wave of blood begins to rise out of the corpses, to try to trip me up. The blood lifts several of the dead men to sitting positions, then to standing. And we have zombies. Fantastic.
The dead men scrabble to try to get at me, but I’ve covered the distance already, I can’t be stopped. You can’t stop a six hundred pound man composed of solid steel. Already dead arms and heads are snapped back or torn off trying to slow me down.
I slam into the Active and take us both tumbling and rolling back about twenty feet. Crushing him to death doesn’t do it. A screaming bloody mask comes up off this man’s face and snaps ineffectually at me.
Maybe crushing his head will do it. And removing the head.
Cripes, how am I going to touch my wife after I head back home? I feel invaded. Violated.
Bloodied, covered in ichor really, I head back to where Shadwell is strung up.
“You’re gonna be okay, alright Shadwell?”
“Kill me,” he breathes.
“Just fine. You’re gonna be great.”
He looks worse than the guy I just beheaded, if that’s possible.
“We’ve got an evac and medic unit right here, right now,” I tell him. “Have you patched up before you can say ‘pass me that blonde, mate.'”
“Kill me.”
And then I tuck his guts back into the gash in his stomach and wrap the whole thing up in the uniform of a former zombie.