Among the Living by Timothy Long Read Free Book Online

man keeps glancing behind him as if being followed. I move to the corner and try to peer around it, but I don’t see anything except cars rushing by. Then the couple is past the window. I watch them and it dawns on me, the weird feeling I have had all day. It’s like a sense of dread hangs over the city, like it is waiting for something to happen.
    I hope it’s just my nerves.
     
     

Lester
     
     
    The smell of gunpowder hangs in the air and then is whisked away by a breeze. Marlene stares on. Lester raises the gun and pulls the trigger again like another bullet will make a difference after the three that are already in the deader’s neck and face. There is no boom, and he remembers that he is dry. Angela grabs his arm and pulls him back. She shivers and makes an attempt to cover herself with the ripped fabric of her dress. She pulls him back to the porch, where they collapse into their respective seats. Lester sighs, and then the shakes start for real.
    “Oh shit.” His voice is harsh from yelling at the corpse. “That was sick.”
    “God, he just came right over the fence. Do you think he’s dead?”
    “Oh yeah, he’s dead all right. I just put a shitload of lead into his body.”
    Angela sobs once, stares down at her torn dress, at her breasts, which she covers with one arm. She lifts her other hand to tug at the fabric, then drops it and breaks out in tears.
    “Ah come on, babe. Let’s get you some new clothes, then we’ll smoke a bowl and things will be different.”
    “What about the deaders? If we go inside, we won’t know if they get into the yard or not.”
    “The only reason he made it over the fence is because he saw us. If we go inside, they won’t have any reason to get in.”
    “Oh.”
    She follows him into the small house, which is stifling. She stares out the window, her torn dress clutched in one hand. She smells faintly of sweat and whatever cream she puts on her soft skin. He moves behind her and runs his hands along her arms.
    “She’s leaving,” she mumbles.
    “Marlene?”
    “No, my gay sister Frieda. Of course Marlene. She watched the house for a minute, and then she just walked off like she had a hot date.”
    “Maybe she’s meeting another deader for drinks.” Lester tries to find humor in his own joke.
    She watches the window for another moment, curtain pulled to the right, but gives up on this fairly quickly and plops down on the couch. Angela opens the new purse after wiping at the bloodstains with a tissue for a few seconds. She pulls out Marlene’s wallet and flips through the contents. Checking out her friend’s ID, she clucks at the picture.
    “That lying bitch. I knew she was older than 28.”
    She yanks out credit cards and tosses them in a heap. There is some money, but it barely looks like enough to get a few drinks at Starbucks. She also has a small packet of blue pills.
    “Oh fucking score, babe, got some free X.”
    “Great,” Lester says while staring at the top of Angela’s torn dress where her breast is barely covered.
    She takes out lipstick and removes the cover, rolling the color up. “Hmm, streetwalker red, my favorite.” The lipstick joins the other treasures on the table. She pulls out a box of condoms and shows them to Les with her eyebrows raised.
    “I knew she was fucking around on Chuck.”
    “How do you know that? Maybe they’re for him.”
    “Because he had a vasectomy,” she states.
    “Poor bastard.”
    “Chuck or her lover?”
    “Um, both?” he turns the smile into a question, his head cocked to the side.
    “Hah.”
    She pulls out an iPhone and holds it up. She unlocks it and looks through Marlene’s contacts.
    “Shit, no signal.”
    “They cut everything somehow. We’re completely isolated.”
    “Babe,” Angela pleads. “We need to get out of here.”
    “Tomorrow, babe, promise.”
    He heads upstairs to the bedroom with Angela in tow. He studies what is left of their clean clothes. He had planned to wash today, but