Chaos Theory: A Zombie Novel by Rich Restucci Read Free Book Online Page A

still hold on to a ridiculous pipe dream that the lights behind you belong to a gaggle of bikini clad supermodel nymphomaniacs carrying beer and Buffalo wings in the saddlebags of their snowmobiles.
    Well that’s just fucking dumb.
    Damned if I wasn’t thinking about beer and wings when the first bullet hit me. It actually hit the metal stock of the rifle that was slung across my back. I wasn’t sure it was gunfire, as we were travelling at high speed away from the shots and I couldn’t hear shit over the engine we were straddled over, but it hurt, and I didn’t think it was a bee sting. It came to me quickly what was happening, when I heard auto weapons fire. Of the fifty or so bullets that these dickweeds had fired at us, one had actually struck us, but they didn’t know that.
    We flew (we actually flew) over an embankment, and suddenly we were on a snow-covered road. The only reason I knew this was a road was because I saw a frost-blasted SPEED LIMT 35 sign. Screaming down the road, someone stumbled into our way, and Ship skirted around him. He was quite dead, and followed us with arms outstretched in that classic zombie pose. I saw a house go by on the left, and then another, and then a bunch of them on both sides, with parked and abandoned vehicles in the street, and I realized we were in a small town.
    The noise from the flying engine we were on was exceptionally loud in the relative quiet of the dead place. It didn’t take long for dead people to show up looking for a late dinner, and soon they started coming out of the woodwork. Zipping down the frozen streets of this shit stain little burg was one of the most terrifying things I had ever taken part in, as the dead people seemed to materialize out of the darkness in ever increasing numbers, reaching for us with infected claws. One of the things actually managed to latch on to the right handlebar, and we jerked violently to the right. Ship grabbed the thing’s hand and lifted it away from us as if it were a child’s appendage. I swear I saw a couple of its frozen fingers break off. He just let it go and it fell behind us, but the damage was done.
    We sideswiped a Toyota Camry, which was ridiculous in its own right. I mean what self- respecting hillbilly would own a non-truck, let alone a foreign non-truck? Regardless, our right tread was damaged in the collision and started to make that noise. You know that noise, the one that every vehicle you’ve ever owned makes at some point. The one that screams This isn’t right , and you get all nervous about a five-hundred-dollar mechanic bill for a water pump or brake rotors.
    Our trusty steed was faltering. We made it another eighth of a mile before the tread broke off and almost took Ship’s leg with it. We spun chaotically out of control and wound nose first into the brick façade of a barbershop. Now, I’m no insurance adjustor, but I could tell you that this extremely expensive snow toy was all kinds of totaled, and there was no protection check inbound. Remember a couple of paragraphs ago when I told you that I was scared when riding through the streets? Yeah, well that was paltry compared to when I heard that first throaty, gargling moan from someplace very close.
    We grabbed our stuff and Ship used his size twenties to persuade the barber shop door open. The shop was blissfully devoid of all things alive or dead except us, which was good because the damn pack (an ALICE pack for you enthusiasts) weighed in at ten million pounds and I was already tired after six feet. Ship wrenched the barber’s table off the wall and braced it against the door just as the first slap of a dead hand smacked against it. I looked at the shop front and the zombies that were showing up looked right back at me through an entire wall of plate glass.
    This simply would not do, and I turned to tell the big guy, but he was already moving toward the back of the shop. The front window imploded and I jumped a little. The zombies hadn’t