Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman Read Free Book Online

most importantly, quietly dispatched with some well-placed hatchet blows.
    That afternoon, Philip and company cautiously begin work on the barricade across the front parkway of the Colonial and its two neighbors—a total span of a hundred and fifty feet for the three lots, and sixty down either side—which sounds to Nick and Bobby like a daunting amount of territory to cover, but with the ten-foot-long prefab sections they find under a neighbor’s deck, combined with fencing cannibalized off the place across the street, the work goes surprisingly fast.
    By dusk that evening, Philip and Nick are connecting the last sections on the northern edge of the property line.
    â€œI’ve been keeping an eye on ’em all day,” Philip is saying, pressing the forked tip of the nail gun against the bracing of a corner section. He’s referring to the swarms out near the golf club. Nick nods as he butts the two support beams against each other.
    Philip pulls the trigger, and the nail gun makes a muffled snapping noise—like the crack of a metal whip—sending a six-inch galvanized nail into the boards. The nail gun is baffled with a small piece of packing blanket, secured with duct tape, to dampen the noise.
    â€œI ain’t seen a single one of them wander closer,” Philip says, wiping the sweat from his brow, moving to the next section of support beams. Nick holds the boards steady, and the tip presses down.
    FFFFFUMP!
    â€œI don’t know,” Nick says skeptically, moving to the next section, the sweat making his satin roadie jacket cling to his back. “I still say it’s not if  … but when .”
    FFFFFFFUMP!
    â€œYou worry too much, son,” Philip says, moving to the next section of planking, tugging on the gun’s cord. The extension cable snakes off toward an outlet on the corner of the neighbor’s house. Philip had to connect a grand total of six twenty-eight-foot cords to get the thing to reach. He pauses and glances over his shoulder.
    About fifty yards away, in the backyard of the Colonial, Brian pushes Penny in a swing. It’s taken a little getting used to for Philip, putting his hapless brother in charge of his precious little girl, but right now Brian is the best nanny he’s got.
    The play set—of course—is deluxe. Rich folks love to spoil their kids with shit like this. This one—more than likely a haunt of the missing kid—has got all the bells and whistles: slide, clubhouse, four swings, climbing wall, jungle gym, and sandbox.
    â€œWe got it made here,” Philip goes on, turning back to his work. “Long as we keep our heads screwed on straight, we’re gonna be fine.”
    As they position the next section, the rustling sounds of their movements and the creak of the planks mask the telltale noise of shuffling footsteps.
    The footsteps are coming from across the street. Philip doesn’t hear them until the errant zombie is close enough for its odor to register.
    Nick is the first one to smell it: that black, oily, mildewy combination of rotting protein and decay—like human waste cooking in bacon grease. It immediately puts Nick’s guard up. “Wait a minute,” he says, holding a section of planking. “You smell—”
    â€œYeah, smells like—”
    A fish-belly arm bursts through a gap in the fencing, grabbing a hank of Philip’s denim shirt.
    *   *   *
    The assailant was once a middle-aged woman in a designer running suit, now an emaciated wraith with torn sleeves, blackened, exposed teeth, and the button eyes of a prehistoric fish, her hooked hand clutching Philip’s shirttail with the vise grip of frozen dead fingers. She lets out a low groan like a broken pipe organ as Philip spins toward his axe, which lies canted against a wheelbarrow twenty feet away.
    Too damn far.
    The dead lady goes for Philip’s neck with the autonomic hunger of a giant