Rotten by Victoria S. Hardy Read Free Book Online Page B

encourage it, it’s imagination - I shouldn’t discourage that - but I certainly didn’t believe it.”  She turned off the heat under the iron pan and continued to stir. 
     
    “I had just finished digging up that old, dead, peach tree in your dad’s garden.  I know it was late.  I probably shouldn’t have been out so late, but it was the anniversary of his death and the tree he planted has been dead for at least two years.  I had a glass of wine,” she glanced at Sully, “and decided it was time.”
     
    “I didn’t see them until I had clipped all the branches, cut the trunk up, and moved it to the street.  I had just gotten back into the yard, getting ready to dig up the roots when they hopped the fence.  They hopped it like monkeys or something you’d see in those crazy movies you kids watch.  Eden went at me and Lydia got Midget.  I had the shovel in my hands.  You know, the root cutting one you just ordered for me?”  She smiled over her shoulder at Highland and poured the eggs in a large bowl.  “I killed her.  And then Lydia came at me, I still had the shovel in my hands, I killed her, too.  And I thought Midget was just injured and I ran to him.” She sighed, and set the bowl of eggs on the table. “Luckily, I still had the shovel.  You kids never talked about zombie animals.” 
     
    “Fuck!” Moonshine shoved a piece of sausage in his mouth.
     
    “Language, Michael!” Mrs. Williams said sharply and checked on the biscuits.
     
    “Yes, ma’am,” Moon said, and chewed his sausage.
     
    “Zombie animals?” Princess nibbled on a piece of cheddar.  “Why didn’t we think of that?”
     
    Highland paced and wiped his face from a paper towel he snatched from the roll.  “Midget?” he whispered.
     
    “I’m sorry, honey.”  Mrs. Williams rubbed his back.  “I’ve got the downstairs windows covered, and I started on the upstairs.  I thought you guys might need some sleep, so we have fresh sheets on the beds and I stored about forty gallons of water, I know that’s not much, but I’ll have more by evening.  I don’t know when the power or the water will go out so in the mean time, we take advantage.” 
     
    “Mom, you’re awesome,” Highland sat down at the table, wiped tears from his eyes, and spooned some eggs in his plate.  “Okay, guys.  Animals go zombie, now we know.  Let’s eat.” 
     
    We ate and we talked like we did when we were kids - we plotted the zombie apocalypse with both laughter and seriousness.  Sully didn’t say much, he ate and he ate well, as did the rest of us, but he didn’t speak.  He glanced at the bottle of wine on the counter a couple times, I thought longingly, but he didn’t reach for it. 
     
    We talked about zombie animals.  That was shocking to our senses, as many movies as we had studied, as many crazy teen novels as we had read; we weren’t prepared for zombie animals.  How would you even know if an animal had gone zombie?  We had to kill animals, too?  I sat back, chewing some bacon, and thought it interesting that we would kill zombie people without much thought, but stumbled when it came to animals.  Even freaking zombie animals. I took a sip of juice because it was hard to swallow.  And then Moonshine spoke up and I almost spewed.  I’m not sure if the reaction was from humor or terror?
     
    “Can you imagine a zombie owl?  F….”.  He glanced at Mrs. Williams and smiled.  “Or a zombie cat?  A raccoon?  A roach?  Je…”  He paused.  “Can you imagine?  A zombie crow?  A hawk?  A coyote?  Freak!  A Tiger?”  He laughed and coughed.  I think he was feeling the same emotion I was, torn between humor and terror.  He wiped his nose, took a sip of juice, and bit into a biscuit. 
     
    “Wait a minute,” Highland said, “if humans can jump around like monkeys and lope like cats and tear out guts in seconds, what can predators do?”  He dropped his fork and sat