The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse by Peter Meredith Read Free Book Online

too was boarded over and so with nothing better to do, he drove on to Newark, but never did make it to that city.
    Broomfield Avenue was blocked by four military humvees that sported dreadfully large machine guns atop them. Along with the vehicles, thirty or so soldiers stood guard or slept in the October sun, which was unseasonably warm. Though the soldiers on duty had their guns initially pointed away down the street, most turned and leveled them in Neil's direction when he came up.
    “ Excuse me?” Neil said as one of the soldiers walked over after he had slammed on the brakes. “Can I get by? I'm trying to get to the Whole Foods in Newark.”
    The soldier, a man with three little chevrons on his arm, gave a laugh of disbelief. “No, you can't. Don't you listen to the news? Everything from here east is quarantined.”
    “ I don't, actually,” Neil admitted. He tended to look down on people who watched TV, though this wasn't something that he would admit to a soldier. He tended to look down on them as well, but was smart enough not to do so when one was so near. “So those people who live in those houses over there can't come over here?”
    “ Nope,” the soldier answered. “And you can't go over there. That's how it works. Though why either of you would want to go in any direction is beyond me. You should go back home, you're not supposed to be on the streets.”
    “ And what if we need some stuff from the store?”
    This was answered with a shrug. “I'm sure it's all being worked out. They'll let you know. Don't worry.”
    Easier said than done.
    Neil drove home, spotting his second zombie as he did, a very large one, wearing only a single shoe. It's lower lip dangled from a shred of skin, yet still it managed a fierce glare as the Prius scooted by. The sighting sent Neil's heart banging in his chest and when he got home he rushed to his living room where upon he immediately turned on his dusty TV. It showed nothing but static, which was an unpleasant shock. Like bagels and salmon, there was supposed to always be TV if one wanted to watch it.
    Shut in his house as he had been, there was no way for Neil to know that only the day before, Navy Seal teams had been dispatched to destroy the broadcast studios of every news station in the quarantined zones.
    The administration believed that the news coming from inside the Q-zones, as they were called, would only demoralize the rest of the nation if they understood the breadth of the issue. So, the Seals swooped down in their Blackhawks, planted a few hundred charges, shot some first amendment resistors and a number of zombies, then zipped out again just as the charges detonated.
    Neil smacked the top of his TV set in annoyance and then went to make a sandwich, which he ate on his screened in porch , keeping his only weapon, his trusty broom, near at hand.
    That evening there was much more shooting in his neighborhood and he woke the following morning, to what sounded like a battle. Wearing nothing but striped pajamas and a green terrycloth robe he went to stand on his stoop, facing west.
    “That isn't right,” he said to himself, aligning his arms with the rising sun. The army should have been east of him not west. “Oh, no,” he whispered. Had they expanded the quarantine zone? Was he now on the wrong side of the barriers and the guns? Without a working TV, he had no way of knowing, so Neil went across to his neighbors, forgetting completely his broom.
    A zombie, not fifty yards away reminded him. It was rooting around in the ivy next to Mr. Park 's house and Neil froze out in the open.
    “ Neil! What are you doing out there?” Mr. Krauthammer asked from his second floor window. This caused Neil to practically squeak in fright and he grabbed the only weapon he could find that was near at hand—a garden gnome. “Hey, that's my gnome,” Mr. Krauthammer said angrily.
    “ Shh,” Neil said with his finger to his lips. He then pointed at the zombie, only Mr.