The Walking Dead Collection by Robert Kirkman, Jay Bonansinga Read Free Book Online Page A

something like one of them big lantern batteries or something outta one of them electric mowers.”
    Nick shrugs.
    Bobby eats.
    Philip paces and thinks.
    Brian stares at the wall, mumbling, “Something to do with their brains.”
    “Say what?” Philip looks at his brother. “What was that, Bri?”
    Brian looks at him. “Those things … the sickness. It’s basically in the brain, right? It’s gotta be.” He pauses. He looks at his plate. “I still say we don’t even know they’re dead.”
    Nick looks at Brian. “You mean after we take ’em out? After we … destroy ’em?”
    “No, I mean before, ” Brian says. “I mean, like, the condition they’re in.”
    Philip stops pacing. “Shit, man … on Monday, I saw one of ’em get squashed by an eighteen-wheeler and ten minutes later, it’s dragging itself along the street with its guts hanging out. They’ve been saying it on all the news reports. They’re dead, sport. They’re way dead.”
    “I’m just saying, the central nervous system, man, it’s complicated. All the shit in the environment right now, new strains of shit.”
    “Hey, you want to take one of them things to a doctor for a checkup, be my guest.”
    Brian sighs. “All I’m saying is, we don’t know enough yet. We don’t know shit.”
    “We know all we need to know,” Philip says, giving his brother a look. “We know there’s more of them fucking things every day, and all they seem to want to do is have us for lunch. Which is why we’re gonna hang here for a while, let things play out a little.”
    Brian breathes out a painful, weary sigh. The others are silent.
    In the lull, they can hear the faint noises that they’ve been hearing all night, coming from the darkness outside: the muffled, intermittent thudding of insensate figures bumping up against the makeshift barricade.
    Despite Philip’s efforts to erect the rampart quickly and quietly, the commotion of the day’s construction project has drawn more of the walking corpses.
    “How long do you think we’re gonna be able to stay here?” Brian asks softly.
    Philip sits down, lays the nail gun on the table and takes another sip of his bourbon. He nods toward the family room, where the whimsical voices of children’s programming drift incongruously. “She needs a break,” Philip says. “She’s exhausted.”
    “She loves that play set out back,” Brian says with a weak smile.
    Philip nods. “She can live a normal life here for a while.”
    Everybody looks at him. Everybody silently chews on the concept.
    “Here’s to all the rich motherfuckers of the world,” Philip says, raising his glass.
    The others toast without really knowing just exactly what they’re toasting … or how long it will last.

 
    FOUR
    The next day, in the clean autumn sun, Penny plays in the backyard under the watchful gaze of Brian. She plays throughout the morning while the others take inventory and sort through their supplies. In the afternoon, Philip and Nick secure the window wells in the basement with extra planking, and try unsuccessfully to rig the nail gun to DC power, while Bobby, Brian, and Penny play cards in the family room.
    The proximity of the undead is a constant factor, swimming sharklike under the surface of every decision, every activity. But for the moment, there’s just an occasional stray, an errant wanderer bumping up against the privacy fence, then shambling away. For the most part, the activity behind the seven-foot cedar bulwark on Green Briar Lane has, so far, gone unnoticed by the swarm.
    That night, after dinner, with the shades drawn, they all watch a Jim Carrey movie in the family room, and they almost feel normal again. They’re all starting to get used to this place. The occasional muffled thump out in the darkness barely registers now. Brian has practically forgotten the missing twelve-year-old, and after Penny goes to bed, the men make long-term plans.
    They discuss the implications of staying in the