The Zero Dog War by Keith Melton Read Free Book Online Page B

the edge of the store’s parking lot—out of direct view of the counter clerk, but attracting his share of curious stares all the same.
    He glanced at his watch again and drummed his hands on the large steering wheel. He didn’t want the zombies loose until the armored car arrived, what with the constant moaning, slouching and staggering, the grabby-grabby, and the all-around attracting negative attention. So he was forced to keep them on the bus with him and suffer in the stink. His little electric fan didn’t move enough air. Next time he’d rivet eighteen hundred air fresheners into the metal ceiling.
    Finally, he caught sight of the gray and white armored car rumbling up the street. It pulled into the parking lot of the EZ Pantry convenience store and sat there with its diesel engine idling.
    Showtime.
    Jeremiah turned on the bus’s flashing red lights and pulled the door lever. After disabling the alarm, he’d rigged the lever with a system of pulleys so that yanking the lever also opened the emergency exit at the back. He concentrated. In his mind he could feel the cool, sleek silver cords of his necromancy magic controlling the hundred zombie pseudo-consciousnesses around him. He started to prod them to stand and shuffle toward the exits. He could even see through their dead eyes if he chose—not something he enjoyed, especially when they were eating.
    Outside in the parking lot, two guards climbed out of the armored truck and walked toward the back. One of them glanced at the bus and frowned. Jeremiah raised a hand in a casual wave and the guard gave him a puzzled look, but turned back to his work. The first guard swung the heavy rear door open. The second guard scanned the street and the storefront for threats.
    Jeremiah’s first zombie, some dude in a tattered business suit, walked to the edge of the highest bus step and toppled forward, thumping against the side of the door as he fell. He ended up sprawled on the sidewalk, making sounds like a man having his appendix removed with a garden trowel. The next zombie took the steps with more grace, but the third zombie got caught staring out the front window at the guards and licking his lips, missed a step and crashed into the second, leaving Jeremiah with a pile of groaning zombies just outside the door. He cursed to himself and got up to help direct traffic. Zombies were already plunging through the emergency exit and off the back end of the bus, bouncing off each other and making a moaning, slavering mess.
    He pushed his way down the steps, accidentally stepping on businessman zombie’s face on his way out. Street traffic was light, but a few cars had stopped for the bus’s flashing reds. An old lady who could barely see over the wheel stared at the zombies disembarking from the bus with wide, disbelieving eyes. A few pedestrians and a cyclist had also stopped to stare, well out of eating range, lucky for them. The security guards glared at him, as if he were responsible for the disorderly exit, instead of a bunch of coordination-impaired walking dead people.
    “Don’t worry, everybody!” Jeremiah yelled. “Just tourists from Canada! Had a little too much to drink. Ha. Ha. Maybe a little food poisoning.” One zombie’s arm fell off its shoulder joint with a wet, tearing sound and a thud. “And some minor skin problems,” he added quickly. “A few cases of scurvy. Nothing serious. Nothing to see here.”
    A long moment of silence spun out, in which he could hear the rumbling idle of the armored car’s diesel engine, some birds far off in the trees, the dulcet tones of a hip-hop artist rapping about drive-by shootings, the low-power beep of somebody’s cell phone, traffic rushing past on Morrison, a road crew using a jackhammer a couple blocks away. And then the pristine silence shattered into screams and running footsteps as the pedestrians decamped en masse. The traffic stopped by the bus’s flashing red lights tried to back up, speed past and