Z-Burbia: A Zombie Novel by Jake Bible Read Free Book Online

pistol, but it was knocked from my hand and is several feet away. I don’t have that kind of time, as I see more kids streaming towards us.
    Struggling to my feet , I nock an arrow and fire. It hits her baseball bat. She actually got her bat up in time, and in the right position, to block a mother-fucking arrow. A deadly grin splits her face and I can see the three teeth she has left sitting in brown, rotten gums. I nock another arrow and fire. This one hits the mark. Straight through her throat. She gurgles and coughs while blood pours from the wound. Huge bubbles of blood and snot foam from her mouth.
    She’s done, so I nock another and spin about. Shit. Too close. Eight kids, various sizes, are almost on me. I let the one arrow go, hitting a kid in the eye, luckily, and then use the bow as a bat. I cringe when it connects with a kid’s head, not because I probably split his skull, but because I know it has fucked my bow up. I duck down and swing again, sweeping the legs out from under another kid. Lunging up, my leg screaming in pain, I use the top of my head and connect with the jaw of a boy that is about to stab me with quite the wicked looking hunting knife.
    He screeches and I feel something wet fall down my neck and into my shirt. I don’t want to think about what it is. Not that I have the luxury of thinking time. I punch the kid in the nuts and shove him back, but his pals are on me and tackle me to the ground. I can see sharpened screwdrivers, steak knives duct taped together, even a fucking gardening trowel, coming at my face.
    Then the sound of suppressed gunfire reaches me and I am suddenly pinned under a pile of dead and bloody kids. Trying to free myself from the tangle of limbs, I end up slicing my hand on the fucking gardening trowel (apparently it is very sharp) and shout, “Get these evil munchkins off me!”
    “Shut up, dipshit,” Jon says as he helps roll the kids off my body. “We’ve made too much noise as it is.”
    “They made too much noise,” I reply as he gives me a hand up. “All I’ve done is bleed.”
    “Let’s take a look,” Jon says, helping me off the asphalt and onto a patch of moss under a large oak tree. “Any wounds besides the hand and leg?”
    “Aren’t those enough?”
    “B ig baby,” he smiles as he takes his pack off and pulls out his first aid kit. “Hold still. This will hurt.”
    It does. I grit my teeth as he cleans and bandages my hand. My leg needs cleaning, stitching, and a bandage, and then I’m good to go.
    “Can you walk?” Stuart asks. “Because we need to-”
    “Move?” Jon finishes.
    “Up there,” Stuart says as he points up a winding street that overlooks Beaver Lake.
    I glance down Lakeshore and realize I should be able to see the lake, but something is blocking the view.
    “We need higher ground to see, don’t we?” I say.
    And it hits me. Why Brenda asked Jon and me to go with Stuart and not Carl. Why Stuart has been agreeable, but vague. Why we aren’t heading towards the college campus and the laptop batteries we need that could be there.
    “What are you going to show us?” I ask Stuart.
    “Better just to see it,” he replies. I catch the hint of a smile. He knows I’ve figured it out.
    Jon looks at me , and then to Stuart. “What am I missing?”
    “Help me up and let’s get moving,” I say.
    Jon helps me to my feet and I’m surprised my hand doesn’t hurt more than it does. I can’t say the same for my leg. It throbs and feels hot. I know Jon cleaned it, but who knows what was on those spikes. I start to walk, but stop immediately. Not from pain, but from revulsion.
    “Jon,” I say , “pull out the back of my shirt.”
    Jon looks at me and then at Stuart. Stuart just shrugs.
    “Any particular reason, Hoss?” he asks. “I don’t think now is the time to get your kink on.”
    “Please,” I say, trying not to shudder , “I think there’s something down my back.”
    I know what it is. Ugh. I know what it