Blood Soaked and Contagious Read Online Free

that might take a while before they stop?”
    “Fast bad things.” He didn’t even pause before he answered. Bam. Clarity.
    I couldn’t leave him to fend for himself, be hunted, and then eaten. I also couldn’t take him with me, because he’d just be a juicy worm on the fishing pole. They’d find him and me. Worse, the kid could infect me somehow.
    I nodded at him again, and took a deep breath.
    The boy said, “You killed my dad. Are you going to kill me, too?”
    The breath rattled out of me, and I had trouble taking in another one. I don’t know how this little boy knew, but he’d figured it out. Sure, I could just do it and never answer his question, but I knew that it would eat at me, strain my resolve, and give me more reason to hate myself for the things I had to do to survive.
    “Yes.” I said it.
    “Why?”
    “Because if I don’t, things worse than your father will find you really soon. They’ll eat you, just like he wanted to, and then you’ll become just like them. You will go out and eat people.” The words tumbled out of me in one breath.
    “Oh,” he replied in that small voice children use when something makes sense. “I don’t want to eat people. It’s bad and it hurts them.”
    His eyes started to glass over.
    “You’re right,” I said, looking into his fading eyes. They were a really warm brown. “Eating people does hurt them. I’m proud of you that you don’t want to hurt people like that.”
    I still don’t believe it, but he actually smiled. It was a good smile. I bet there were little kids like him who went to the guillotine, being brave like that.
    “Hey,” I said, “do you see that cloud over there? The one that looks like a duck?”
    He turned away from me and looked up. It was the last conscious thing he ever did. Between the beats of my heart, this innocent little boy went rigid, relaxed, rattled deep in his tiny chest, and gave up the ghost. I’d waited too long.
    Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
    I’m sorry. I’d hoped to do better for you than talk you to death, kid.
    It is always the same story, a decent sort of person who didn’t deserve to have their life tragically cut short. There was only one thing left to do: destroy the brain and then move on.
    When it was done, I cleaned off the scythe, folded the blade back into the handle, and snapped it back into the rig. I wasn’t seeing very clearly or breathing very easily. My face was wet.
    All I could do was walk away from it. By the time I made it back to my place, my face was dry again.

Chapter 3
     
    My home used to be a local hardware store. I like it because it is fairly easy to keep secure, as it had very few windows to begin with and only three sets of doors (two of them being steel). The best thing about it isn’t the security aspect, which isn’t as much of an issue as it would be if I were infected; it is the ready access to supplies. I need a nail, and all I have to do is walk down an aisle.
    It is also a fantastic source of trade goods.
    The virus and zombies appeared about two years ago, and roughly 40 percent of the North American population contracted the contagion or was in a position to return as a zombie. As I said, we don’t really know what came first, just that they rolled out concurrently.
    After six months of cannibalism, martial law, resurrection, and mayhem, modern society was starting to seriously break down. Goods and services were impacted, as well as delivery of the same. Zombies, you see, regardless of the fact that they retain their memories, do not really give a shit about the 9-to-5 workday. They are much more concerned with their nutritional intake.
    Barter became a reasonable way to get things done, and many people adjusted to it with little effort. Of course, adjusting to that sort of economy is easier when you are capable of making a product yourself. Cheese, for example.
    My neighbor, Yolanda, makes cheese. All she needed to live a comfortable life was a supply of raw material