Even Zombie Killers Get The Blues (Zombie Killer Blues) Read Online Free

noticed his accent had gotten softer and he was more
serious, like it always did when we were discussing a fight.
    “Leave it. Take pictures of the canal doors, check
out the pump house and the electric machinery, get pics of everything, spray
the crap out of the electrical system with the silicone. We gotta keep the
stuff in working order but the Zs are going to be Lieutenant Colonel Jackass’s
problem.”
    “Do you want to open the doors? Let this shit drift
into the river?”
    “Fuck no. Do that and when we get back to the COP in
Stillwater they’re going to be crawling all over the wall. We’re upstream. They
can’t swim but they can wash up.”

He shook his head and spit on the Zs trying to climb at us. “Didn’t think of
that. This here city boy can’t get directions straight, you know me.”
I walked back to the guys, picked my ruck up off the ground and rummaged for my
Nikon.

“Hey Nick, check it out!” Brit pointed and we caught sight of a bald eagle
soaring high overhead. The wildlife was coming back strong but I hope it didn’t
eat too many of the fish from the river.
    “No doubt, the plague was a good thing and bad
thing. Make the best and drive on.”

Brit bumped fists with me. “Make the best and drive on.”

 
    Chapter 6

“Know what I’m pissed about?”

I sighed as we walked along the river road. Here it comes , I thought.

“I’m pissed that we’re never, ever going to go to the stars. This killed it.
Right here.” Brit gestured to the potholes in the road, the ruined house we
were walking slowly passed, eyes peeled for Zs.

“Why Brit, I didn’t even know you had such ambitions,” said Ski. Doc walked
past, made like he was tightening down the chinstrap on his helmet and hunched
his shoulders with an oh no look. Jonesy started whistling and
pretending to be interested in some flowers on the side of the road.

“Well, Ski, you don’t know shit about me. For example, what did I do before the
plague?”

“I dunno. College girl who banged football players?”

She stopped in midstride and smacked him as hard as she could upside his
Kevlar. “DAMN, BRIT, OW!”

“You’re right, but you deserved that anyway, jerk. I was an engineering major.
I was going to go to the stars . Or build in space, anyway. Do you
understand me? I was going to design space habitats. I wanted to design the
first habitation on the moon . It’s all gone now,
Nick. All gone.
     She started crying, tears rolling down her cheeks,
and lengthened her stride.  Then she sat down in the road, screamed as loudly
as she could and started pounding on the pavement in front of her with her war
hammer. The guys walked around her, ignoring her screams and frustrated
pounding. After a few minutes, she stopped, slung the hammer over her back,
picked up her weapon and resumed the march.
    “Hey babe, you OK?”
    She looked at me. I knew her backstory. Living in a
college campus, in the ruins of Syracuse University. Doc and I had found her
holed up in a cafeteria, on one of our first scouts. Six months, living on
canned food and having the most god-awful amount of traps around her, drinking
rainwater from barrels on the roof. Going slowly crazy with no one to talk to,
dodging Zs every day to get wood for a fire. She had nearly taken my head off
with a baseball bat and Doc had needed to sedate her to get her calm enough to
talk to us. Even now, I wasn’t sure she had completely gotten over it.
    “I’m OK. I just got to thinking, you know, about
before.”
    “Keep that up, you will go crazy. You can’t
think about before. You know that.”
    PTSD. Crazy. Traumatized. We all are, we all have it.
How can you watch the death of almost everyone you loved? OK, for most of us, everyone we loved? How can you watch civilization, or most of it, crumple around you in
a month and not go crazy? The Snap, we called it. For a minute, for half an
hour, whatever it took, sometimes you just grew so goddamned bitter and angry
and felt