Saving the Dead Read Online Free Page A

snapping it with a loud crack."  
    The student raised his flashlight for another blow, but the dead thing crashed into him. They collapsed to the floor with the obese zombie on top.  Justin cried out as he tried to push her off of him.  Despite his adrenalized strength, she was too heavy and continued pulling herself towards him hungrily.
    “Hang on!”
    Ramirez ran up and grabbed a handful of gray hair yanking back.  The zombie’s neck arched and it teeth chomped at the air in hungry expectation.  Ramirez’s other hand pulled a field knife open with a click.
    He jammed the tip of the blade into the space below the base of her skull.  He twisted the handle until there was an audible crunch. The zombie convulsed once and went still.
    Justin lay below it panting.  “Okay she’s dead-dead now,” Ramirez said. “Push her to your right on the count of three.  Ready? One-two-three.”
    Together they rolled the zombie off of him and let it thump to the trash-covered floor.  Ramirez reached out and helped haul Justin up.  The older medic lifted the dead woman’s head then pulled his knife free the mother’s skull.  He rummaged around the piles and pulled a stained shirt and wiped the blood off his blade.
    Ramirez placed a hand on Justin’s shoulder, and the student flinched. "Come on.  Let's get out of here."  Justin nodded.  Drifts, still holding the sobbing daughter, nodded to him from a few feet away.  Together the three of them exited the room.
    Outside, Drifts looked at Justin. “Well if that didn’t grow some hair on your balls, I don’t know what will.”
    Justin looked at the EMT with open shock.  Then a moment later he snorted.
    Ramirez took him through the finer points of field wound care as they bandaged the daughter’s bite out in the hall.  While they tended to her, Drifts went back inside to gather up some of their equipment and wash off his flashlight in the bathroom sink.  He came back out a few minutes later with the monitor, oxygen tank, and a considerably lighter medical bag.
    "I have the narcs, anti-venom, and the hot-drill.  Fuck the rest!"
    "I thought that you were going to clean your flashlight?" said Ramirez as he noted the dented flashlight in the biohazard bag.
    Drifts shook his head. "Not here.  The bathroom is worse than the rest of the place."
    They silently carried the daughter down the stairs and placed her onto the stretcher.  Sirens screamed as they loaded her into the back of the ambulance and two police cruisers arrived.  The hooker and the drug dealer had conveniently found other places to be.  
    "Better late than never," muttered Drifts.
    The first officer stepped out of his patrol car, his eyes bulging as he noted their bloody appearance. "What the hell happened to you?"
    “We had a code on apartment 4B that reanimated, and then her daughter attacked us,” Ramirez said matter-of-factly. "We put it down, but not before she was bitten."
    The officers took a step backwards, their hands drifting towards their sidearms. "She attacked you before she was bit?  Was she the only one?"
    "Yep," said Ramirez.
    "Do you need us to arrest her?  Is she safe?  Do we need to put her down?”
    "You don't have to kill her.  She wasn't bitten anywhere vital.  I think she can be saved.  We're taking her to the hospital now.  We'll press charges there."
    Drifts hit the lights and sirens and drove.  Ramirez washed and cleaned his patient's wounds.  He started an IV and gave her a sedative and zombie anti-venom.
    Justin sat silently at the head of the stretcher and watched Ramirez work.  He did not try to help and only broke his silence once when Ramirez administered the zombie anti-venom. "Will that help?"
    "It might,” said Ramirez. “Coupled with surgical removal of all infected tissue, it has a forty percent chance of success. The problem is, it's highly caustic to the kidneys, and she might have to be on dialysis for the rest of her life.  Still, that’s a better