Zombies! (Episode 6): Barriers Collapse Read Online Free Page A

looking at Peter queerly and then suddenly brightened. "I remember you. You were one of the docs over at that hospital a few months back."
     
    "That's right," Peter said, pleased that Martin had remembered even if Abby hadn't.
     
    "There's not going to be a reunion, is there?" Martin was making light of the situation but not really. He knew how badly it had affected Abby. Even his own troubles had faded into obscurity in light of her resulting frailty. He tried not to complain too much about his job and helped out more with Sammy. Whenever they needed to borrow money from her parents, he took it with teeth clenched but no comment. It was difficult. All of those things were difficult for a man like Martin. But it would be too much to bear if he alienated and lost Abby.
     
    "It's just us," Peter said, feeling his opportunity for recruitment slipping away. "Everyone else left the city and I just needed to touch base with that day, see the reality after the nightmare, if you get my meaning."
     
    Martin went pensive. "Makes sense. How do you feel about it, Abby?"
     
    She was a bit taken aback by the question. Martin had always been very direct, though. "I…I was a little shaken at first, but… It does feel better to speak with someone who was there ."
     
    Martin grinned wide. "It's settled then. Peter, you'll come along and have lunch with us. What do you say?"
     
    Surprised, though pleasantly, Peter nodded.
     
    ***
     
    IT was almost two hours later when they were finally able to sit down for a meal. Abby couldn't leave until Whitaker came in. Peter claimed he had errands to run anyway and left the gym, giving Abby his card with his cell phone number on it. Martin hung around for a while but grew bored. He told Abby to give him a call when she was ready.
     
    They went to a small street corner café. There was outdoor seating, which some people took despite the December chill. They agree to eat indoors. They ordered modest meals, none of them having lots of cash to throw around. After some small talk, Peer decided to start feeling them out.
     
    "Do you have family in the UK, Martin? I heard that there were zombie sightings over there."
     
    Martin shook his head. "They'll be all over soon enough," he said. "Had one in the store this morning."
     
    Abby looked stricken.
     
    "No big deal, love," he said to her. "It's our third this week."
     
    "That's crazy, though," Peter said. "You work your everyday job and you have to deal with zombies?"
     
    Martin shrugged. "The police do their job and we have private security personnel. It's no more dangerous than some bloke with a gun."
     
    "But, Martin," Abby complained. "The sight of them. The smell of them!"
     
    He shrugged, picking a french fry off of his plate. "I had some nightmares that first time. And I never even got close to it. We had a woman, last week. She came in with a stroller. Strapped into the stroller was a toddler, couldn't have been more than three years old, but it was one of them, you know?"
     
    "That's terrible," Abby cried, drawing stares from the other patrons. She didn't care. She couldn't believe the nonchalant way in which Martin spoke of it.
     
    "She took the kid over to the Disney pictures, said they calmed her down. She made quite scene when the police came."
     
    "I imagine she didn't want to give up her baby," Peter said.
     
    Martin looked at him. "Her baby was already gone."
     
    "That's not always so easy to accept. Especially when you've got a living body to remind you of what it once was. Don't you have a son that age?"
     
    Martin's demeanor changed instantly. He remembered being afraid that Sammy was sick. There had been a pounding in his gut, a terrible churning that wouldn't go away.
     
    "How do you suppose the child got sick?" Peter asked.
     
    Martin shrugged, sensing the subtle shift in Peter's questioning.
     
    "You know, Martin, I don't want to start an argument but you sound awfully casual about something so