All Our Tomorrows Read Online Free PDF

they’re zombies! I want to yell at him but I keep my mouth shut.
    Shots ring out in the night. Ferguson flinches but remains asleep.
    “What has she got planned?”
    “I don’t know. Right now, I think she’s just trying to get us through the night. We’ll get a better idea of how bad things are in the morning.”
    I lean into my dad, snuggling against his good shoulder. He shifts his weight, putting his arm around me and I close my eyes, not wanting to go to sleep, just wanting to rest my weary eyelids for a moment.
    Sunlight warms my face, which surprises and disorients me. It should be night.
    “Hazel,” Olivia says, touching gently at my shoulder.
    Blinking in the bright sunlight, I wonder how many hours have passed with what seems like nothing more than a few seconds.
    For a moment, the world is at peace. Then I move and pain racks my body. My aches are echoed by the groan of zombies outside. They’re still beating on the wooden walls of the barn, but it has become a background noise barely noticeable until I think about it.
    “Marge, Ferguson. They’re asking for you.”
    “Me?”
    I feel groggy. Sitting up, I rumple my hair. The bandage on my forearm has come loose. The zombie bite from the animal hospital looks raw and red. Those worm tablets may have prevented me from turning, but they’ve done nothing for a rancid bite teeming with bacteria. Pus oozes from between the stitches. My skin is angry. I feel hot.
    Outside, smoke drifts from the burnt remains of the homestead. Where once a proud old house stood, now there is nothing but the blackened stumps of burnt wood. Zombies stumble through the ash, oblivious to the heat. Charred bodies lie in the ruins.
    Olivia leads me around the internal wooden walkway overlooking the center of the barn. Dad stands beside Marge and Ferguson in front of the open upper doors. They’re looking out over a sea of zombie heads. Arms reach for us, beckoning us to join them.
    “Here she comes,” Dad says, reaching out his one good arm to welcome me. His injured arm rests in a sling. Marge smiles. Ferguson looks awful. He should be in bed resting. His hands are so thoroughly bandaged he looks like a prizefighter wearing boxing gloves.
    Zee goes crazy.
    Snarling and growling, the zombies begin banging on the main barn door directly below us. The double doors flex and shake, straining under the weight of the horde surging outside. Fear seizes me. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. My fingers tingle. Sweat breaks out on my brow and my heart pounds in my throat at the prospect of the barn doors giving way. The whole front wall of the barn flexes and sways, groaning in time with the mass of zombies fighting to get in.
    “That’s enough,” Marge cries and Olivia pulls me back into the shadows. Once I’m out of sight, the horde subsides. Zee claws and pounds at the wood, but he no longer surges as one.
    Marge, Dad and Ferguson crowd around as Olivia herds me back into the corner of the barn. I trip on a bucket full of water. There are dozens of buckets pushed up against the walls. Olivia has a grooming brush in her hand, but the look on her face suggests she’s not about to use it on a horse.
    “I don’t understand. I—”
    “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Dad says, gesturing for me not to panic.
    “Seems you were right,” Marge says. “All of this. A horde of over two thousand zombies. They’re all after you.”
    For a moment, I’m scared. I’m not sure what they’re going to do.
    “We need you to strip down,” Dad says as though he’s asking for something as mundane as an apple.
    “It’s the smell,” Ferguson says.
    Marge adds, “We’re going to use your clothing to draw the horde away from the barn, but we have to be quick. These walls are on the verge of collapse.”
    “Quick?” I say, feeling I have a right to some clarification before tearing my clothes off.
    Dad says, “We have no idea how sensitive their smell actually is and