Chaos Theory: A Zombie Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

moans had ceased. I showed him the wound on my leg and the other one just below my collar bone. That one did show signs of infection, but not by the plague. Ship took notice and he cleaned it out for me. To my everlasting shame, I screeched like a baby when he put that stingy shit on me, and then the moans started again. Baby , he mouthed.
    That was mean too.
    He put away the antiseptic and threw another log on the fire. I bandaged my shoulder boo boo and he began writing in his book. Actually, he wrote so long I thought he might be writing another book. When he finished, he passed the pages to me and I began to read. Lots of question marks at the right side of the pages. 
    Weapons fire from outside interrupted my reading.

The Crimson Collars
     
    There were a lot of Woo-hoo’s and Yee-ha’s accompanying the gunshots. Some of the fire was automatic too. It was over in about a minute, and then Ship and I heard voices.
    “Now this here’s a fine idea. We’d be off the ground and…”
    “Jed! Clem’s been bit!”
    Wonderful. Yee ha? Jed? Clem? I looked at Ship and he was already looking at me. My large friend’s laconic nature was emphasized by one mouthed word: Rednecks .
    I was equally as terse this time:  Shit .
    “How many times I gotta tell you boy, don’t interrupt me when I’m talkin’!”
    “But Clem’s been bit!”
    A single shot echoed through the trees, followed by sporadic laughter, “And now he won’t bite nobody else. Didn’t like him none anyway, smelled like possum.”
    Possum? Smelled like possum? No doubt in my mind anymore. I had held out brief hope, what with the fall of humanity and all, that these good old boys would be friendly. That hope evaporated with the mention of possum, and the quick decision to end someone because they smelled like said critter. These assholes were going to shoot us.
    I peeked down and saw their weapons. Military stuff. M-somethings, all black and wicked looking.
    Jed called up to us and asked us if we was in here . I looked at Ship and he nodded no, while he fished for something. He brought out a little green thing rolled up in a black wire, which he began unspooling. He was almost done before the first bullet tore through the bottom of his house. We ducked and I hit the table, jarring it and knocking my beerymid to the floor. (A beerymid is when you take some beer cans and stack them in pyramid fashion.)  The scowl from Ship was worse than when my dad caught me smoking at age thirteen. I just shrugged.
    “You boys comin’ out?”
    Ship had already passed his notebook to me. It read: Them or us, and Ship held up the little green clicker thing. The wire snaked into the wall near the floor by the computer. He flicked a little silver toggle and a single tear dropped from his left eye.
    Ten or fifteen bullets ripped through the floor and walls of the A frame, fired from an automatic. I could smell the cordite and I was inside. I looked at Ship, thinking that we were in it deep, but he was on his back. There was blood on his head and he wasn’t moving. They had gotten my new buddy. I told him I was sorry and grabbed the green thing with the wire.
    Oh yeah, and the place was on fire. The bullets must have hit something flammable, because flames were licking up the far wall and had spilled across the floor.
    Then I yelled down to the bad guys:  “Hey Jed! Why don’t you eat a big bag of dicks you sheep-shagging redneck!” I clicked the handle together expecting something monumental. Nothing happened.
    I heard Jed outside, “Did that sumbitch just call me a homo-sex-shal?”
    I clicked the thing again and nothing happened a second time, so I double clicked it in a panic, and something outside went boom. It shook the A frame, and it was loud. I was inside and my ears were ringing. Screams of pain and terror were carried to me on the air, each one a nail in my soul, and I dared a peek outside. I probably shouldn’t have. Those that were still alive wouldn’t