Death After Life: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

where you brought people who might need to be removed from the population. Those who were, invariably, did not end up relocating to tropical climes.
    Sprinkled by light, cold rain, a bus adorned with flashing yellow lights was cleared to pass through the front gate.
    The bus pulled up to a pair of automatic doors. It disgorged first armored Virus Control troopers and then a stream of dejected civilians. All were old and infirm or visibly injured — there were wheelchairs, walkers and bandages aplenty in this melancholy group. The new arrivals were herded, single file, toward automatic doors as the P.A. system repeated the same message over and over again in a soothing, maternal voice. “Welcome to your Evaluation Center. Please obey all staff instructions. Security personnel are authorized to use lethal force. We thank you for your cooperation.”
    Meek as Scottish sheep, the weak and the wounded filed into the Center. Among them, Myra McCarthy quailed at the sight of a gruff, rifle-brandishing trooper posted at the door. He gestured impatiently with his free hand. “Let’s go, let’s go. Sooner you’re in, the sooner you’ll be processed. Come on, keep it moving!”
    Processed, Myra thought. Like you were a cut of deli meat being glazed with preservatives to last longer in a display case.
    She hurried inside. “Receiving” was a large, grimy room overcrowded with glum patients milling around uncertainly. If anyone had a notion to “take a pass on this whole evaluation thing,” each exit was flanked by two equally imposing troopers. Exhausted staffers rushed in and out, calling names and taking medical histories.  
    The same woman’s pre-recorded voice repeated another looped message in here. “You are now in evaluative custody. Failure to cooperate will result in assignment to a detention zone. Security personnel are authorized to use lethal force.”
    Myra queued up obediently, taking in her chaotic surroundings with wide eyes. A ten-year-old girl waiting in the reception area took a blast from her inhaler. Her worried mother squeezed her hand, feigning confidence.
    Myra smiled at the child, hoping to impart some comfort on an innocent even if she could feel none herself.
    Myra was seventy years old at a point in American history when old age was viewed with suspicion. Being a burden to the young was one thing; being dangerous was quite another.
    It took twenty minutes for a haggard physician’s assistant to conduct Myra’s preliminary interview. He asked for Myra’s name and social security number, which would of course yield her true age. The layers of makeup on Myra’s face were convincing (to her eye, at least) but there was no arguing with a computer. She complied.
    Next question. “Why don’t you have a health certificate?” The man asked. A perfunctory matter that would have little impact on Myra’s case. But she stammered, feeling as persecuted as a murder suspect on the stand.
    “I…I lost it. My purse was stolen, you see… But it was valid and up to date, I swear to you…”
    The physician’s assistant nodded, devoid of emotion. Taking notes on a tablet computer, his questions came in a hurried barrage, by rote.
    “Have you been treated in the last six months for any medical condition? Are you on any medication, or have you been on any medication in the last six months?”
    “No, sir.” Myra had in fact been on black-market arthritis medication, but she knew better than to disclose that. Any potential risk factor was a red flag. Too many of those and you were headed for a “camp.” But not the kind with canoes.
    The physician’s assistant pressed on. “Roll up your sleeve, please.”
    He pressed a pneumatic syringe to Myra’s arm and she felt a sudden jab. In an instant it had sucked a full blood sample into its reservoir. Myra watched him snap a yellow-capped tube off the needle and carry it to a nearby analysis machine. He slid the sample into a self-loading tray, an amber light