Plague of the Undead Read Online Free PDF

yelled. “How can you say he’s guilty?”
    That much was true, Jacob thought. They hadn’t found the locket. But Jerry Grieder was guilty of burglary, that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
    Seventeen-year-old Jasmine Simmons had awakened in the middle of the night to see a man standing in a dark corner of her room, watching her. She’d screamed to holy hell, and the man had bolted from her room, shattered a window in a spare bedroom, and jumped through to the lawn below. She’d gone on screaming until the neighbors woke and raised the cry of thief.
    A crowd gathered. Jacob and Deputy Ted Harris happened to be riding by and descended on Jasmine’s house. They found Jerry Grieder standing near the broken window, his clothes torn and his arms sliced up and bloody. He was even holding a shard of broken glass.
    When asked what he was doing there, he’d muttered a half-baked excuse. When questioned further, he’d gone into a shell.
    Jasmine, still a girl but living on her own for three years now, had claimed that he’d stolen her mother’s locket. A silver heart containing a cameo of her mother.
    Jacob searched Jerry, but didn’t find the locket. The crowd searched the area, but they didn’t find it either.
    Attempts to question Jerry further led to nothing. His rambling story was so full of holes and inconsistencies that it became obvious to everyone he was lying.
    That certainty propelled Jacob forward. Feeling numb down to his toes, he led Jerry to the base of the fountain, turned him around so that the man’s back was to the Blind Lady of Justice, and backed away.
    “Please don’t do this,” Amanda begged from somewhere off to his right. “Please, somebody make it stop. They didn’t even find the locket.”
    Jacob pulled his weapon. It felt impossibly heavy in his hand, as if he could never lift it.
    He looked around at the assembled faces, and saw nothing but stone statues staring back at him. The wind picked up, carrying the wood smoke smell of a nearby cooking fire. Somewhere far off, a dog barked. This was his town, his people. And they were about to compel him to do something truly awful.
    “But no man can make you do something you don’t want to do,” Sheriff Taylor had said to him on the day he proclaimed him chief deputy. “You’ve been given this position because you’re capable of knowing your own mind, and being a man of conscience. Sometimes you will have to do that which nobody wants you to do. Sometimes, you will have to refuse that which everybody wants of you. It’ll be up to you to know what is right. And you will know, so long as you let the Code be your guide.”
    The Code, thought Jacob. He cleared his throat and began to speak. His voice was loud and sounded remarkably clear and steady, free of the fear tearing him up inside.
    “The Code speaks clearly on our role here today. Jerry Grieder, you have been found guilty of the crime of burglary. You have broken into the home of a fellow citizen with the intent to commit theft or assault. You are a thief, and a thief is a threat to the trust that protects and preserves us all.
    “You have harmed our community by your actions. Our survival is always in doubt, and we must protect one another as neighbors, as friends, and as family. We must believe in each other. We must trust one another. And Jerry Grieder, we no longer trust you. To whatever god you worship, or code you follow, may it preserve you and offer safe passage for your soul. The sentence of death by firing squad will now be carried out. Is there anything you want to say?”
    Jacob waited.
    Jerry lifted his gaze to Jacob. There was no recognition in his bloodshot eyes, just panic and fear and misery. Then he looked past Jacob and scanned the assembled crowd until he found Amanda.
    Then, much to Jacob’s surprise, Jerry managed a faint smile. “I love you, baby,” he said. “With all my heart.”
    Several people were crying.
    Amanda shouted, “You can’t do this to