Rednecks Who Shoot Zombies on the Next Geraldo Read Online Free PDF Page A

into his mouth and crossed himself. “Body of Christ: lame snack, but no sodium,” he chuckled.
    The squad passed the machines and headed down the second hallway, walking in standard patrol formation, keeping close watch for any sign of movement. They hadn’t gone ten yards when Diane, walking point, stopped suddenly. She pointed to the wall crossing ahead of them, stepped carefully back.  
    Tom looked over and saw that the sprawling section of wall—half a city block in length, at least—was smeared with blood, bone, and guts in a chaotic, hellish mish-mash. The gore coated the entire wall in a smear so big, so obvious, that Tom had missed seeing it at first. They all had. The zombies must have broken loose, butchered the slaughterhouse crew, then somehow coated the walls with the remains.
    Oddly, it reminded Tom of the time he’d visited the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel with his mother. The Chapel was a structure beautiful beyond description, with immense, expansive paintings covering the walls and ceilings. Mother had taught him how to appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the works, how to savor the discipline of the artists. Tom’s favorite was Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam . Man touched by God.
    “Fuckin’ savages,” Muss said.
    Tom shook his head slowly and stepped away. He moved back a few steps and looked at the wall as a whole. And then saw the pattern. Images emerged—objects first, then figures, a landscape. The smears weren’t random barbarism at all.  
    This is an actual painting , Tom thought with growing horror.
    The mood of the lower half was dark, instantly memorable.  
    Beyond the low horizon were spots of clouds, portrayed thick and viscous as clots of blood. Below the clouds, background waters shone red with sulfurous reflections. In the foreground, a sea of nude, swollen bodies writhed at the foot of a low, concrete stage. In one corner was a pile of tiny corpses, the forms clustered together like grapes, apparently the aftermath of some wanton act of infanticide. Some of the victims were alive—prostate, abused, covered with sores. Most were not. They laid interwoven, disjointed, combating each other, falling to pieces. From the apex of the clamor jutted a single arm, impossible to tell to whom it belonged, holding up the limp body of a child.  
    Tom’s eyes worked their way up the painting, following its dynamic.  
    From on top of the stage, a small group of survivors reached down plaintively for the child. The people were dressed in rags, their faces wracked with expressions of anguish and pain.  
    Which is where the mood of the mural changed abruptly.
    For immediately above the stage, painted in her own lunette, stood a woman clad in a blue, girdled tunic and white veils, with her arms outstretched, looking up toward the heavens. She radiated feminine charm, her form steeped in shimmering rays of sunlight that focused and radiated fanwise from the top of her head. Behind her was a second horizon crowded with emerald knolls, a silver sea, and skies hung with stars shining with the transparency of colored diamonds. Upon closer examination, Tom could see issuing from the woman’s mouth, the diminutive, wispy form of a child.
    Doc had backed away also, similarly captivated, muttering. Tom strained to listen to what Doc was saying and realized with horror that he was identifying the human remains that comprised each color: the off-white compost of mashed brain tissue and cartilage. The royal purple of bronchus pulp. The navy blue of cardiac muscle. The vinous red of oxygen-rich life-blood siphoned from the hearts of who knew how many men. The jaundiced wash of urine, and the pea tinge of bile. Earth tones molded from defecate, liver meat and hair. A mosaic the size of an Olympic swimming pool entirely fashioned from fingernails and teeth.  
    Tom continued to stare, slack-jawed, as images and their implications continued to blossom in his head, pumping the feelings of crawling dread