Z-Burbia: A Zombie Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Broad River basin. This is good. It means it’s on a plateau, but not like a flat table top.
    The back of Phase One butts up against a fifty-foot limestone cliff. At the top of the cliff is a long, wide meadow. The meadow is filled with row after row of steel fenced razor wire interspersed between long and various ditches. Think World War One battlefields and you get the idea. There is a deck built into the cliff at the top so that sentries can watch twenty-four hours a day for Zs. They do come, and they always get caught in a ditch or the razor wire. None have ever made it to the end of the cliff.
    Part of Phase One and all of Phase Two is surrounded on two sides by a 100-yard deep ravine of huge rocks and boulders. Gotta love natural erosion. The ravine sides are covered in steel fencing and razor wire also. If the Zs make it into the ravine, they never make it up the sides.
    Hwy 251 and the French Broad River front the gate side . And I’ve already explained the advantages to that.
    Now, the steel fencing and razor wire was my i dea. It’s the reason I’m head of Engineering, even though I have no training whatsoever. When it comes to structural work, I defer to Jon. But ideas and design? I have a knack for it. Most everything (except for the gate) is steel: the fencing, the razor wire, the steel beams holding both. The reason being? Easy clean up.
    Generally, we weave our way through the hidden paths of the razor wire and put down any Zs that are caught. A quick stab through the brain and they are dead. But when a horde tries to get through the wire , then it gets messy. We lost a few people thinking the Zs were caught and they could just go along, one by one, and put them down. Doesn’t always work like that.
    Edna Strom is Head of Z Cleanup and I worked with her to come up with a simple solution if the Zs are too much to handle. Fire. We burn the fuck out of them until they are either completely dead , or so burned they are incapacitated and easy to pick off. We don’t have to worry about the fire spreading, since the ravine is all rock and the meadow above Phase One is pre-scorched so the flames don’t spread.
    The only problem is the smoke. It’s also why I insisted we figure out how to create a sustainable electric grid for Whispering Pines , instead of burning wood or using other means of power. Electricity doesn’t send up smoke signals to the world. When we do have to burn through the Zs, we make sure to put that fire out, specifically killing the smoke, ASAP.
    There are more than a few factions out in the hollers and coves that would love a chance to come take us out. So far , we’ve stayed under their radar because we are so close to Asheville and the main population of Zs. The yokels stay clear of the city, as far as we can tell. And I don’t blame them. If we didn’t have Whispering Pines, I would have packed up the family and booked it way out into the country.
    But we do have Whispering Pines and I keep looking over my shoulder as we quietly walk away from the gate and the safety it represents.
    “You don’t find this fishy?” Jon asks Stuart.
    “I find everything fishy,” Stuart whispers. “It’s why I’m still alive.”
    “Why us?” Jon asks, more a musing than a question. “I mean, we should be back inside the gate while the scavenger crew handles this. Melissa can be discreet. A select team could keep it all quiet. No need to send us.”
    “You two have skill sets that will make this more efficient,” Stuart answers. “Yours , Padre, is technical. And yours, Jace, is creative. Between the two of you, we’ll get what we need and get back home tomorrow. Hopefully without talking too much and getting us killed.”
    He was right about both parts. Jon will know what batteries we need and what we don’t. And, being the problem solver extraordinaire, I will figure out how to get them back to Whispering Pines. Doing both without getting killed, is what Stuart is for.
    Not that we