Zombie Wake Read Online Free PDF Page B

started the strike that it wasn’t fast enough. The
baton hit the center of her skull and bounced back six or seven inches in the
air. The woman grunted and did a sorta shuffle in place and then growled and started to reach for me.
    This time I wound up like I was
swinging for the cheap seats. I visualized a target 6 inches past the left side
of her head and swung from the right with the intention of blasting right
through her temple and on through. The end of the baton hit her temple with an
audible crunch as I let out a grunt that would make any black belt proud. The
side of her skull and face crumpled in several inches and she dropped like 300
pounds of jello .
    The instant I made impact I took
several steps backward and felt a wave of guilt come over me. I had just broken
a cardinal rule by aiming for the head. From day one in the academy we had been
taught to avoid certain targets. The head was the biggest one. Never ever hit
someone in the head with a baton. And now, there before me on the splintery
planks of that pier, was the quivering evidence of what a baton could do to the
human skull. I shuddered at the sight of the glistening clearness of cerebral
spinal fluid dripping out of her nose. The woman’s monstrous torso shuddered
once and then was still.
    A tall gangly zombie in a Body
Glove wet suit stumbled as it stepped over the body and continued its advance.
This was getting ridiculous. It seemed like every time I dropped one of these
things there were two more to take its place. I wasn’t sure how much more pier I had but I knew that I would soon be on the last 50
feet, shark country. There was an age-old war of pier real estate that went on
between the mackerel slingers and the shark fisherman. Shark hunters felt that
the end was their country. They would show up on a busy Saturday armed with
massive poles and ice chests and march like a platoon
right out to the very end and wedge out all the other fisherman. I couldn’t
count the number of times I have responded to shark country to break up a disturbance
between the mackerel slingers and the shark hunters. It usually ended with me
throwing the whole gang of tattooed muscle bound shark thugs out of the park,
energy drinks and all. As I readied for my next swing I felt a pang of regret
that some of those shaved head construction thugs weren’t here now. With a few
hammers or crowbars those punks could really help out with this crowd of death.
    I quickly discovered that one blow
to the head usually wasn’t enough to end these miserable creatures existence. I
found myself swinging two, three, sometimes four times before they would drop.
I was mentality admonishing myself not to chop wood. Take aim, wind up, swing
hard and fast, and aim for six inches behind the target. Martial arts
instructors discovered that if the target is visualized six inches past where
it really was, attackers could hit things noticeably harder. I had already
proven this point four times when I remembered to breathe.
    That’s the other irritating thing
that human physiology habitually does in a fight. We hold our breath. We clench
up and forget to breathe. I always taught my officers to kiai .
A kee-i is an audible exhale right at the moment of
impact. More oxygen in, more CO2 out. The louder and
more forcefully you kiai the more power you pack so
long as you time it right. Think Bruce Lee on this one.
    I was sounding more like an injured
buffalo as I cracked open the skull of an elderly man in a cowboy hat. I hit
him on the top of the skull with a two handed downward strike that dropped him
in one hit as I backed up and readied for the next one I saw that his cowboy
had was stuck to the end of my baton. I whipped the baton around and smacked it
onto the railing of the pier. As soon as I made impact I pulled back and down.
The whitish sweat stained hat plopped off the end of the baton and disappeared
into the murky waves below.
    I sensed the approach of yet
another zombie and spun