Zombies! Episode 1 - Shawn of the Dead Read Online Free PDF

in
the direction he wanted her to go.
     
    Paramedics came in and began to dress the
wound. They wore latex gloves as they worked which was an important
thing. Maybe the bite wasn't the only way the zombie disease was
spread. After all, poor Mrs. Koplowitz hadn't had a mark on her.
The paramedics gave him a shot and he knew he'd been sedated.
Normally he would have protested but he wasn't given the choice and
he was too tired from the screaming to really care. As the
blackness swept in, Stemmy was grateful. The sedation would save
him from the tears that were finally starting to form in the wells
of his eyes.
     
    ***
     
    SHAWN'S arraignment hadn't gone well.
The public defender had seemed competent but inexperienced. The
assistant DA had torn him a new one and the result was that Shawn
was held without bail.
     
    At least they gave him his own cell.
     
    When an officer came to escort him out, he
was curious. All the officer would say was that he had a visitor.
Now Shawn didn't know anything about prison but he was pretty sure
they would have told him if it was visiting hours. Cuffing his
hands, they led back out the way he came in, then down a long
corridor into a part of the building he hadn't seen. There were
small rooms here, interrogation rooms. He had a momentary bout of
panic as the officer showed him into a bare grey room with a one
way glass window. There was a table with a chair at either end.
Shawn was ushered to far side of the table and told to sit.
     
    He didn't recognize the detective who came to
see him right away. After all, he'd had limited exposure to the two
cops who'd questioned him when he'd killed those two zombies. And
this guy did not look the way he had on that day. The first thing
that Shawn noticed was that his confidence was shot. This detective
had been tall and strong. He was good looking, too, with thick arms
and powerful legs. Out of the two of them, he was the good cop. He
was the one who spoke because the other would probably just piss
you off. But now his posture was slumped and his eyes were sunken.
There was a brown spot on his white shirt that could have been
chili sauce. But it could have also been blood. The jacket of his
suit was missing. His tie knot was down.
     
    Why would he come to see me? Shawn
wondered until, just a split second later, it came to him.
     
    "Do you remember me?" the detective asked as
he took a seat at the plain table between them.
     
    Shawn nodded. "Didn't catch the name,
though."

     
    "Heron."
     
    "Right. Where's the other one, the white
guy?"
     
    "Surgery."
     
    "Tough break."
     
    "How did you know?"
     
    Shawn's brow came down over his eyes. "Know
what?"
     
    "There are no such things as zombies!"
     
    Shawn shrugged. "There are now." But he
thought about the question. He hadn't even questioned it when he'd
seen the zombie heading down the street. Maybe it had something to
do with his age. Kids are always expecting something they see in
the movies to become real. Adults are too colored by their
experience. They're less likely to believe what's right in front of
their eyes if it doesn't fit into the picture of the world they've
grown accustomed to.
     
    "And the woman? Why did you kill the
woman?"
     
    Shawn threw his hands in the air. "I told
you, man. She was bit. There wasn't…"
     
    Silence fell over the room as the two looked
at each other. Detective Heron's face never changed but Shawn felt
himself lose a shade of color. What he felt in his gut now stomped
on his earlier panic at being led to an interrogation room.
     
    "You seen more? Are you bit?"
     
    The cop lowered his eyes. "My partner."
     
    Shawn breathed a little easier. "Tough break,
man."
     
    The cop looked back up. There was fire in his
eyes now. "This isn't some god damned movie! And it certainly isn't
the end of the world. He's in a hospital right now, in surgery.
There are doctors who can help him. And if you'd had a brain in
your head, you would have realized that and left that