Zomblog II Read Online Free PDF Page B

sneaking along the side of Interstate 84, moving against the grain of the eastbound lanes. There are plenty of trees to use for cover, so the going was actually pretty smooth and easy. A few shamblers were around, nothing I couldn’t avoid. I have the shotgun and box of shells, along with a five-foot splitting-maul handle with the head removed and replaced by an eight-inch long iron spike.
    I have been on the trail of these bastards since yesterday evening. The owners and operators of that megaphone …bullhorn…whatever…have had Jenifer calling out for me. It hasn’t been easy listening to her cry, but I knew full well that no good would come from me just surrendering to these animals. I had to listen to a friend die a brutal death over a two-way radio once. When we found him—
    Kyle Danson—he’d been turned and was hanging from a tree with his genitals eaten away and his arms and legs cut off. So yeah, I’ve been in situations like this before.
    When I “ran across” Sean, it brought back some horrific memories. Whoever these assholes are, they stripped him naked and chained him to the bumper of a car. Apparently that is how they left him…zombie bait. Only, they carved the word ‘FAGGOT’ in his chest before leaving him cold, naked, and defenseless. At least he took a few zombies down with the chain before they got to him.
    When I saw him, I initially thought that he was there to bait me into the open. I thought he was still alive. While I was searching the area for any signs of the bad guys, he turned my way. The skin discoloration was difficult to discern in the gloom, plus, he coulda just been cold…hypothermic. Then I saw the front of him. The dried blood where he’d been carved, and the mouth-sized chunks missing from his left thigh and shoulder.
    I walked up, on the way I spiked what was likely one of his attackers. A zombie is a mess, but you can still make out “fresher” dried blood stains on some. It was a man who could’ve been anybody’s best friend and beer drinking pal. Probably in his mid-twenties with short, dark hair, long bangs hanging in his eyes—those black-veined horrors—and most of his right side torn away so that you can see ribs and black, rotted organs dangling from grey gristle…like an obscene biology class display.
    After I drove eight inches of iron through one of those hideous eyes, I walked up to Sean (I was fairly confident that the people who did this hadn’t stayed around long. Partially filled in tracks leading towards I-205 in the distance confirmed my suspicions.) and let him come to the end of his chain. He still had those damn handcuff bracelets on his wrist. We’d intended to search for a police car or, if it came down to it, find a hacksaw.
    He stood there, or rather, the shell of him stood there. It was strange, normally those things reach out for you, but Sean just stood there.
    “ I’m sorry, Sean,” I whispered. Then I drove the spike into his head through the left eye.
    I won’t cry. I want to save everything that I am feeling for the ones who did this. I made it to the overpass. I am wrapped up in a sleeping bag—one of the nice ones—up on a support stanchion. I can see their camp through some trees. They should enjoy those fires tonight, because tomorrow there’s gonna be a lot less of them. If I die, you can bet I am going down with several notches in my belt.
     
    Wednesday, November 26
     
    Never underestimate a “tiny gal” with a “belly bump” and expect to live. Tonight, I am in a wooded encampment near the I-205 and I-84 interchange. We have a fire going in a pair of steel, halved, fifty-gallon drums partially buried in the ground in front of my tent.
    This morning, before the sun rose, I slung my shotgun—fully loaded—over one shoulder, shoved the seven remaining shells in my coat pocket, grabbed my spiked maul handle, and headed towards where I’d seen fires burning most of the night.
    The first obstacle was on the downhill