Read Online A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse by JT Clay - Free Book Online Page B

Pack o’ Snack Stacks fast enough so that no one could critique its politics? No. She’d have to hold out.
    Rabbit waved at a driver overtaking them and received a one-finger salute in reply. He chuckled.
    â€œThey’re all in such a rush,” he said. “It’d make you think there was something amazing up ahead, if there weren’t just as many rushing back the other way.”
    â€œExcept that there aren’t ,” Q said. “There’s hardly any incoming traffic. It’s a Thursday night and everyone’s driving away from the city. They can’t all be commuters. It’s not even a long weekend.”
    â€œIt’s terrible,” Pious Kate said. “All these huge cars, burning up fossil fuel and churning out poison, each carrying its precious cargo of one person.”
    â€œThat one’s got a whole family in it,” Q said. “Look – and dogs. And that one’s got stuff strapped to the roof.”
    â€œFascinating,” Pious Kate said. “You must learn conversational skills at teacher’s college.”
    Q frowned. “It’s odd, that’s all I’m saying.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her little black book.
    â€œThey’d be in less of a hurry if they had to get there using their own power,” Pious Kate said, “instead of using petrol.”
    â€œI ride a mountain bike to work,” Q said, scribbling notes in her book.
    â€œOf course you do,” Pious Kate said. “Twice as much metal as a road bike with too much embedded energy, wasting more to push all that weight up the hills. If you really cared about the planet, you’d ride a bike you built yourself from spare parts.”
    â€œIs that a diary?” Rabbit said. The interjection made Q wonder if he was sick of listening to Pious Kate, too.
    â€œYes,” Q said, snapping the book shut. “That’s what it is. A diary. It’s certainly not anything weird.”
    â€œCool,” said Rabbit. “So how long have you been teaching at Saint Cedric’s?”
    â€œA couple of months,” she said. “I’m doing a placement for my Diploma of Education.”
    â€œI’ve never understood the Catholic value set,” Pious Kate said. “That outdated patriarchal model cannot address today’s problems.”
    â€œI think kindergarten teaching is a great vocation,” Rabbit said. Q glowed. “But how did you end up in it? You don’t seem the type.”
    Q hesitated. Had she just received a compliment, or an insult? “It’s sort of a second career,” she said. “I did a degree in military history first.”
    No one responded. What had she said? She blustered on.
    â€œI didn’t drop out or anything. My lecturer said my grasp of weaponry was disturbingly good, probably from my early training. My mother put me on the fight circuit when I was six. We had to go to Thailand for the full-contact bouts. The food was good.”
    Pious Kate cut her off. “Yowie thinks violence toward animals is wrong, Qwinston. That includes people.”
    Q thought about her twelfth birthday. Her last competition fight and the first time she’d been blooded. The sensation of hot red liquid pouring from her nose. She’d told Linda she was done. Linda had hated Q for it, said she couldn’t quit the first time she lost, said she’d wasted all that training – that she’d wasted Linda’s life.
    â€œI think violence is wrong too,” Q said, in a voice so soft even her ghosts couldn’t hear it. “I always did, once I found out it hurts.”
    *
    About two hours into the trip, they came to one of those small rural towns that made Q feel itchy and forlorn. This town was worse than usual: people were nailing boards over their windows.
    â€œI love these friendly towns,” Rabbit said, without a trace of sarcasm.
    Pious Kate had