Read Online Rednecks Who Shoot Zombies on the Next Geraldo by Marc Paoletti, Chris Lacher - Free Book Online Page B

Ain’t my fault a college boy like you went bad and got an itch for robbin’ convenience stores.”
    Tom hitched a breath.
    Muss looked him over for a bit. “Oh, lighten up, boy—that’s all in the past. You’re here now, and you’re gonna be with us for a while. Might as well have some fun with it.”
    Muss helped Tom to straighten up, got in tight so Tom could smell his sour breath on his face. “I know I will...”
    “So I’m here on account of my old man?” Tom asked. He coughed out more air.
    “Yep.”
    “Then let’s get to it,” Tom said.
    Muss clapped Tom on the shoulder. “Tough guy—I like that. Okay, c’mon. I’ll give ya the grand tour.”
    ***
    The main cell block extended like an infinite concrete gutter—an endless grid of bars and cement that looked as cruel and cold as a sci-fi dystopia. Fractional light filtered in from two enormous vents in the ceiling—mustard colored smudges of twilight on dead-gray walls.
    Each side of the block was lined with multiple tiers of cells, each cell packed to capacity with the living dead. The cells were small, cramped boxes, crumbling from years of neglect. The tool-resistant bars were badly rusted, and whatever paint had coated the cell interiors had been scraped away. Zombies stared out vacantly, arms hanging limply through the bars, their moans echoing across the hall with a longing that was nearly human. Decayed flesh had sloughed off in the heat and been trampled to ruddy mush on the floor while guards with slack-eyed Dobermans patrolled the surrounding catwalks, careful to keep well out of grabbing distance.
    And the smell. God, the smell—the stench of rotten meat hanging in the air like humidity—ubiquitous, stifling, putrid. Oppressive. Air with venereal disease.
    Tom stopped walking. The zombies focused on him with dead, soulless eyes. Looking back at them, Tom realized that something about them was strange, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
    Muss pushed Tom out of his reverie. “You think the stink here is bad, wait’ll we get to the slaughterhouse. We’re headin’ over there later.”
    They continued past the cells through a door marked RECREATION. Inside was a gymnasium split down the middle by a tall chain link fence. One side was packed tight with naked zombies, clothes lying in piles near the door. Near the clothes were baskets filled with personal mementos: watches, wallets, jewelry.
    A man and woman with clipboards hovered over the baskets. The man wore a muscle-tee that read MY GRANDPARENTS SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT.
    “Shippin’ and receivin’,” Muss explained. “This is where the deadheads’re stripped of all their personal stuff. What we get we trade for food, ammo—”
    “A little fun for the troops,” the woman said, turning. “I don’t work cheap, you know.”  
    Tom winced. The woman was wearing a human penis, approximately six inches in length, on a beautifully polished gold chain around her neck.  
    “Who’s he?” she said, looking Tom over.
    “What’re you lookin’ at Junior?” Muss said, ignoring her.
    Tom was looking into the pen of zombies. He felt here the same sense of incongruity as in the cellblock.
    Blaine noticed the look on Tom’s face. “The Barrio Pens,” he offered. “Just niggers and ‘cans. Mexicans...”
    “Exactly.” Muss chewed the unlit cigar like it was gum. ”No decent white Protestant deserves anything like that. We burn the whites soon as they come in.”
    “I think you missed one,” Tom said, pointing to a whitish drone making its way toward the front of the pen.
    Muss peered over, standing on tiptoes. “Get ‘im, Blaine.”  
    Blaine put down the clipboard and pulled a pistol from a holster. He took aim and fired. The bullet tore through the zombie’s shoulder. The second shot put a bullet in the zombie’s head. Tom remembered that the most effective means of killing a zombie was a bullet in the head or