Read Online The Reanimation of Edward Schuett by Derek J. Goodman - Free Book Online Page A

considered for a while if he wanted to arm himself with any of the shed’s tools before Ringo came back. Ringo had the prod, but if he were quick enough Edward thought he might be able to knock it out of Ringo’s hands with a well-timed hit from a shovel. There was a weed whacker in here, too, although it was the electric kind and there wasn’t an outlet in the shed. Edward wondered if it would look threatening enough anyways, but that was just stupid. The weed whacker didn’t even look like it had been used in all the years since the zombie apocalypse, so it might very well just wimp apart if he grabbed it from its hook on the wall.
    After enough time, however, he decided fighting his way out of here was a terrible idea. On a practical physical level it sucked. Although he was feeling much better now than when he had first woken up, he still felt stiff in most of his joints. Even if he could fight off Ringo, Edward still didn’t think he could run as well as he used to. Of course, for all he knew that had nothing to do with his zombie-like condition. That could just be that he was technically somewhere around 83 years old now.
    And if he did run, where would he even go? If the condition of his arms matched the condition of his face, then Edward didn’t think he would be able to pass for an average human yet. For all he knew, everyone on the outside had heard about the freakish zombie that could talk, and if he were running around people might look for him.
    Besides, he didn’t want to run. He only knew the bare bones about what had happened to the world, and he didn’t want to be out there in this new way of life while he was all alone. He wanted to know what had happened to his wife and daughter. He wanted to know what had happened to his home. And he really wanted to know how the hell he could be a zombie that was apparently in the process of being cured. Even though his fate was uncertain if he stayed, he thought he could get more answers from Ringo than out on his own. And Ringo would be more inclined to give answers if Edward didn’t simply attack him when he opened the door next.
    Edward was only aware of the passage of time thanks to the subtle changes in light through the roof slats. The time had to be late in the afternoon, possibly coming up on dusk. He’d had a watch on him the day of the cookout, but at some point in the long time between it had vanished from his wrist. He’d also had a cell phone in his pocket, but the pockets of his jeans had also worn through long ago and everything that had been inside them must have fallen through. Not that the cell phone would have done him any good, anyway. He wouldn’t have been able to check the time unless he had turned it off and conserved the battery (and he wasn’t even sure if the battery would have worked after that long), and he couldn’t even be sure if the provider had survived the zombie uprising or war or whatever it had been.
    It suddenly occurred to him that he was sitting here locked in a shed with some sort of zombie virus while he worried about his cell provider, and he had no choice but to laugh for several minutes. Then he had to cry for several more. By the time he was finished he actually felt a sense of relief. Whatever else was currently wrong with his body, at least he could still cry.
    He didn’t know how much longer it was, but soon after he started pondering this issue he heard Ringo’s noisy truck pulling up into the driveway. He stood and waited by the door as he heard footsteps moving across the grass, and he waited anxiously as he heard a key rattling in the lock. He was determined to stand here and look completely harmless, as civilized as someone could when wearing only rags, the perfect picture of…
    The door opened and Edward cried out as someone shoved the business end of a pink rifle in his face.
    “Sweet Jesus, put that thing down!” he yelled. The woman holding the rifle, the same one he’d seen at the gate, looked