Read Online Zombies! (Episode 5): Sinners and Saints by Ivan Turner - Free Book Online

clamped around the leg of an eight year old boy. He scrabbled on the floor, trying to get away but it was already too late. She'd taken several bites out of him.
     
     
    Culph didn't hesitate. As Baches and Rollins filed in behind him, pushing aside the last of the blockade, a series of child sized tables, chairs, and wooden cubbies filled with toys and books and puzzles, he took aim and fired. The first shot took her right arm, clean off. She tumbled backward, letting go of the boy, but her victim was in no state to gain any ground. He just lay on the floor writhing about, probably unaware that he wasn't running at full speed. Culph's second shot hit her in the midsection. At this range, it did an enormous amount of damage. The thing hissed as it flopped about on the floor. With its left arm, it tried to lever itself up, but Culph's third shot took out that arm, as well. Now the zombie woman was rolling about, no better off than her victim. Baches and Rollins stared in shock as Culph marched right up to her and kicked her once in the side and once in the head. Then, shifting the rifle to his left hand, he drew his knife with his right and began to stab relentlessly at the hapless creature. While he was doing this, a child darted out of the corner of the room. There were about six children in the room including the one the zombie woman had been eating, but not including the two that were already eaten. None of the three policemen had noticed anything out of the ordinary about this one, but they would later wonder how they had missed it. The child was dead, a zombie just like the woman. It was a little girl, maybe five years old by her height and weight. The bite marks were on her back and the backs of her legs. In the corner, from where she had come, there was a preschool mat and a blood soaked sheet and blanket. They had tried to make her comfortable while she’d died.
     
     
    Culph noticed her at the very last moment, and raised the knife to shield himself against the attack. As the little girl launched herself at him, the knife scraped along her cheek. She took no notice. Dropping the rifle, Culph sparred with the thing momentarily, keeping its mouth away from his face and defending against the arms and the legs. In a moment, he had the upper hand. He flipped the little girl over onto her back and pinned her to the ground.
     
     
    “Shoot it!” he cried to Baches and Rollins. Neither man made a move. “ Shoot it!”
     
     
    Both men had seen and fought zombies. In the previous weeks, there hadn't been a man on the team who'd been spared the experience. But still, they froze.
     
     
    “I can't, man,” Baches said. “She's just a kid...”
     
     
    Culph spit out a string of curses and lifted the girl off the ground. Using all of his adrenaline augmented strength, he tossed her away from himself. She flew three feet and tumbled against the body of the woman, still trying in vain to find her feet. This time, when Culph drew his pistol, he didn't fool around. He fired two shots, one for the head of the woman and the other for the head of the little girl. Then he turned, sparing not a glance for his companions, and took aim at the eight year old boy.
     
     
    “He's still...” Rollins started but was drowned out by the gunshot. The boy's body jerked once and then his suffering was over.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    It was much later when Shawn stood in the cold rubbing his hands together and puffing steam out of his mouth and nostrils. The day had come and gone, most of it spent wrestling with whether or not to give Heron a call. As of that morning, when he'd left Marcus, he hadn't committed to going on the hunt, but that had changed. Over the past several weeks, his growing fear of zombies had been disabling him more and more. He hadn't told Marcus and he hadn't told his parents. He was afraid of the subway and often took the bus instead. The idea of being trapped underground when it all went to hell terrified him. So