Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!) by Joseph Tatner

what the hell is ‘colitis’ anyway?”
    “Say what?”
    “You know, like in Hotel California . The song? ‘Warm smell of colitis , rising up through the air.’ What the hell is colitis? I looked it up on the Internet once but it said it was an ulcer. That cain’t be right.”
    “Wait a minute. You know the EAGLES?”
    “Sure. Why?”
    “I love the EAGLES! But that was before your time. How do you know about the EAGLES?”
    “I used to listen to the oldies station when I was growing up. About the only thing I could get other than Mexican radio and bible bangers. Why do Mexicans put a tuba in a rock ‘n roll song? Or an accordion? What’s up with that? I don’t get it. I don’t speak Spanish, neither, so I never knew what they was singin’ about, anyways.
    “I really got into the EAGLES, the Doors, Led Zepplin, you know, all the greats. Sometimes I think we took a wrong turn and ended up in Hotel California. ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.’ So what’s colitis? It sounds kinda sexual for some reason”
    “It’s ‘colitas.’ I think it’s some kinda desert flower.”
    “Oh! Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.”
    Mikki started singing, “On a dark desert highway. Cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.”
    Her voice wasn’t half bad. Floyd joined in. The two started wailing loudly, “This could be Heaven or this could be Hell.”
    “Boy, ain’t that the truth!” Mikki interjected.
    They continued singing every old song they knew for nearly two hours. Then Floyd caught sight of something off in the distance. He slowed to a halt and peered through his binoculars. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said aloud.
    “What is it, Floyd?”
    “Well, it sure ain’t the Hotel California. It’s a big-ass army truck. Stopped in the road ahead. No sign of movement. Here, take a look.”
    He passed the binoculars to Mikki as he threw the truck back into gear and moved slowly forward. It wasn’t unusual to pass cars smashed into the guard rails of a superhighway, but this truck was just sitting there in the middle of nowhere over a long bridge, like it had deliberately pulled over. It looked like a troop carrier, but if it was, where were the troops? Or what were they? There were still a couple of hours of daylight left, so it was worth investigating.
    Floyd drove slowly by the army vehicle. It was definitely some kind of armored troop carrier with huge tires. He didn’t see anyone in the front cab and all the doors of the vehicle were shut. He saw two machine guns of some sort lying on the ground and shell casings everywhere, but no bodies. Floyd didn’t like this at all.
    He turned off the ignition, pulled on his plastic armor, grabbed Ol’ Faithful and stepped out of the truck. Mikki threw on her football helmet, grabbed Lucy and jumped down on the other side. Floyd locked the truck doors behind them with his remote to prevent anything from getting in the cab when they weren’t looking. He had long ago disabled the chirping sound and flashing lights that might attract brain-eaters.
    Floyd picked up one of the machine guns with his left hand, keeping a tight grip on Ol’ Faithful with his right. “These guns have been here for a couple months at least,” he said. “So has the truck. They’re covered in filth. This doesn’t make any sense. All these bullets and no bodies?” He checked the magazine in the automatic rifle he picked up and there were still a couple of bullets left. “They didn’t even finish this clip.”
    “Well, more firepower for us,” Mikki remarked, grabbing the weapon from him and picking up the other one off the ground. She laid them against Freedom’s front bumper. Then she lit up a cigarette and took a long drag through the facemask of her helmet, blowing the smoke out the side of her mouth with the cigarette still stuck firmly between her lips.
    “Yeah, if we can find some more ammo,” Floyd commented.