Plagued: The Midamerica Zombie Half-Breed Experiment (Plagued States of America) by Better Hero Army Page A

were talking in those worried, hushed tones of fear, Tom easily drifted off to sleep. His body was exhausted.

Thirteen
    Tom woke to an insistent shake. He turned his head to see the half-breed’s hand on his arm, shaking him through the bars. Penelope, he had to remind himself. She had a name. The noise of the forest had softened considerably. Almost an eerie silence. One of the hunters and one of the visitors were standing watch at the back of the duck. Tom looked at his watch. He’d slept five hours in the blink of an eye.
    “What is it?” Tom asked her softly, rubbing his eyes. The generator was still humming, drowning out the nearby sounds of the forest. If it had grown silent slowly, he doubted anyone would have noticed. The two on watch were having a quiet conversation, not paying attention to the world beyond. Why should they? The trip wires would warn them.
    Tom sat up, turning to face Penelope. The night air was chilling, boring through his jacket. He turned up his collar. His joints ached.
    “What’s the matter? Are you cold?” Tom asked Penelope as she reached out to shake him again. She sniffed the air and growled, pointing at herself, then out toward the darkness. Tom swore. “Zombies?” She nodded. He didn’t think she meant half-breeds.
    The flood lights mounted to the roof rack of the duck snapped on. The darkness into which Tom and the half-breed were looking lit up under a pale, white light. He squinted and shielded his eyes to see through it. There was a curse from the two on guard and a shout of alarm. Tom tried to pinpoint the movement in the tall grass. Three figures moving slowly through the flattened patch of grass, coming their way.
    “Out of the way,” the hunter who was on watch said as he slid next to Tom. Tom had met him today. A good man named Mike. He worked for Peske. The other two hunters worked for Hank.
    “I see three of them,” Tom said.
    “More like eight or nine,” Mike replied as he unslung a canister gun he had been wearing across his back. He broke it in half to stuff a huge looking bullet in it, clapping it whole again.
    “Aim for that third one,” Peske was saying as he hobbled over.
    “Take the first one down,” Hank argued.
    “It won’t matter which one I hit,” Mike said, leveling the laser sighting on the lead zombie’s head. There was a hollow “punk” sound as the canister gun fired the projectile. It hit the lead zombie square in the chest, bursting like a sack of loose flour. The zombie fell backward to the ground from the force if the impact. The bullet spun wildly on the ground as it hissed, spitting more gas into the air.
    Everyone on deck was awake now. They stood or knelt with blankets half shed, their eyes filled with that same sense of fear they had about them back at Biter’s Hill. Mike cracked open the gun again, ejecting the spent shell casing.
    “What is that?” Tom asked .
    “Skunk powder,” Mike replied. “Muddles their senses. Irritates their skin. Usually makes them go away.”
    It wasn’t working very well from Tom’s perspective. The three that had been out front were flailing wildly at themselves and the very air around them, but more zombies began to take form at the edge of their light.
    “Hit that pair over there,” Hank demanded.
    “Shit, Hank,” Mike said angrily, closing up the canister gun with another round in it. “It won’t matter. Look!”
    Hank squinted his eyes and Peske began to head for the driver’s seat of the duck. Peske could see it, although Tom wasn’t sure what it was they were supposed to be looking at. All Tom could see was a line of eight or nine zombies shuffling toward the light. Beyond that there seemed to be nothing but a gr ay line of nothingness and a horde of fireflies.
    “Shit,” Hank hissed and then Tom realized what they were all worried about. It wasn’t fireflies. It was the reflection of eyes. A wall of zombies. A hundred of them, maybe more, all advancing in that slow