Free Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle by Eric A. Shelman

it becomes ultra-disgusting and mentally draining.
    My gun held out, I walked the outer perimeter of the office, checked down the hallway toward the vending area, and found it to be deserted.  I tried to breathe through my mouth, but I never liked that idea much, either.  Felt like the nastiness of the odor was taking a straight path into my lungs.
    I’d almost forgotten about the pack of Marlboros I’d had in my pocket since we left Flex’s place.  Since the girls were riding in my car, I couldn’t smoke them, so they slipped my mind.
    But when there’s a need to battle the rank smell of death, nothing is more effective than a smell I loved, stale or not.  I pulled the pack out, slid a smoke from it, tucked another behind my ear for Flex, and lit it with my Bic.  I inhaled deeply and blew it back out, the aroma of tobacco permeating the office quickly.
    “That’s better,” I said.  “ W e’re al l clear out here, babe. ”
    “I want one,” Flex said, backing out from behind the counter, a grimace on his face.  “And I found what stinks.”
    I walked to the front of the counter, slipping the cigarette from behind my ear and lighting it.  I passed it to Flex who hung it from his lip and took a nice, big draw.  His face was white.
    “Jesus, this tastes good,” he said.  “The clerk’s drawing the flies.  No threat.” 
    He nodded toward the floor, but now that my headlamp was directed behind the counter I could see the evidence of the clerk’s last efforts not to die.  All over the walls were bloody handprints and places where some kind of arterial spray took place.  I’d describe it as a crime scene, but in zombieland all this shit was fair game.  Do the crime ‘cause you won’t be doing any time.  It’s now acceptable to eat your neighbor when zombies run the court system.
    “Clerk’s body is pretty chewed,” he said, nodding toward the floor.
    I don’t know why, but I had to look.  As if I didn’t know what a zombie-eaten corpse looked like.  Maybe it was me trying to become less affected by it all; a conditioning trick.  Once you’d seen it all, nothing fazed you.  I couldn’t afford to be fazed.  None of us could.  I hoped for the day when all this would be put so far in our past that a cut finger would send us into queasy spells.
    I leaned over and took a quick glance.  The clerk was of indeterminable age due to the face being gone, and the hands having been gnawed down to bones.  The body was such a mass of ripped meat and blood I didn’t even know the sex.  No matter.  There was no need to pop this one; the head was cracked, as so many others we’d seen were, and it was empty.
    This one was harmless
    “I don’t want to go through the pockets, but I think I  might have to,” Flex said.  “No keys here.”
    “Can’t we just kick a door in?” I asked.
    “Then we’re vulnerable,” Flex said.
    We heard a shaking, a rattling from out front.  Flex looked at me.  “What the fuck is that?”
    “A fence shaking is my best guess.”
    Flex went to the side window in the office and looked out.  “Fucking rotter inside the pool fence.  He’s caught in there,” he said.
    “Shit.  Wonder why Hemp didn’t shoot him.”
    “He’s not exactly a threat right now.”
    Flex let the blinds close and took another deep drag from his smoke.  “I’m getting a little head rush from this.”
    We heard a splash.
    Flex and I ran outside and looked between the bars.
    The ghoul floated on his back in the brackish, green water of the untended pool, an arrow jutting out of his forehead.  We turned our heads to see a smiling Charlie.
    “I guess we’re not swimming tonight,” she said. 
    “Let’s get into these rooms,” I said.  “I’ve had my nicotine and now I need some shuteye.”
    Hemp and Charlie joined us at room 122.  The curtains were drawn back and a shine of my headlamp showed a made bed and no luggage.  It was empty.  The parking lot only had two