Free 4 Hardcore Zombie Novellas by Cheryl Mullenax

full. That ought to do us dumb awhile.”
    “We get this one and then haul ass before the Border Patrol’s choppers start chopping.”
    “Whoa, there he goes! He’s getting up again. That shit is ill.”
    Yes, it was, Wyatt had to agree. Yesterday the world was the same old ass-dull place it always was, and now here they were a few hours into the next day and the dead were walking and it was even weirder than the news guys knew or were saying. Maybe it
was
the End Times. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was the perfect time to put their longtime plan in effect.
    Shoot & Loot they called it. They had trained themselves with their self-styled sniper school. No actual teachers, just books, videos and related internet sites. It was a short leap from being boys raised on hunting to becoming men skilled in the deadly art of killing with long-range weapons. Once they were proficient in shooting, they worked on refining the Loot part of their plan.
    The drug cartels used the Arizona-Mexican border for smuggling dope into the U.S. Everybody knew it, just as most folks knew the Feds did next to nothing to stop it, mostly because of dumb-ass political reasons. The way Wyatt figured it, the drugs were theirs for the taking. The “mule” trains were usually guarded by guys with automatic weapons but a couple of Red White & Blue American boys with sniper rifles could take out the guards at a safe distance, no problem. Then all they had to do was put down as many mules as they could (all you had to do was wing them, not kill them) and go down and collect their dope-crammed backpacks.
    Shoot & Loot, baby. Protect the good old U. S. of A. from illegals and get paid in dope. This was a shooting war and the spoils of war went to the best shooters with the best battleplan.
    The only wrinkle in the plan was that these walking dead motherfuckers messed up the One Shot, One Kill sniper’s credo. Apparently, you couldn’t kill these zombies with
any
number of shots. That
Shoot em in the head
shit worked only in the movies, not out here along the fucking border. But that was okay. Wyatt was digging the shit out of shooting dudes who were already dead (or supposed to be). It took any guilt right out of the fucking picture. Even with that freaky eyeball in the sky watching like the eye of some goddamn god.
    God had to cut you a little slack for blowing away living dead dudes humping dope.
    “That’s five mules down,” Clint said. “Let’s go get us some drugs, dude.”
    “Hope none of them zombie shooters accidentally gets off a lucky killshot,” Wyatt said.
    “Nah, man, you can see they ain’t even holding their weapons no more. They still kicking but they can’t shoot shit. Ain’t in their minds to do it.”
    “Reckon you’re right, clit.”
    “Don’t call me that shit,” Clint said.
    Wyatt chuckled. It felt good after the extreme stress of their first Shoot & Loot. He said, “Let’s hike down there and get the shit. Check out these zombie motherfuckers up close and personal, like.”
21
Plague Be Upon You
    Nadif was more than a little amazed that he could still see even though his eyes and much of his cranium had been destroyed by the last sniper’s shot. He didn’t know if this was a good thing or a very bad one. That the disembodied soul could still see was not so surprising. That it must witness such abominations was. Where exactly were the soul’s eyes located? he wondered. Was he somehow seeing now by the grace (or curse) of the great eye in the sky? (An image of his beloved’s eyeball hanging by its stalk over her bloody cheek flashed through his memory, then faded as fast as summer lightning.)
    Two young men stood over his spasming body. Infidels. American devils with scoped rifles. His destroyers. Mocking him. Laughing at him.
    Nadif’s soul smiled. Now he understood. Allah was granting him a divine favor, a blessed boon. Allah was allowing him to see that the exquisitely weaponized plague virus was about to