Free 4 Hardcore Zombie Novellas by Cheryl Mullenax Page B

and mouldering.
    The Devil raised a hand and the TV over the bar came to life. A local news anchor who looked like she hadn’t bothered with the usual makeup and hairspray was saying: “… and demonstrators on both sides of the issue are already gathering in downtown Phoenix in spite of the governor’s warning to stay away. Similar demonstrations are also planned for other Arizona cities, but no word yet on what’s happening at those locations. We’ll be going live to our on-scene reporter shortly.”
    Then the Devil was in Bobby’s head. It was a voice that required neither tongue to speak it nor ears to hear it, yet it was melodiously full and powerfully seductive.
    It said,
Go there and record what you see in the book. Report faithfully. Soon there will be no electronic record and no electricity. Your way of life is about to be wiped. Set all you see down in these pages and keep them safe
.
    Bobby grew woozy. Blood roared like an ocean in his ears and he thought he was going to faint. He leaned forward to brace himself on the table.
    The Devil’s hands were long, bloodless and without a trace of hair. They were
delicate
. One of them produced an ornate black pen of a type Bobby Cruz had never seen before, obviously antiquated and adorned with ram’s-head horns. He knew without looking that the Devil’s fingers would be devoid of fingerprints. Angels had no fingerprints. Neither did a fallen angel. Cruz knew this without knowing precisely how he knew it.
    TV voices came back into his ears: “That’s right, Janis. Now that the CDC has been called in and the National Guard has been called out, you would expect smaller crowds here in the streets of Phoenix, especially so early in the morning, but as you can see, the crowds on both sides of the illegal immigration issue are large and growing. And tempers are already flaring. The riot squad only moments ago arrived and are beginning to deploy. They’re using bullhorns to tell the crowds to disperse but no one is showing any sign of leaving this tense scene. And as you just reported, Janis, the governor has said she won’t hesitate to declare martial law if necessary, which it well may be, with emergency response systems all over the state so overloaded as to be virtually nonexistent. Arizona is in a crisis of unimaginable consequences and nobody knows how this bizarre series of events will end or how far the growing chaos will spread. I can tell you, there is a feeling of panic bordering on hysteria out here on the streets and a sense that things are about to explode. Whatever the outcome, we will be here to bring it to our viewers, for as long as possible. But as one riot cop told me just minutes ago, ‘When the dead walk, all bets are off.’”
    Cruz picked up the pen and the leatherbound book. He thumbed through pages and saw that they were all blank, as he expected. He licked his parched lips, reached down in his gut for the courage to address the red-hooded entity and said, “For the record, who are you?”
    You know who I am. You may call me Bub. But don’t call me Nick or Scratch.
    “As in Beelzebub, Lord of Flies?” Cruz all too vividly remembered the attack of the fierce flies in the back of the truck. He couldn’t remember much of what happened after that, but he remembered enough to know that it was probably best not to remember too much horror.
    Don’t be so pedestrian. Use those qualities for which you were chosen. No scribe of mine should be prosaic. Moreover
,
I am not the story. The story is the final fall of man.
    Bobby nodded. “Uh, one more question. Where is God in all this?”
    Don’t be obtuse, Cruz. He is the author of the entire epic. He wrote it in genetic codes and in the dark matter of the spirit. He should have stopped with the angels and kept it all in the spiritual realm. When you create a material realm and then make flesh self-aware, how else can it end but badly? Now go, scribe, once more into the breach.
    He snugged the