Free Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Anthony Giangregorio

island cut off — thankful y cut off, in the opinion of the island’s residents—from the rest of the world, old ways had reasserted themselves with a kind of unspoken but inarguable force. By then they al knew what was going to happen; it was only a question of when. That, and being ready when it did.
    Women were excluded.
    It was Bob Daggett, of course, who drew up the watch roster. That was only right, since Bob had been head selectman on Jenny since Hector was a pup. The day after the death of the president (the thought of him and the first lady wandering witlessly through the streets of Washington, D.C., gnawing on human arms and legs like people eating chicken legs at a picnic was not mentioned; it was a little too much to bear, even if the bastid and his big old blond wife were Democrats). Bob Daggett cal ed the first men-only Town Meeting on Jenny since someplace before the Civil War. So Maddie wasn’t there, but she heard. Dave Eamons told her al she needed to know.
    “You men al know the situation,” Bob said. He had always been a pretty hard fel ow, but right then he looked as yel ow as a man with jaundice, and people remembered his daughter, the one on the island, was only one of four. The other three were other places… which was to say, on the mainland.
    But hel , if it came down to that, they al had folks on the mainland.
    “We got one boneyard here on the island,” Bob continued, “and nothin’ ain’t happened yet, but that don’t mean nothin’ wil . Nothin’ ain’t happened yet lots of places… but it seems like once it starts, nothin’ turns to somethin’ pretty goddam quick.”
    There was a rumble of assent from the men gathered in the basement of the Methodist church.
    There were about seventy of them, ranging in age from Johnny Crane, who had just turned eighteen, to Bob’s great-uncle Frank, who was eighty, had a glass eye, and chewed tobacco.
    There was no spittoon in the church basement and Frank Daggett knew it wel enough, so he’d brought an empty mayonnaise jar to spit his juice into. He did so now.
    “Git down to where the cheese binds, Bobby,” he said. “You ain’t got no office to run for, and time’s a-wastin’.”
    There was another rumble of agreement, and Bob Daggett blushed. Somehow his great-uncle always managed to make him look like an ineffectual fool, and if there was anything in the world he hated worse than looking like an ineffectual fool, it was being cal ed Bobby. He owned property, for Chrissake! He supported the old fart, for Chrissake.
    But these were not things he could say. Frank’s eyes were like pieces of flint.
    “Okay,” he said curtly. “Here it is. We want twelve men to a watch. I’m gonna set a roster in just a couple minutes. Four-hour shifts.”
    “I can stand watch a hel uva lot longer’n four hours!” Matt Arsenault spoke up, and Davey told Maddie that Bob said after the meeting that no frog setting on a welfare lily pad like Matt Arsenault would have had the nerve enough to speak up like that if his great-uncle hadn’t cal ed him Bobby, like he was a kid instead of a man three months shy of his fiftieth birthday, in front of al the island men.
    “Maybe so,” Bob said, “but we got enough men to go around, and nobody’s gonna fal asleep on sentry duty.”
    “I ain’t gonna—”
    “I didn’t say you ,” Bob said, but the way his eyes rested on Matt Arsenault suggested that he might have meant him. “This is no kid’s game. Sit down and shut up.”
    Matt Arsenault opened his mouth to say something more, then looked around at the other men—including old Frank Daggett—and wisely sat down again.
    “If you got a rifle, bring it when it’s your trick,” Bob continued. He felt a little better with Frere Jacques out of the way. “Unless it’s a twenty-two. If you got no rifle bigger’n that, or none at al , come and get one here.”
    “I didn’t know Reverend Peebles kept a supply of ’em handy,” Cal Partridge