Free A Flock of Ill Omens by Hart Johnson Page A

help you?”
    “Life!” Matt joked. The man didn't seem amused so Matt explained himself. “I served six years. A tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. I currently work with a United States contractor and have discovered that two units, mine and one of a buddy of mine, have been decimated. I'm just trying to see what's going on.”
    The man wiped a bandanna across his forehead and stuck the wrench in his back pocket. “I'm currently a civilian, but I work here—my wife is deployed, thank God. Flu spread through here like wildfire.”
    “Flu? You sure?”
    “That's what the doctors say. Said. Most of them are gone, too. Is there a reason I should think otherwise?”
    “It's hitting the military harder than civilians. I just...” Matt checked either way, not sure who he was worried might be eavesdropping. “I was thinking terrorists.”
    The man's eyes popped. “Overseas units have all been healthy. Shouldn't they have been hit even harder—easier to get to?”
    Matt shrugged. It was a good point. “You didn't get it.”
    “Just got back from a family thing. I must have missed the germs.”
    “So who's in charge here?”
    “Nobody around. A couple officers were called to some meeting to figure out what to do, but nearly all the enlisted and about half the civilians who work here are gone. Dead or left.”
    “Does that strike you as odd, that the civilians weren't hit as hard?”
    “Weren't staying in the barracks, I guess.”
    Matt thought it was more complicated than that. Or less complicated, depending how you looked at it. But this man still seemed to have hive-think, so questioning him wasn't going to do any good. Whatever the case, Matt had learned what he came to learn. The military was dying like they'd been targeted. Something was up and his baby brother was the best person he could think of to solve a question like that.

1. 9. Nathan Drake:
    Boulder, Colorado
    What Do Zombies and Nurses Have in Common?
     
    The Zombie Apocalypse response team was scheduled to start Saturday morning, which meant the Zombie Apocalypse really had to get underway Friday night. By morning there had to be enough saturation of danger that there was a crisis to solve.
    This was the fun part.
    A team of Zombie-makers hit a few frat parties, a few dorm parties, and the student union. They gave out enough make-up to each 'infected undergrad' to infect three friends. They also got a red washable marker for them to mark people 'whose brains they'd eaten' (and so were, for all practical purposes, dead and not reanimated). Students were asked to limit this feeding frenzy to one person per hour. They could also add the food coloring to food and water to 'contaminate those sources.'
    To balance the infection, and to approximate real life citizens with knowledge or resources, they distributed black markers to put an X on the head of any zombie that had been neutralized with any toy gun, or full beheading by sword. All people were on the honor system, but it seemed like the people enlisted thought it was fun and were willing to play.
    Once critical infection had been achieved, the PhD cohort met at Catacombs, a campus bar, to celebrate. Nathan had to admit it was a hoot to watch in action, especially when a pair of zombies came in and started infecting patrons.
    He overheard, “Oh, just kill us. We need to wait for some people,” from the table behind them and two of his classmates put squirt guns on the table to show that they were armed, so the zombies moved back near the pool tables to seek prey.
     
    By the next morning, campus did indeed look like the Zombie Apocalypse was in motion and the MPH students were sent out to assess and troubleshoot. Had they been paying attention, MPH teams were also supposed to have stored supplies and worked out evacuation routes and safe spaces, so some of the teams jumped in ready to start saving people, but most floundered, learning the price paid for failing to be prepared.
    The PhD students took