Free Plague of the Undead by Joe McKinney Page B

them from the storefront windows, crouched down out of sight. From somewhere behind the building, one of the horses caught the scent of the dead and snorted in fear.
    Out on the road, several of the zombies turned toward the propane tanks and picked up their pace.
    “Damn it,” Taylor muttered. “Gonna have to go tactical.”
    “You can’t shoot that many of them,” Jacob said. “All the shots will attract every zombie in the area.”
    Taylor winked at him. “Just trust the old man, would you?”
    Moving in a crouch Taylor stepped onto the road. A few zombies saw him and began to moan. But before they had a chance to start the feeding call that would attract even more of their numbers, Taylor began to fire.
    There was no muzzle flash, no loud crack. The gun was nearly silent. It made a noise like somebody quietly snapping their fingers each time Taylor shot. And clearly, it was deadly accurate, for within seconds, motionless corpses surrounded Taylor, dark humps against the road.
    Taylor scanned the countryside and, evidently satisfied, raised the rifle and calmly walked back to the storefront.
    Jacob followed after him. “What the hell was that?”
    Taylor smiled. “The old dog’s still got a few tricks.”
    “No kidding. Where did you get that rifle?”
    “A little something from before the First Days. Part of my private stash.”
    “I thought I’d seen every rifle in town, but I’ve never seen anything like that. What is it?”
    “A Colt M4 carbine with a built-in suppressor. I railed it up a bit, but deep down it’s just your standard M4.”
    “Those shots . . . it was so quiet.”
    “Special ammo. It’s a 300 Blackout round, subsonic.”
    Jacob shook his head and laughed. The old man really did know how to make a splash. And then he saw the magazine sticking up from Taylor’s belt. On the bottom of it was a white sticker with a happy face on it. Jacob pointed at it. “Never would have thought you’d have a sense of humor about bullets.”
    Taylor saw him pointing at the magazine and his expression turned serious. He stripped the magazine from the M4 and ejected the round from the chamber. Next he visibly and physically checked the weapon to make sure it was empty and then slid it back into his saddlebags.
    He held out the two magazines, the one he’d just ejected from the weapon and the one with the smiley face, and said, “Look at those. Tell me what you see.”
    They appeared identical. That is, until Jacob turned the magazines upside down and examined the bullets loaded there. In the low light it was hard to tell what he was supposed to be looking for, but then he saw it. The bullets in the magazine with the happy face were a different caliber. They were bigger. Not by much, but definitely bigger.
    Jacob looked at Taylor in surprise. Bigger bullets like these would seat into the chamber just like the properly sized bullets, but if it was fired, it would jam up in the barrel and probably blow up in the shooter’s face. At the very least, it would ruin the gun.
    “Why do you have these?” he asked Taylor.
    “It’s a nasty surprise if anybody ever gets the gun away from me and tries to use it on our people. When you get to be sheriff, this’ll be your gun. Remember that.”
    Then he put both magazines in his bag, took a seat against the wall, and said, “Wake me up when the coffee’s ready, okay?” And with that he lowered the brim of his hat down over his eyes and settled into sleep.

9
    The encounter made them cautious, and it was slow going after that, just as Jacob had predicted. Morale remained high. But Bree Cheney, the pretty young blonde Frank Hartwell was so taken with, turned out to be the biggest surprise of all. Jacob had been a little worried about her before they started out, because she’d seemed so terribly nervous about what they might encounter, but she took to the trail right away.
    At one point, just before sundown on the third day, she’d gone to the edge of the