Free Those Lazy Sundays: A Novel of the Undead by Thomas North Page B

firm but unthreatening. “You can grab the chairs from my deputy’s desk and from the dispatcher.”
    Sarah moved into the main portion of the police station, followed by Mary and Kyle. Sarah and Kyle wheeled both office chairs in front of Mike’s desk. Kyle sat in the remaining folding chair, and Sarah and Mary sat in the two office chairs, all facing Mike and Brent. They were arranged in a circle like they were about to play a “breaking the ice” game.
    Brent eyed the three students, and they eyed him back. Mike was engrossed in an article on his laptop.
    “So what brings you all to Allentown?” Mike asked, looking up from his screen for a moment before turning back to whatever he was reading. The three of them looked at him, perplexed. He spoke with a casualness that belied the bizarre situation they were all in. A few moments of silence went by, and he looked up again.
    Sarah finally spoke up. “We were on our way back to Burlington. We were at a college retreat. Kind of a, you know, get in touch with your spirituality, find who you really are, that kind of stuff.” She smiled awkwardly.
    Brent smirked. “So what are you doing here? You’re miles from the interstate.”
    Sarah met his eyes with hers. “It’s autumn. We decided to get off the interstate and see some of the foliage.”
    Brent chuckled to himself and shook his head.
    “That worked out well.”
    “You going to start acting like a dick again?” Sarah asked angrily.
    Brent acted as though he was getting up, but stopped. Kyle and Mary remained quiet, watching the exchange between their friend and what they thought was another cop, even though he was dressed in a pair of jeans, work boots, and a leather jacket.
    “You know, you’re lucky those wack-jobs are out there, or my brother would have booked your buddy for crashing into my car."
    "Brother?" Mary asked. She looked at Brent, then at Mike. Now that Brent said it, they did look a lot a like: sandy brown hair and a square jaw, and both of them were tall and big, and looked like they could snap any of the four college kids in half without much effort. The guy in the cop uniform was bigger, but not by a lot.
    "Yeah, brother," Brent replied. "What the hell did you think we were?"
    They looked at each other for a few moments, before Mary spoke up.
    "Well I guess, um, we thought you were both policemen."
    Brent made an exaggerated show of looking at the sleeves of his leather jacket, then at his jeans and boots. "Yeah, I could see why you'd think that."
    Mary blushed, embarrassed.
     "Cop or not, I saved your ass from that weirdo who was about to˗-” He paused.
    The truth was, he didn’t know what the guy had been about to do. He’d shot because his brother had yelled for him to, and because of what his brother had told him earlier. The guy had definitely been aggressive, but he had no idea if it had really required deadly force, though he had a feeling there might not be many questions about it, if things were as bad as Mike thought they were. Plus, there was the fact that the guy had taken three shotgun blasts to the chest at close range with barely a flinch. That wasn’t normal. Hell, it violated just about every natural law he knew of – the main one being, getting shot in the chest with a shotgun will put a person on his ass – no exceptions.
    “Knock it off, Brent,” Mike said.
    Brent turned and looked at Mike, his cheeks now a dark crimson, the same color they were when he was aiming his shotgun at Andy’s head.
    “Stay the hell out of ˗-“ he began, angrily. He continued speaking, but Mike raised his voice and talked over him.
    “You can pick on the kids later, if you want,” he said calmly. “But right now we have a more important situation to deal with out there.” He pointed toward the front of the station.
    His final word was punctuated by a particularly strong bang that shook the door on its hinges.
    “I just checked the news,” Mike said, drawing everyone’s