Free Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) by A.P. Fuchs Page A

look up from the sidewalk and see them. He never did and kept his eyes to the ground as if he was verifying his feet were in fact touching the pavement with each step.
    Shank was about forty feet ahead of them, still on the other side.
    “Hey!” Des called out, waving his hand in the air.
    Billie grabbed him by the wrist and yanked his hand down. “What are you doing?”
    “What? It’s Mr. Shank. What’s to worry?”
    “Are you blind? There’s something wrong with him.”
    “Get outta here. Shank’s always been a little weird, for starters. And if you think just because he’s walking slow that he’s a zombie, that doesn’t prove anything. The guy lost a foot in World War Two. He’s got one of them prosthetic things and always walks slow with a bit of a limp. He uses his ca—” Des stopped talking then stopped walking.
    “What?”
    “Shank always has a cane. Now he doesn’t.”
    Her heart sank then tripled its beat. “Oh.”
    Des’s brow furrowed. “Hey! Mr. Shank! Yo!”
    Shank kept walking, eyes to the ground.
    Des hollered again. “Hey, you dead or something!”
    “Idiot! What kind of a question is that? He’s not hard of hearing, is he?”
    “A little. Usually have to talk a bit louder when talking to him, but I don’t have to shout or anything not unlike my dad, who couldn’t hear a gun go off even if you put the barrel right up to his ear.”
    “Okay, anyway . . .”
    Shank’s legs dragged beneath him, most notably his left foot, as if it were giving him extra trouble today. He was almost right across from them.
    “Should I call out again?” Des asked.
    Billie focused her eyes and took a good hard look at Shank’s face, checking for any sign of death. From what she could see from about twenty feet away, his skin was worn and weathered like any old man’s, his eyes shadowed by the brim of a gray fedora. Bright spikes of gray-white hair jutted out from beneath the hat. The gray dated suit he wore didn’t show any signs of tear or blood from where she was standing.
    “Okay, just one more time. If he doesn’t hear us, let’s just move on and if he is all right, you can tell him we passed by him next time you see him,” she said.
    “’Kay.” Des cleared his throat, whistled, then shouted, “Mr. Shank!” He waved his hand. “Yoohoo!”
    Nothing.
    “Okay, let’s move it, then,” Billie said.
    No sooner did they get going than Mr. Shank faltered on the sidewalk across the way, stumbled a step, and dropped to his knees.
    “Des . . .” she started.
    “Oh great. Maybe he is alive. Zombies don’t do that.” Des bolted across the street.
    “Des! Wait!” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Moron,” she muttered and took off after him.
    Mr. Shank had fallen face first just before Des got to him. Des was already on all fours and had his head to the old man’s when Billie caught up to him.
    “Is he . . . ?” she asked.
    Des shook his head. “Can’t tell. He might be breathing, but with the way his arm is, blocking his face, I can’t get close enough to be sure.”
    Koom! Something fell over in the distance, making Billie jump. Sounded like a garbage can had been toppled over.
    “Here.” She knelt down beside Shank’s body. She thought that with all the death and undeath she’d seen over the past year, she’d be used to the idea of being around the sick or dead. She wasn’t. Slowly, she reached out and was about to grab Mr. Shank’s wrist so she could move his arm away from his face. When she touched the soft fabric of his suit, she jerked her hand away. If he was dead . . . “Move his arm.”
    “Fine. Here.” Des handed her the bar from his bedroom closet, then placed a pair of hands under Shank’s forearm and gently adjusted it so he could have access to the old man’s face. “You’re such a girl, you know that?”
    “Sue me for being born this way.” She smiled.
    Des smiled, too, then leaned in close and put an ear next to Shank’s