Free Zombies and Chainsaws (Book 2): Dark Roads by Mike Evans Page B

have a helicopter pilot, right now, getting the rest of our group ready on the roof. We're going to fly out of Kansas City, and he’ll either drop us off away from the city or, hopefully, bring us all the way back there. I haven't really worked out the specifics, but I have a feeling that he’d really like to just get as far away from these things as possible.”
    Maria said, “Well, then, he sure as hell doesn’t want to come here. They're everywhere. I think there are more dead in this fucking town than there are living. How the hell is that? I mean, I see thousands of little kids Patrick's age—how can they all be dead?”
    “You realize the town has been there for over a hundred years, right? Before we lived there, there were probably Indians on the land. Death is as old as life, Maria.”
    “Oh, shut up, Jude. When are you going to be home?”
    “Is Patrick all right?”
    “You mean has he been eaten by these horrible things? No, he hasn’t. He's fine and sitting down in the basement playing with his trucks. I keep running to look out the kitchen window, but it seems like every time I do, there are more of them. I don’t think I can see any more of them out there—like, what I mean is, I'm going to lose my shit, Jude, if you don’t get your ass home. I can’t deal with this — it's too much to handle. One of the neighbors came out and shot one of those things point blank in the damn head. Point blank, Jude. Do you know what happened?”
    “Let me guess: they got eaten because they were using a small caliber rifle or pistol and it wasn’t enough to take any of them out. If you do that, you need to make sure you shoot them where they won’t be able to get back up, or you need to fucking run. You've got Patrick, so I’d probably refrain from making that your plan of action.”
    “You think I’m going to try and take those things out with Patrick sitting by my side? That's a horrible idea — what the hell is wrong with you, Jude? Do you know what my sister would do if she was still here?”
    “Yeah, she’d kill me, but if she was still here, we’d be together. I don’t know where you’d be, of course...probably out living a life of your own.”
    “Jude, I’m living the life I want. If I didn’t want to be here, then I wouldn’t be. It is as simple as that, Jude. Now on a side note, I do most definitely want you to get yourself back here, and I want to get the fuck out of Dodge.”
    “I’ll do my best to get you guys out of there. You just need to be patient, okay? I’m doing the best I can, but if I didn’t let people know about this, then you’d have even more of those things in the streets coming for you. I guarantee you do not want to have any of the living coming after you once they’ve been bitten.”
    “You're seriously going to give me worse news, Jude? I mean, the dead are up and walking around. What, exactly, could be worse after all of what's happened in the last day?”
    “Well, if they bite you, or if you drink rainwater—any contaminated water—you become one of the dead. Now, I don’t really understand what's going on with it, but sometimes people change in minutes and sometimes it takes a little while. The important thing is that they're not like the dead that come back out of their graves. These bitten people are fucking wicked, and they will do every single thing they can to make you a meal. They run, they don’t walk. They can move fast, and when they do you watch out, because they seem to be even hungrier than the others. They're just as tough to put down as the others, too.”
    When Jude stopped speaking, he heard a slur of cursing. He looked to Chuck, who was pointing to his wrist, where a watch would normally have been.
    Jude nodded, and Maria screamed into the phone, scaring Jude as well as Patrick. “What in the hell is going on! Would you please, please give me some sort of good news? Tell me something that doesn’t make me want to just blow both of our