Free The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel by William Todd Rose Page B

kinda squatted there for a minute, watching this thing that had once been somebody's daughter while my heart pounded in my chest like a racehorse on steroids. Without taking my eyes from her, I slowly reached to the ground and felt around in the cool moss for the pistol I'd laid by my side.
    She'd been pretty in life and probably would have grown up to break plenty of hearts: she had this flowing blond hair that perfectly framed her round face and, though her skin was as pale as the face of the moon now, I could imagine the glow that must have radiated from her smile as she played with her friends in the park.
    I felt this cold hand grip my heart and squeeze it so tightly that little flares of pain shot up my arm. I couldn't think about who she had been before. I couldn't even really think of her as a she if I was smart. Sure, she might be just kinda lumbering around now like she was in some sort of daze but she hadn't caught sight of me yet.
    I'd seen how fast those things could move. I'd witnessed how vicious and relentless they could be, how single minded their pursuit of violence was. The moment those vacant eyes noticed me squatting beneath that old tree, she would be all over me like a wild dog on a chained goat.
    “She's not a kid anymore.” I tried to tell myself as I raised my pistol. “She's not even human.”
    Still, my hand was trembling so bad that I was hard pressed to keep the side of her head within the sights. My eyes started stinging and I could feel tears welling up. My vision blurred and I felt like throwing up right then and there.
    But I had to do it, right? There was no way I'd survive in this new world if I still thought of these things as children.
    Maybe I sniffled. Or perhaps she'd caught the scent of my fear or simply knew, somehow, that she wasn't alone. Whatever the reason, she turned slowly to face me.
    Without another thought, my finger pulled the trigger of the gun.
    At the same instant, her eyes widened as she opened her mouth.
    “Mister, I.... ”
    And then she was falling to the ground, a small hole in her perfect little forehead as the sound of my shot echoed through the forest.
    Mister, I....
    I tried to tell myself that I hadn't really heard it, that it had simply been my imagination kicked into overdrive by fear and adrenaline.
    Mister, I....
    That small voice sounding as if she'd just awoken from a dream and didn't know where she was. That soft, sweet voice that would now never talk again.
    It's too easy to pull a trigger. It should be harder. Even in this fucked up reality.
    And that's what they never showed you in the movies or told you about in the books. That's the little secret they kept tucked away far from the eyes of common folk: heroes aren't perfect. Heroes make mistakes. And those mistakes can sometimes take the life of an innocent, of someone they should have been safeguarding through the turmoil and strife.
    And, somehow, you have to find a way to live with yourself. Even when those mistakes repeat themselves again and again.

 
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN: JOSIE
     
    We ended up staying in that old farmhouse for nearly a week. During daylight hours, we stayed inside and tried to remain as quiet as possible. Doc had an old deck of cards he carried with him and we'd spend hours sitting around the kitchen table, playing rummy, and whispering stories back and forth.
    Slowly I began to piece their histories together: how Doc and Carl had met in a burned out grocery store and almost shot one-another, each initially thinking the other was a freshie; how Sadie and Watchmaker (whose real name turned out to be Tobias) had watched their children grow up and then have children of their own. How they had lived for the past half century in the same house, collecting a lifetime's worth of memories and laughter within those walls. Even when Tobias first began to lose his sight and found it more and more difficult to work on the intricate cogs and gears from which his nickname stemmed, they