Free The Living Dead Boy by Rhiannon Frater Page A

battered homes.
    “I think we should stick with the older kids,” Arturo answered.  “They’re stronger than us and maybe the can get a car for us.”
    “For a busload of kids?”  Josh looked at him incredulously.
    “Whatever we’re gonna do, we gotta do it soon. Those zombies can see us and they want to eat us.  So let’s go,” Troy said firmly.
    “I want dad,” Roger mumbled, wiping his eyes.
    “Your dad wants you for dinner,” Sam yelled at him. “Shut up!
    Arturo slugged Sam in the stomach.  “No, you shut up!”
    “Ow!  Josh, he hit me!”
    “Let’s get out of here,” Josh ordered.  “You two cut it out!  Stop fighting.  Roger, we can’t save your dad.”
    “Who’s the girl, Josh?” Troy asked, noticing the wheezing child for the first time.
    “Yessica,” the girl answered. She sniffled loudly.
    “We need to take care of her,” Josh answered. “She’s got no one else.”
    Troy glanced over his shoulder at the kids disappearing around the corner.  A few were straggling behind, out of breath.  “Okay, fine.  Let’s move.”
    “Are you sure we shouldn’t go with the older kids?” Arturo also looked back toward the main road.
    Josh was about to answer when the first running zombie made its appearance.  It sprinted across the mouth of the road after the last of the students.
    Without a word, the Zombie Hunters began to run in the opposite direction.  Josh held to Yessica’s hand, feeling her slick fingers gripping his tightly.  Troy ran a little ahead of them, Roger keeping pace with Josh. Arturo and Sam took up the rear, Sam breathing heavily. Josh was worried about him and Yessica falling behind.  He was determined not to lose anyone.
    Troy veered off the road into a yard.  He snatched up an aluminum baseball bat discarded near some outdoor toys.  Arturo and Sam followed, each looking around for a weapon.  Scanning the yard, Josh felt his heart beating faster.  He needed a weapon and soon. Seeing a stick lying in a pile of branches piled up near the road for the city to pick up, he pulled Yessica behind him. The stick was still green in the center and when he whacked it against another branch, it made a satisfying thwacking sound.
    “I want my dad,” Roger wailed as he waited for his brother.
    “Snap out of it, Rog!”  Troy smacked the mailbox with the bat on the way over to his brother.  “Dad is dead and now he wants to eat us.”
    Roger sobbed harder, his whole body shaking. “Don’t say that!”
    “Well, it’s true.” Sam swung a battered tennis racket back and forth in front of him.  “He wants to eat us.”
    “No,” Roger answered.  “You take that back!”
    “But it’s true!” Sam protested. “He wants to eat us!”
    Josh looked back toward the bus imbedded in the side of the trailer.  They were only a half block away from it. Looking toward the end of the road, he saw more of the fast zombies running after the students who had been foolish enough to head down the main road.  Luckily, none of the monsters looked their way.
    “We need to go now.”  Josh’s voice was firm.  It drew everyone’s attention to him.  “Now.  No more fighting.  Do you want to end up eaten like those kids on the bus?  Or at the school?  I don’t. So let’s go!”
    Without looking back to see if they were following, Josh began to run toward the long curve in the road ahead.  He knew it would skirt around the edge of town before meeting up with some of the neighborhood roads south of town.
    Yessica ran beside him, clutching her inhaler.  She still looked pale and frightened. He wondered if she was in shock.  He heard the footfalls of his friends behind him and their lowered voices as they kept arguing.  His brain felt clearer now.  He drank in deep breaths of cool spring air, trying to get a plan formed in his mind.
    “Josh!  Josh!” Sam’s voice cried out.
    “Dangit, Sam! Keep it down.  They’ll hear us,”  Josh answered, glancing back