Free World of Ashes by J.K. Robinson Page B

Ethan down on the couch Keith flopped down in the recliner. "You're drunk. Sleep it off, we gotta lot a shit to do today."
                  Both men were still really drunk, and it wasn’t even light outside yet. Ethan didn’t want to go back to sleep, but he passed out without struggling too hard; Dreams are illogical. They’re the random clutter of whatever the camera in your brain records mixed with the unsynchronized emotions recorded in a similar fashion, all played back like a movie with no director, or an especially coherent plot. Ethan’s dreams were always in shades of blues and purples, like Picasso’s Blue Era, and but literal in their aesthetics. Most of the time they were centered around one time and place, a singular moment overshadowed by the horrible sorrow of failure and death. Her death. One he could have stopped, even if it had meant his sacrifice. He’d stood at parade rest behind a diesel powered generator in the dead of night with his rifle shouldered, waiting to fire the three salvoes of the 21 Gun Salute. Trash. Fire. Oil. Air that felt like fire. Don’t flinch, you’re a Soldier, an M.P. This is what you do. The First Sergeant, the one who replaced the old one now under investigation, sounds Roll Call. She doesn’t answer…
                  Keith woke up some time later to the microwave beeping, which meant the power had gone off again during the night. Ethan was gone from the recliner. Keith jumped up and ran outside. The side-by-side was still there, but the doors to the garage were wide open. Fearing the worst he ran into the garage, breathing a near gasp of relief that Ethan was still there. He was sitting on the hood of the town car that looked the worse for wear, a dozen empty beers laying all around.
                  "I thought you'd taken off."
                  "I would have if the fucking battery had been good." There were two more empty half pint bottles of whiskey on the ground behind the tool box. Ethan must have been at this most of the early morning. “They didn’t take the car… That means the Army took them.” There might have been more to say but motion caught Ethan’s eyes and he looked past Keith towards the road. A solitary zombie was shuffling along, her arm had been either gnawed, or ripped off, and she was dragging most of her fat in a long trail between her legs. They both knew the woman, she'd been selling beer by the can alongside Main Street the last three days, even going so far to still check ID’s for 21 and over. She’d been a good woman, if not a bit frumpy and toothless and lacking in social graces.
                  "How in the hell?" Keith said to himself. Before he could make ask Ethan what they should do, a gunshot from behind him broke the dawn silence. Keith didn’t flinch at gunshots anymore, but this one was danger close and he leapt to the ground. Birds in the country don't usually make much of a scene when a gun goes off, but this time a huge flock of dark crows sailed overhead as the mutilated zombie flopped down in a pile of her own juices. Looking back at Ethan, Keith watched him work the bolt of his .243 deer rifle and toss another beer bottle down the driveway.
                  "I guess we gotta go check out her house." He tossed Keith the keys to the side-by-side.
                  "Do you know where she lived?"
                  "Are you too retarded to follow a blood trail?" Keith conceded the point to Ethan and they were off on another gruesome adventure. They radioed to whoever the officer on duty was, Reynolds this time, and told him the address before dismounting the vehicle. The scene outside the house by the river flats was beyond the wildest imagination of today’s horror films. They were both war veterans, they'd both seen and done really bad things that would haunt them for the rest of their lives, but this wasn’t anything they could