Free Revenence: Dead Silence, A Zombie Novel by M.E. Betts Page A

thought.  He had really expected that if he played nice like Fauna had said, that she'd let him out.  He wondered how long she expected him to pander to her while she kept him in the barn with the animals.  I'll give her awhile, he thought as he held the long piece of glass in his hands, feeling its sharp, smooth edge.  He'd found it in the corner, nearly hidden by the shadows of the sloping wall.  I'll give her awhile, but I can't take this kind of treatment for too long .

      It was Saturday, exactly one week since the world as they had known it ended.  They had gotten some use out of the radio.  Each evening after they dropped Nick off in the barn for the night, the two women sat on lawnchairs in the garage while Fauna operated the radio.  The first night, they heard a transmission from a man calling himself J.B., broadcasting from south of Marion, Illinois.  He described to them in what he had seen in the city.
    "I was in the ER, waiting for some lab work to come back.  I had cut mysefl at work the day before, and it started to get infected.  I figured I'd get it checked out.  The guy in the room next to me, he had some kind of heart issue going on.  I heard his wife, speaking way too loudly, talking about how he had a heart attack before, and she was worried he was about to have another one.  So they're sitting there waiting for the doctor to come back, and I hear the two of them talking, having a conversation.  Granted, she's doing most of the talking, but I hear him every so often.  And all of a sudden, I hear her start screaming.  I was thinking, Holy shit, did he have a heart attack and die?  That fast?  I had just heard the guy speaking seconds before I heard her scream.  But I figured, hey, I guess it could happen.  Well, a buncha nurses rushed over to his room, and I knew something was wrong when all those nurses started to scream, too.  'Dr. Simon, get in here!' I heard one say.  'He's killing her!  Dr. Simon, he's killing her!'  Now at this point, I was pretty freaked out, but I still didn't know the guy was a zombie...then my curiosity got the better of me.  I crept over to the doorway, poked my head out, and peered into the room next to mine.  The wife was lying on the floor facedown in a pool of blood, and the husband was biting one of the nurses, ripping her throat out.  Dr. Simon was injecting something into the man, trying to knock him out.  But it didn't help, he just kept at it.  The doctor was next.  I took advantage of the fact that he hadn't seen me yet, and ran the hell outta there.  Now, looking back, I have to wonder...did that man even die before he turned?  All the zombies I've seen since then, when they die it takes at least a minute before they get up again.  But this guy...he had just spoken literally ten seconds ago.  Makes me wonder if it has something to do with his bad heart.  Maybe he didn't even have to die before he turned.  It's speculation, but it's just something for those of you listening out there to think about.  Anyway, back to my story...as I went to leave through the main entrance for the ER, I noticed an ambulance outside.  They were bringing a woman in on a stretcher, someone with their throat torn open, just like what I had seen that guy do to the nurse.  The woman's eyes were closed.  I assumed she was passed out, but in retrospect I know she was already dead, getting ready to come back.  Too bad the EMTs didn't know.  As they were carrying her in, she bit one of them, took a chunk out of his arm.  I decided to look for a different exit.  I continued down the hall, passing a mortifician along the way, running in the direction of the ER and screaming something about all the bodies in the morgue being alive...it was hard to understand exactly what he said, because one of them had bitten his lower lip off, peeled the skin away all the way down to his chin.  None of his M's came out right.  His shirt was covered in blood.