Free Dead Earth: The Green Dawn by Mark Justice

anywhere else.
    Now he had to make another unpleasant
memory.
    When they rolled up Damon’s driveway, Fiona
said, “You need a minute?”
    “No.” And it was true. Jubal had somehow
managed to lock away his emotions so he could focus on what had to
be done. Later he might turn into a quivering mess, but for now he
had managed to achieve a bit of distance from today’s events.
    As long you don’t count sweaty palms, a dry
mouth and a stomach so messed up that it might explode out the back
of your pants any second.
    He climbed out of the cruiser and walked back
to the trunk. Locked into a brace on the inside wall was a Mossberg
.12 gauge shotgun. Jubal removed it and checked the load. He pumped
a round into the chamber and shut the trunk.
    Fiona was waiting for him by the front of the
car.
    “I know it won’t do any good to ask you to
stay out here,” he said.
    She stared at him.
    “So I won’t. But this could take a while,
Fee. If he hasn’t...you know...”
    “You think I’m going to let you go through
something like this by yourself?”
    He forced a smile. “Come on, Stork Girl.”
    They walked to the porch and through the
front door. Jubal didn’t hesitate. With the shotgun raised, he
walked quickly to the living room.
    Damon wasn’t in the room. The couch was a
mess. The cushions and the pillow were speckled with blood. Jubal
remembered the coughing fit that Renee Spencer suffered through
before she passed.
    “We have to search the place,” he said. “Stay
behind me.”
    They went through Damon’s house room by room.
It didn’t take long. Jubal led the way, checking behind each door
and around any corner that didn’t offer a clear view. Fiona was
close by, with her body at a 90-degree angle from him, so she could
keep an eye on Jubal and anything that might try to sneak up behind
them.
    When they reached the small kitchen, Jubal
saw a small pool of blood in the sink.
    “He was in here.”
    “Not anymore,” Fiona said. She pointed at the
small window over the sink.
    Damon had built the gazebo back in his
married days with the help of Jubal’s dad. Susan was already making
noise about the limitations of being married to a small town cop,
so Damon was trying to fix the place up a bit to appease her. These
days he sat out there on occasion, sipping a can of beer, but
nothing stronger. Sometimes Jubal would join him.
    Now a dark form was slumped across the
gazebo’s bench.
    Jubal stepped through the back door. It was
suddenly hard to breathe, as though a band of steel had tightened
across his chest.
    He took a couple steps toward the gazebo. He
could hear the crunch of Fiona’s shoes on the dry soil behind him.
She was keeping a bit of distance between them.
    Good girl. If there were trouble, maybe it
wouldn’t take both of them.
    Jubal took two more steps. He was fifteen feet
from the gazebo. He could clearly see the back of the prone man’s
head. It was definitely Damon.
    Damon sat up and swiveled his head around,
farther than Jubal thought possible.
    “Damon?”
    Fiona gasped.
    Damon was through the gazebo’s screen door
and running at Jubal.
    Jubal froze, his shotgun held loosely in his
hands. He could not accept that Damon had turned into a monster.
This was a man he had looked up to his whole life. And
loved—something he’d never told the older man.
    Now the dead sheriff glared at him with
orange eyes. Folds and flaps, where the blisters had burst, covered
his gray skin. Off-white saliva stretched between his upper and
lower teeth. His hands were curled into killing claws. Sheriff
Damon Ortega snarled, sounding more animal than human.
    “Damon, stop,” Jubal said, as the zombie
sheriff barreled into him, knocking him to the ground. Jubal rolled
onto his back and pulled the trigger of the shotgun.
    The blast hit Damon squarely in the chest,
flinging him backwards to the ground.
    Jubal got to his feet. “What have I
done?”
    “You had to do it, Jube. He was going to kill
us,”