Free Zombie Society - They Live Among Us by K. Bartholomew Page B

around for anybody who looked like they could have been responsible for the building. “I can’t fit in here. Which mortist built this?” She tried lifting a hand in an effort to point at the nearby janitor who leaned against a sweeping brush over by the trash cans, but gave up when she couldn’t summon the strength. Instead, she raised her voice, “you there, you mortist. Widen these doors.”
    The cameras swarmed around the man as he straightened and rushed toward the pink carpet. “There’s nothing I can do. Can’t you squeeze through?”
    She moved her eyes down her own front, “does it look like I can squeeze through? I know what this is about. You’re a mortist.”
    “But, I didn’t construct the building.”
    She tried waving a hand in a dismissive gesture, but gave up due to the exertion. “You’re all the same, you mortists. This is because you disagree with me marrying a member of the dead.”
    The janitor’s head jutted back. “But I only started here last week. It’s really got nothing to do with me. I…I…I suppose I could get my axe and chip away at the brickwork until it’s wide enough?”
    “You’d better, you mortist, cos if you don’t,” she nodded at the TV cameras, “we got evidence of your mortism. You’ll lose your career, your family, everything you hold dear.”

Still On The Ninth
     
    With Alex away on honeymoon and Glen still off work nursing forty percent burns to his arm and shoulder after the incident with Jimmy Doyle and the gas turbo welder, John and Fergus had no choice other than to bring Jimmy off permanent long stand duty to cover some of the many tasks that still needed doing up on the ninth.
    John glared at the freak as he dragged the new sewage pipe along the ground, the end knocking over tool boxes and Starbucks cups with complete indiscrimination. The entire floor still reeked of sewage and it had taken a long time to source a replacement pipe.
    “What are they now, five percent of the population?”
    “I think a little more than that.” Fergus said, taking a nervous glance in Jimmy’s direction as he figured out what to do with the pipe.
    “Exactly! And they’ve risen from only two percent in less than a year.” John shook his head. “It’s only a matter of time before they become the majority in this country and then what’ll happen? There’ll be more net takers than producers. They are a huge drain on resources. My company is already straining under the pressure of hiring just one, the city is going into huge debt with a five percent population and that’s followed up on a federal level.”
    Fergus shook his head. “Hey, you heard the TV. We owe the dead for thousands of years of oppression. Don’t you feel guilty at all for the way your ancestors treated them?”
    John ran a hand into his hair, clenched his fist and pulled. After several seconds, and he was satisfied the pain had numbed his mind to the bullshit he’d just heard, he released his grip. “Wow, they really got to you.”
    “Hey, the TV says we’re all the same.”
    The smash cut short their conversation, both John and Fergus whipped round to see one end of the pipe inserted through the plate glass window with Jimmy Doyle holding onto the other end. John braced himself for several seconds as the entire ninth fell into silence, then the high pitched clatters of glass shards smashing against the asphalt below, which was quickly followed by the guttural screams and hopeless wails of pedestrians.
    Several men rushed over to Jimmy Doyle, much too late, and dragged him and the pipe away from the window.
    John closed his eyes as he felt the heat and rage bubble inside. “That is it, you fucking zombie.” John shouted at Jimmy Doyle. “You are fired!”

One Year Later
     
    “I had a feeling we’d meet again.” Tony Dankworth said to John as he took a seat.
    John glared a hole through the wretched man’s face, resisting the urge to throw something. Dankworth had been responsible