Free White Trash Zombie Apocalypse by Diana Rowland Page A

zombie!” In my peripheral vision I saw the crowd had stopped and was watching me. Great, they probably thought I was part of the stunt now.
    The zombie swung toward me, his one clear eye focused on the bag. “Braaaaaiins,” he rasped and reached clumsily for the bag. I pulled it out of his reach and backed away from the crowd toward the exit. He followed to the sound of scattered applause. I figured if I could get him outside, there’d be less chance he would hurt someone plus more room to take him down if it came to that, once Marcus showed up.
    He staggered toward me and grabbed for the bag again, but I easily dodged. “Braaaaaaiins!” he bellowed as I backed away. Light rain spattered me as we left the shelter of the tent, but I didn’t stop. We weren’t far enough from the people yet—people who applauded and cheered their rescue from the zombie. Give me a break.
    “Here!” I pulled a few chips from the bag and dropped them onto the sidewalk. I felt a little bad making him eat off the ground, but I didn’t want to get close enough for him to grab hold of me.
    He didn’t seem to mind though. He crouched, snatched them up and stuffed them into his mouth, then lurched toward me again. “More…braaaaains…” He’d picked up a bit of speed, a side effect of getting some brains into him. Even at half-strength, the chips would be like the nectar of the gods for a hungry zombie. I moved away more quickly as he shuffled toward me and continued to drop chips, leading him like a cat with tuna. The rain began to pick up again, but I wasn’t about to stop now that I had his attention.
    We’d made it about a hundred yards from the tents when he abruptly swiveled his head to the right, head lifting as if he scented something. I shot a quick glance that way, and cold knifed through me at the sight of a bus stop and a woman waiting there. The zombie took a staggering step in that direction, a tortured moan coming from his throat as if he was fighting an inner battle to keep from going after the woman. I knew what that battle was like. I’d been hungry before, ready to club down the first person with a non-zombified brain to cross my path.
    “No!” I waved the bag at him. “This way. C’mon. Don’t go over there. I’ll get you more brains, I promise.”
    He stopped in the glow of a streetlamp, swaying as he looked back at me. His lips curled back in a snarl, but I got the sense it was more pain and confusion than menace.
    “Here,” I said, making a quick decision. “Have the rest of these.” I held the bag out, hoping that there was enough brain power in them to counter his desire for fresh brains.
    The zombie looked to the bus shelter, then back to me. His breath rasped as he turned and made a sluggish grope for the bag. I let it drop to the sidewalk, but to my shock he ignored the bag and made a lightning-fast grab of my wrist.
    Shit!
I sucked in a gasp. He was way stronger than I expected a zombie that shambly to be.
    A menacing growl shuddered from him as his lips twisted back in a wicked tooth-baring snarl. “Aaannngggellll.” The word—my freaking
name
—came out in an ugly wet croak.
    “What the hell?” The initial shock of getting grabbed melted into get-the-fuck-away-from-me. I made a strong twist of my arm in an attempt to free it and landed a solid kick in the bastard’s zombie balls.
    To my dismay, he only grunted and snarled with the impact, then clamped harder on my wrist with bone-breaking strength. Excruciating pain shot up my arm, while his other hand swung slow and wide, arcing for my throat.
    Okay. I’m in deep, deep shit
. Yeah, I was a little slow getting a clue. But with that extra jolt of fear I turned into a punching, struggling, kicking, psycho redneck zombie bitch.
    Bad Zombie clamped his free hand on my shoulder and lunged in for a bite. I threw myself backward enough to shake the shoulder hold and avoid anything to do with teeth. A sickening wave of zombie rot stench struck