Amanda Carter in the L.A.Z., life after zombies Read Free

suffering through the experience in anticipation of moving someplace more vital and thriving, but now she was glad that they had been here when it happened. All the major cities had been hit hard, and the more populated an area, the more zombies there had been to deal with.
    As a doctor, she was loath to use the word zombie , but in actuality, that is what they were. The infection had hit so fast and spread like a wildfire with all the fuel in the world, and nothing to stop it. She could not explain medically how it was possible, and yet it had happened; that fact was undeniable.
    Roy was a man that preferred to listen rather than speak. He had lived across the street from the Albrechts, and he and the family had become close. Tammy and Samantha used to call him Uncle Roy, as if he were a family member. He and Jason had worked together on many projects around their respective properties, and the two of them were close. He was retired from the military yet would not speak of his time in the service. Even Jason, who knew him best, didn’t know what his rank or title had been. He was a black man, six feet, and lanky. He had come to Blythe to open a mechanic garage. There, he had serviced everything from vehicles to tractors and lawn mowers. No one in the group knew if he had ever been married. He was loyal and had been a valuable asset to their little group. Maryanne trusted him implicitly.
    Sometimes, at night, when Maryanne would awaken startled, she would walk around their moonlit makeshift camp, looking at her husband and two filthy children and wonder if maybe she were dreaming and would wake from this nightmare soon. She could only wish that were the case because they had been living this nightmare every day for the past six months.
    Samantha, at fifteen, was tall for her age, almost five foot eight inches. She had long straight blond hair, a cute face that still had the look of youth with some chubbiness to her cheeks, and a nose that turned up slightly at the end. Her body was built very straight up and down, and as yet, she lacked any of her mother’s curvaceous figure. She liked sports, was good at soccer, basketball, and running. In the LBZ, she was considered a “hot catch,” and the boys had been interested. She had left a lot of friends to move to Blythe and carried resentment over that, but she had also made a lot of new friends. Around the house, she had considered herself a champion of all things’ right—from animal rights, human rights, teen rights, you name it. School was more of a social event for her. She was much less concerned with academics. In a lot of ways, she was very different from both of her parents; so much so that Maryanne sometimes secretly wondered whose kid this is.
    “Mother?” Samantha asked from her seated position on a little wooden green canvas–covered collapsible chair.
    “Yes, sweetie,” Maryanne said, maybe too enthusiastically. She didn’t want her children to be too affected by her thoughts and worries, but now she worried that her oldest daughter could see right through her fake facade. “Your father’s sleeping, and I don’t want to wake him, let me come to you.”
    Samantha gave her mother a pained expression.
    “It’s more like Dad’s in a coma,” she said with her typical teenage sarcasm upon her mother’s arrival.
    “That’s a terrible thing to say. Why do you insist upon saying hurtful things like that, Samantha?” Maryanne said in a peeved tone, but she couldn’t say that her daughter’s comment had surprised her.
    Lately, it had been a whole lot of the same rotten attitude from her. Samantha was currently mad at the whole world for turning upside down, and Maryanne couldn’t say that she blamed her, but she would have to get through to her that taking her frustrations out on the people that she loved and those that loved her back was not the solution to the problem.
    “Come on, Mom, really?” she answered, looking exacerbated. “I’m not