Anno Zombus Year 1 (Book 6): June Read Free Page A

Greyhound bus. We began to drive past, but Apocalypse Girl told us that if the Dead were that enthusiastic about it, then there must be someone alive inside the bus. Scout swore and pulled over to the side of the road, the Dead still ignoring us. Disciple began to object, but the look in Apocalypse Girl's eyes made his mouth shut with a snap. The first Dead skull my sword clove through easily, Apocalypse Girl shattering the skull of the one next to it with her heavy skillet. Sister opened fire on the Dead from the other end of the bus, Sonny at her side, drawing them to her once they recognised the sound as potentially coming from a food source that was easier to get at than whoever was inside the bus.
    The Dead for the most part began to swarm towards Sonny and Sister, turning their backs towards
Apocalypse Girl and I for the most part. Disciple, by now, had joined the fray, removing a slender sword from his walking stick and expertly thrusting it through the heads of nearby Dead. I had forgotten that he had won an award for fencing in his younger days.
    Scout, meanwhile, was looking for some way of getting the people on board the Greyhound to open up. They clearly didn't want to with all the Dead out here, and I could see the red of fresh blood painting several of the interior windows. I told Scout to be careful, there could well be Dead or at least someone infected inside. Once the Dead outside were taken care of, Apocalypse Girl hammered on the Greyhound's door while I shouted out that the Dead had been put down. A girl of perhaps ten, maybe as old as twelve opened the door from the inside. She was completely covered in blood and gore, holding a machete nearly as big as she herself was in both hands. The corpses of several freshly turned Dead still bled from their destroyed skulls.
    “Are you bit?” The girl asked, clearly ready to cleave through our skulls as she had those inside. Apocalypse Girl told her that we were all safe, asking her if any of that blood on her was her own. “Nope. I'm too quick for anyone, Living or Dead.”
    I asked her what had happened. “We were running away from this Dragon and it was chasing us, then it stopped but we ran straight into the Dead, then I saw this bus and we ran into it. But by then everyone I was with had been bit, but not me, so I had to take care of it, just like Daddy did with Mum when this all started.” She nodded for emphasis. “Then the dogs came out at night, the big nasty ones. I hoped they'd eat the Dead but they just stayed away from them. Then the dogs went away and you came.” She still held her machete at the ready.
    evening
“We can't take her with us, though,” Disciple was saying. “She'll just cause trouble, besides there's no fucking room for the kid!”
“We can't just leave her!” That was Apocalypse Girl. “What if someone like you comes along?” Disciple at least had the decency to look ashamed. “What if she starves? Or more Dead come past?”
    “She can take care of herself, clearly,” Disciple countered. “But she can't come with us, that's final!” I pointed out that he wasn't calling the shots any more. We talked things over as a group. Scout suggested that she take her back to the Nest, Sonny arguing with her that we shouldn't waste any time, and besides she'd be as safe as all of us once we reach the Alice Facility.
    “If she can take care of herself that well, then she can help us, can't she?” Apocalypse Girl pointed out. I said that there was no way we were leaving a kid alone anywhere. We were taking her along to the Alice Facility at the very least. Disciple threw up his one remaining hand in anger and sat quietly, glaring at the new arrival, sleeping peacefully in the Land Rover's front seat. We had this discussion while searching through the dead Dead, both those inside and outside of the Greyhound. In the wallet of one of the dead Dead men in the bus was a picture of the girl, taken a couple of years ago.
June 5 th Year