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

1 A.Z.
morning
Machete was the first among us to awaken. She gently shook me awake, telling me that she needed the toilet. I opened the door of the Land Rover, she jumped out lightly, looked around everywhere for any Dead, including under our transport, then she squatted and went right there on the road. “Daddy always told me to stay close to him, even if I need to go. Being embarrassed is better than being Dead, he always said.” Telling her that he was spot on, I realised that I myself needed to urinate.
    I scouted around a little, Machete following silently behind me, stepping precisely in the footprints that I left in the grey snow. I asked her what she was doing. “Daddy told me that it wouldn't look like he's got a kid with him if I walked in his footprints to anybody that might be following him.” She told me. I asked her if they had been followed by many people. “Yeah, further north there are people that tried to eat us! Not Dead ones, but Living! Daddy killed a couple of them, but they tried to hunt us for a while. We didn't trust anyone we met on the road after that for a long time.”
    By the time we returned to the Land Rover, everyone else was getting themselves ready to continue onwards, so we contented ourselves with Chef's Meat-beast jerky for breakfast while we drove.
    noon
The roads were remarkably clear, all things considered. There were a few pileups that we had to carefully navigate around, a couple of which were large enough to warrant stopping to search for supplies, or would have had Machete not already told us that her group had come through there and already found it ransacked. There was a huge stretch of open, empty road that we were able to cruise down at a fairly rapid pace, though with the snow and the darkness Scout kept having to slow down to regain control from time to time. Apocalypse Girl was itching to take the wheel from her, as was Sister, but Scout insisted that nobody drive her Land Rover but her .
    We passed through a couple of towns on during the afternoon, deciding to keep on going when Machete told us that one was populated entirely by the Dead, the other by absolutely nobody at all. Disciple seemed almost as if he were sulking, though he asked Machete exactly where she had encountered the Living cannibals. She said she wasn't entirely sure but it had been a very long way from here. It had been a good couple of months since they had encountered the group that she had slaughtered on the Greyhound and over a month before that, she told us, that they had encountered the cannibals.
    evening
We were sitting around our fire, outside of the Land Rover, cooking up our Meat-beast steaks for our dinner when it attacked. First came the deafening shriek-howl, announcing the presence of the Dingo, then it leaped into the firelight. The moment it landed my sword came out, as did Disciple's own slender blade. Apocalypse Girl fell back, with Sister, to find some heavier fire-power, and Sonny, who was closest, whacked the fucking thing as hard as he possibly could with his cricket bat, stunning the Dingo long enough for my sword to cut into its side.
    It retaliated by lashing out with its tail, slicing my arm open. I fell, dropping my katana as Sister and Apocalypse Girl opened up with assault rifles, the bullets tearing through the Dingo's flesh. It cowered under the onslaught, then pounced on Machete as soon as the pair stopped to reload.
    It twitched once, then shuddered mightily. Machete pulled her blade out from between the fearsome jaws of the beast, hacking its head off with one devastating swing of her heavy blade, making sure the Dingo was really dead. “We're going to have to move now, more dogs are going to be coming in a minute.” She told us, casually.
Sister examined my arm as Apocalypse Girl picked up my sword. “I need to sew this up before we go. If I have to do it on the road I'll fuck something up, I know it.” Machete stood beside Apocalypse Girl, the pair of them