Dead Lands Pass the Ammunition Read Free Page B

like Sash, good tough woman who are going to make this work. It’s not just about fucking and having a good time. They’ve got to be mothers to our kids. Yeah, kids. It’s not something I imagined for my life, ever, but the reality of this,” he paused and waved his hand at the compound, “we’ve got to have good strong women who give a shit. I figure if we want to survive—”
    “I want you to survive,” I said. I’d been trying to cover for the guy for years—since high school on the football field and in the classroom. He used to sit next to me in Mr. Alstatt’s algebra class and copy answers during our tests. I’d been trying to keep Mack afloat for too long, and figured this was just another in a long line of bailing out his sorry butt. All that bullshit about the future—children—my God. Maybe Mack came around before I did. Maybe he did get it, but visions of Sasha’s swishing ass and her devil’s eyes kept me from believing him. Maybe I was jealous and jealousy blinded me. Mack might have had his shit together. 
    Either way, I must have struck a different kind of nerve because he didn’t kick me again. Maybe he heard some truth in those words. I don’t know. His big fists deflated, but his dark eyes still hammered against me like the twin barrels of Uncle Gary’s shotgun.
    “You need to get your God-damned nose out of my business, P. We’ve been like brothers since—”
    “Middle school,” I said.
    “Yeah. Since Mr. Grinich’s homeroom. You invited me to your table at lunch when the rest of the damned school looked like it wanted to fling shit at me, the new monkey in the cage. I suppose I owed you one for that. I’m sure I’ve paid up by now.” Mack shook his head. “Just lay off Sash. We’ve got dreams.”
    My stomach twisted, snake like. Dreams .  She’d filled his head with delusions of grandeur.
    “Dreams,” I said. “Ambitions. Like maybe—”
    “Don’t start,” Mack growled. “This is over.”
    I nodded. Nothing was over. Nothing would be over for some time. Nothing except our friendship.

Chapter 3
     
    Everyone in camp knew exactly how many shots they had left.
    I carried twenty-nine shells when I arrived at the Nebraska compound and hadn’t spent one since. The shells came from a Wal-mart in Concordia, Kansas. Mack and I had been traveling with an ex-GI who called himself Ghost, a skittish, thin fellow who claimed the rotters couldn’t function up north.
    Ghost played too many video games and had Mountain Dew for blood plasma. He claimed strength in numbers because, as he said, “a guy had to sleep sometime.” Ghost had a car and when law and order fell apart in Manhattan—I can’t even imagine the shit-storm in a bigger city—we piled into his Camry and headed west. We passed one town—Clay Center—in flames. The bridge west on U.S. 24 had collapsed into the river, so we swung south and hooked up with U.S. 81. Concordia’s Wal-mart sat just off the highway.
    I had the gun, my father’s old sixteen gauge, already. Damn hard to find ammunition for an odd gauge even in the best of times.
    “Right here fellas,” Ghost said, steering into the lot. The whole damn town appeared deserted. A big brick building like a castle sat on a hill, watching the whole mess. Ghost explained a bunch of nuns lived up there—it was a convent or school or something. I wondered how long they were able to hold off the dead in their cloistered halls.
    We loaded a couple carts with dry groceries before making our way to sporting. The place had seen some action—shelves and clothing and boxes strewn everywhere—but we held hope.
    And it paid off for me.
    We found a toppled display of shotgun shells, one of those hunting season specials, scattered across the floor.
    “Looks like somebody’s been here,” Mack said. “Took most of this stuff.”
    I knelt and started digging through the boxes. “Still some left… These are sixteen gauge.”
    “It’s your lucky fucking day,”