Wanted: Dead or Undead (Zombie West) Read Free

used to be, nothing but fleshy, pink pulp
on a broken stem remained. Mangled, he continued to stand on crooked legs, until
the red-haired cowgirl lifted her boot and gave him a swift kick in the back.
The zombie wobbled and tumbled over, more dead than it had been moments before.
    "He bit me!" The poor man Bill had attacked
withered on the floor, his hand pressed over his oozing neck and his eyes wild
with fear. "He bit me!"
    The angel with flaming red hair reloaded, aimed, and shot
that man dead as well.
    "What did you go and do that fer?" a cowboy
protested. "We might've been able to save him."
    Trace sneered at the cowboy. That dead man would have
crunched his jaws on some poor sap in a matter of hours, and spread the disease
even further.
    "What a shame," Hank mumbled from his place at the
end of the bar. He'd watched the earlier commotion while perched on the same
stool, finishing his liquor. "Thought we had the town protected." He
swooned on the stool, nearly falling over, but caught himself. "Ya know,
even with all them wooden fences we staked around the outskirts"— hiccup —"guess
we're not as immune to the plague as we thought, are we boys?"
    "Hank's got a point," Slap Jack said, putting his
pistol back under the bar. "Anyone can walk into town feeling pretty
healthy and fit, not knowing the virus is destroying their internal organs.
Unless we strip everyone from head to toe, we'll never be certain. We need a
better plan."
    Trace barely listened to the conversation around him as he
focused on the red-haired girl. Something about her rang familiar, but he
couldn't quite place how he knew her. She sauntered past the dead bodies and
through the crowd of inebriated cowboys. For a passing moment, she locked her
eyes on him with a blank stare. He couldn't turn away. Even if he couldn't
quite place her in his mind, he was instinctually drawn to her, and he always
trusted his gut. It had never steered him wrong before. Well, not when it
counted, anyway.
    The girl propped her foot up on the brass railing that ran
the bottom length of the bar, and slammed down several coins on the counter.
"Pour me an Old Grand Daddy."
    If the men's jaws hadn't been hanging before, they surely
were now. She was putting on a show, but he smirked a little at her sass,
regardless.
    "Girlie, you sure you ain't wanting a glass of milk
instead? Maybe some cookies?" The men roared with laughter at Slap Jack's
joke, a dig at her youth.
    Trace didn't laugh. He'd been on the receiving end of a few
such jokes himself and didn't find it funny, especially since she'd succeeded
in killing a zombie when no one else could.
    The girl reached across the bar, took hold of the old man's
shirt, and pressed the barrel of her pistol under his chin. "Pour my
order."
    The men hushed.
    She couldn't be more than seventeen or eighteen, but held
her gun in a way that showed she'd mastered the weapon. No doubt she'd fire it
if pushed.
    Slap Jack raised his hands. "A'right, a'right. Jus'
havin' a bit o' fun."
    While she waited for the old man to pour her drink, she
turned to face her audience and rested her elbows on the bar behind her.
"I can tell ya right now, there's no point in havin' a plan. The disease
is spreading across the country faster and wider than you can imagine. The
whole town of Smithfield—gone. Men, women, and children. The place is a ghost
town now, except for a few walkers. And, if y'all recall, they'd put up fences,
too."
    A few men shook their heads at her. "That ain't
true," one man countered. "I's jus' there last month and the place
was running like normal."
    "A lot can happen in a month." She turned her back
on them once more.
    "Then what's it you suggest we do?" Hank put his
bottle down long enough to pose the question. "We can't just sit here and
do nothin'."
    The girl raised her glass and tossed it back. She let her
breath out slowly, as though dealing with a bunch of idiots. Trace continued to
be amused by her confident demeanor.
    "One