Zombies! (Episode 6): Barriers Collapse Read Free Page B

that news conference, or more specifically that it had been dominated by rhetoric originating with the Zombie Rights Association . By Peter's definition, they were a club full of crackpots who needed a crusade to fill their days. Zombie rights! What a lot of nonsense. He knew what would happen, too. These people would gain political leverage and force laws into place. Then what? When zombies were actually protected by the law, they would be unstoppable. Then they wouldn't need the law because there'd be no one left and no law at all.
     
    Like many of these stupid organizations, the politicians would bend to the ZRA . Afraid to turn off prospective voters, they would institute a world of regulations on the handling and testing of zombies. What was needed was a strong opponent to the ZRA . Not a political opponent. Those who stood for something always tended to gain ground over those who stood against. Politics wouldn't work. Peter had already decided that he needed to spearhead more decisive action. For a week, he'd been planning and investigating. What he'd found out had slipped beneath the noses of the police and those who were supposed to be protecting the public.
     
    When his shift ended, he grabbed his coat, said good day to his coworkers, and walked out the door. It was mid morning and the sun was shining high in the sky. The cold bit through his light coat but he tried to ignore it. He was working a lot of night shifts now, not normal behavior for the chief. But they'd been shorthanded ever since the panic of a couple of months before. Having been up all night, he should have been exhausted but he wasn't.
     
    As he strolled down the streets of Brooklyn, he came upon a fitness center call Push Ups . The name had been stuck in his head for a day or so. He had been thinking about it because he had been thinking about the woman who worked there, the one who had brought in Karl Rappaport all those weeks before. Together, they had stood off against the zombies. When he had moved in to help one of the people in trouble, she had backed him up. He remembered her as being strong, as having a family to fight for. Looking in the window, he saw her. He couldn't remember her name but he would read it off of her name tag and pretend that he remembered.
     
    Going inside, he looked around. The gym was small by franchise standards. There were a couple of people walking the treadmills and one body builder type working out with the weights. Steam rolled out of the back where the showers were located. Peter took in the smell of the place and wondered just how many of the dead had passed through those doors. Then he looked at the woman behind the counter. She was pouring over a notebook, a pencil in her hand. She was tap tap tapping it on the counter in an annoying rhythm. He wasn't even sure she'd noticed him.
     
    "Ahem," he said, stepping up to her.
     
    She looked up, a bit bleary eyed. There was a flash of recognition in her eyes. She remembered him but she couldn't place his face. Considering the circumstances under which they had met, he thought that weird. Of course, she may have unconsciously clouded over many of the details of that day.
     
    "Hello, Abby," he said to her with a smile.
     
    She stared at his face for a moment, then searched the rest of him for clues. There was nothing about him that might indicate that he was a doctor. He didn't wear scrubs at work and even if he had, he'd probably have changed before leaving. Even with a coat, the early December wind had a way of cutting right through scrubs as if you weren't wearing anything at all.
     
    Finally, she gave up. She must have thought he was a customer because she put on a customer service face and said, "Good morning."
     
    "You don't remember me, do you?"
     
    And now she was nervous. There was a lot going on inside this poor woman's head, a lot of what had been going on inside of Peter's head. She needed what he had found. Past his breakdown and the tense,