I, Zombie Read Online Free Page A

sticky from a feed
the shuffle had shared earlier that day. What had been revolting the first few
nights was now something different. A knock against her neighbor was the only
touch she knew. If it wasn’t this, it was the frantic clawing from a woman
dying on the sidewalk, eyes wide with fear, shrieks turning to gurgles as
Jennifer devoured her from belly to neck. It was a small thing, these bumps in
the night. Small, but then it was the only .
    The shuffle moved through the pitch black streets by scent
and by feel, groans escaping from the most miserable among them. Evidence of
survivors became more apparent after dark. The living stirred in the tall
buildings with the bob and weave of flashlights, or the orangish flicker of
fires that burned where fires should never be. Jennifer remembered her days of
surviving. She remembered the black ring of char on carpets and expensive
hardwoods as folders full of projects that seemed so dire weeks ago were tossed
on as fuel for warmth. There were others up there doing today what weeks ago
she had done. How safe did they think they were? How secure? The attack could
come at any time for them. She knew. From out of nowhere, BAM! And then
the running, the metallic taste of fear and the hollow and cool rasp of
desperate lungs, the danger around every corner, new allies split up and
separated, friends becoming monsters, sitting in a stall in a men’s restroom,
heels tucked up on the seat, growing numb. Shivering, back when she could.
    Jennifer sniffed the air and saw the glitter of a fire high
up in the heavens. What was life like for the living up there? Had it changed?
Were people still subsisting on vending machine scraps? Food running low?
Fights breaking out as fear and hunger took hold? She remembered how lonely it
had felt. Anyone she had cared about or known had been stripped away from her,
gone. She was left surviving with strangers. Getting to know people the next
cubicle down. But they hadn’t been as alone as they’d imagined. The hallways
and floors of sameness had gradually become infested with small shuffles.
Jennifer remembered running. She remembered the boy who bit her. If she had
known, she would have just laid down and waited for her own eyes to dim, for
her soul to escape.
    The lights from a helicopter drifted among the stars,
faintly blinking. They had grown fewer in recent days. Jennifer had hoped they
would become more abundant. She had imagined them bringing supplies back in the
time when she’d known hope. She had dreamed of them coming to haul away the
living. Someone had said they’d seen this happen the first day or two. But
those were private helicopters or ones with television station numbers on the
side. The hunter green and black helicopters had soon replaced these, and they
now hovered warily and only at a distance. They did nothing. And gone were the
days of hope.
    Now, when Jennifer saw a helicopter, she didn’t imagine it
bringing supplies. She pictured instead a man inside with a long gun trained
across her shuffle. Shoot , she would plead to this young soldier. Do
it . It comforted her to imagine the warmth of a red dot on the center of
her forehead. She would silently scream and wave imagined limbs while she prayed
for the bullet—but it never came. The helicopters simply hovered and watched,
and Jennifer imagined they had their reasons. Maybe the members of the shuffle
were still considered citizens. Hadn’t there been a controversy once? Some
woman with a man’s name who had captivated America? A woman mostly gone,
obviously not able to do anything but suffer, and yet that’s all they would
allow her to do.
    Terry, right? What finally happened to her? Jennifer
couldn’t remember. The story had gone on too long for her to care.
    Maybe it would be the same for her and the shuffle. Maybe
the soldiers had orders to observe, nothing more. Maybe the politicians were
meeting in chambers somewhere and dithering. Maybe the rest of America