Pour something strong. Leave a light on.
From
Eve Into Zombies
It was an hour since Jesse began his search before he saw his first squirrel of the day. I have you now you little bastard. The squirrel sat on a limb about midway up a Pine tree. The squirrel didn’t move at all just swayed in the breeze. It seemed as a statue staring out into the great beyond.
Jesse prepared for the shot. Well when opportunity presents itself then there’s no time to waste. He wasn’t as good a shot as Wyatt, but the scope on his .22 rifle was sighted in very well by the master himself: Wyatt, the Bane of Squirrels.
Jesse placed the cross-hairs on the squirrel’s head and fired. It dropped from the limb limp and without action.
He slipped over to where the squirrel fell. No need to walk in the open and give away his position to any more that may be in the trees. Hmm, that doesn’t look right. It was obvious he had hit his mark, but there were chunks of flesh missing from several spots on its body. It smelled putrid. Pus oozed from some of the wounds.
What the hell? Is this squirrel what I’ve been smelling all this time?
Jesse noticed several limbs moving in the tree tops as he pondered the carcass. The moving limbs signaled squirrels jumping. The funny thing was, they weren’t moving away from him, but in his direction. Now that’s not typical squirrel behavior.
He looked through the scope at one of them. At first it seemed like a normal squirrel making its way through the tree tops. Then, the squirrel came into full view. Holy shit. The squirrel’s ribs were exposed and the lower part of its jaw dangled freely only connected by a single tendon. The squirrel twitched its tail up and down to signal the others. It caught Jesse’s scent. A few more twitches and Jesse saw the tail snap off and fall to the ground. The squirrel didn’t notice what happened.
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From Chapter 1 of
Black Drop
Ed pulled up his sagging blue jeans and scratched the side of his head in thought. It was early Sunday morning, somewhere around 60 degrees, but he was already sweating profusely from his armpits. He was finally going to mow the lawn, but the aging lawnmower had other thoughts.
"I don't hear any mowing going on out there," Ed's wife, Brenda, yelled from a now open kitchen window in the aging house they called their home going on 30 years and some change.
"Not my fault. This no-count lawnmower isn't cooperating. I can't get the damn thing cranked," Ed called out and kicked it. Only a light kick. He didn't want to do any more damage than there already was to it.
"Well I told you to buy a John Deere, but no, you had to be different and get some off-the-wall brand all those years ago. I bet it would crank right up if it was a John Deere. So yeah, that's your fault." Brenda closed the window with a snap of wood on wood.
Ed took off his cap and wiped beaded sweat from his forehead with a hankie. He always carried around a hankie in his back pocket ever since he was a kid. It was a habit he picked up from his late dad so many years ago.
He'd checked everything he could think to check for the time being. Might as well walk back inside the house and get a drink of water. Maybe the solution would come to him once he'd rested for a bit.
The screen door banged behind him. Brenda was at the sink with her back to him, running water over a colander of butterbeans, and the radio on the windowsill was playing the gospel hour out of Shreveport, and the kitchen smelled like coffee and bacon grease the way it had smelled every Sunday morning of Ed's married life.
"You give up?" she said.
"I'm resting."
"That's giving up with a nap in it."
Ed got a jelly glass out of the cabinet and ran the tap and drank it standing there. The water tasted off. Not bad, exactly. Flat. A little like a penny held under your tongue. He looked into the glass. It was clear.
"Water taste funny to you?" he said.
"Water tastes like water."
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