Read The Dead Saga (Novella Part 2): Odium Origins for Free Online

the other zombie people. I think about the mother and child on the Ferris wheel and my gut twists painfully, and then I swallow down my sadness and anger.
    “They’re not your babies anymore. Your babies are in here now.” I reach across and touch her chest where her heart should be.
    She flinches against my touch but doesn’t move away, silent tears still pouring from her eyes.
    “And in here.” I touch her head, and she moans quietly against her loss. “They would want you to survive, to live.”
    I pull my hand back, placing it back in my lap, and wait again. After a minute she starts the engine and begins to back out of the space carefully. She goes to flip on her lights but I stop her before she does.
    “Not yet—wait till we get further away first.”
    She nods and continues to drive, dodging the cars and bodies the best she can in the dark. As we get to the main highway, she looks across to me.
    “Where to?” She flips her lights on, illuminating the zombie-ridden road in front of us. She gasps and quickly turns them off again as one by one the zombies look toward us.
    “Away from here as quick as you can would be a start,” I say as she steps on the accelerator and we speed away from the funfair.
    I look out my passenger window, watching the funfair fade into the distance. Thoughts of my best friend and a girl whose name I never knew are burned into my memory forever.
    “Rest in peace, Daryl and Brown Eyes,” I murmur.
    “Pardon?” Jessica glances nervously at me.
    I shake my head sadly. “Nothing.”
     

THE BOOK NERD
One.
Susan.
     
    I look down at the pots soaking in the sink, my hands already red and sore from all the scrubbing I’ve been doing. Two more plates and one pan to go. I can’t contain my sigh. I scratch at the crusted food on the side of the pan with my fingernail to see if it needs a little longer to soak—finding that it does since the cooked-on food doesn’t budge. I sigh again, though I know I probably shouldn’t complain: after all, I was the one who offered to host the dinner party for Ken’s work colleagues. If it helped Ken, then it helped him, us—me. If it meant he was happy and he left me to my own devices—left me to my books—then I was happy.
    When work was quiet, he hung around the house all day, bossing me and the cat around and leaving dirty laundry all over the floor. It’s always better when he’s at work. Everything just runs a little smoother.
    “Susan!” Ken hollers from the dining room, his loud voice echoing down the hall to me.
    I roll my eyes at the sudsy water and grip the edge of the sink. His voice is like nails down a blackboard to me—everything about the man has become unbearable. Maybe that’s the problem: maybe I’m the problem and not him. I look down at the dirty water again, my shoulders slumping, and sigh once more.
    “What is it, Ken?” I ask, already knowing what it is. It’s the same routine every night, regardless of if I’ve been slaving over the oven for most of the day. Or if I’ve cleaned the entire house from top to bottom, so that everything was set up for him to impress his boss. Yes, it’s the same routine every single night: I cook, I clean, he rules over me and the cat with an iron fist. So I know what is coming next, though I ask anyway.
    “Su-san!” he hollers again as if he didn’t hear my reply, punctuating my name in that way he knows irritates me.
    I dry my hands on a dishtowel, turn away from the dirty pots, and head toward the living room where my husband and his boss are—better be quick before he really loses his temper with me. I make my face more pleasant as I go into the room, turning my frown upside down and giving a smile to his colleague and then to him.
    “Yes, sweetie, what can I get for you?”
    He scowls at me, his jowls wobbling as he talks. “I was just telling Phil here what great chocolate chip brownies you make. Thought you could whip us up a batch.”
    “Sweetie, it’s eleven