Read THE SAGA OF THE DEAD SILENCER Book 1: Bleeding Kansas: A Novel Of The Zombie Apocalypse for Free Online Page A

waiting truck.
    The survivor fills out the paperwork on the clipboard held out by one of the government volunteers. Name, age, sex, approximate time of death. They get a numbered receipt for the body in lieu of an official death certificate.
    The narrat ion is unbearable to listen to. Platitudes, benedictions, tasteless frosting on an unspeakable cake. I think of Sibyl and Jack having to deal with their mother’s lifeless body. And I’m not there. I keep telling myself they’re capable and mature enough. Which they are. Still….
    The scene cuts to a park. There’s a long trench and yellow police tape all around.
    “This is just three blocks over,” Tanner says.
    “Yeah, we heard the backhoe earlier.” I’m looking at all the people behind the yellow tape. Even from the screen you can feel the tension of the crowd. They want to see their loved ones covered, even if it is with a backhoe.
    Tanner frowns. “This isn’t good.”
    “Why not?”
    He doesn’t take his eyes from the TV. “They’ve had some issues at some of these burials.”
    “I thought this was the first wave.”
    “The first wave here. Burials have been going on pretty much all day everywhere.”
    “So, aside from the logistics of burying so many people at once, what issues have they been having?”
    “There!” Tanner says.
    Most of the bodies are wrapped in sheets; the ones that aren’t are wrapped there at the park before being lowered into the ditch.
    One of the bodies is apparently resisting being wrapped up. A pale little girl kicks and flails at the sheet. The two wrapping her are knocked back on their rears as the girl sits up.
    “The hell?”
    “Watch!” says Tanner. He leans eagerly towards the image on the screen.
    A woman r uns screaming to the girl but is blocked by a Guardsman and his M4. He pushes the little girl’s mother so hard she falls backwards. Another Guardsman runs forward as the little girl falls atop one of the volunteers trying to wrap her up. It’s the volunteer’s turn to kick and flail now that the girl has her head nuzzled into her neck. Crimson spray erupts along either side of the girl’s head. The second Guardsman shoots twice, once into the girl’s head and again into the head of the injured volunteer.
    “Holy shit! Tanner, what do you know about this?”
    “It’s been a busy 12 to 18 hours. No one knows what to make of it. I’ve been reading messages from my sources overseas but I picked up a lot of intel just walking around with Officer Dalton. The cops and the Guard know all about this.”
    “ This ?”
    Two Guardsmen hold the screaming, kicking woman while two others pull the little girl from the body of the volunteer. Her face is blotted out with red. Bits of pale matter dot the clot of scarlet clenched between her tiny teeth. After some deliberation they toss the volunteer into the trench as well.
    I can’t believe what they’re showing next. The bodies of the little girl and the volunteer are lying on top of what looks like giant writhing maggots—the corpses struggling against their shrouds in the trench.
    “Yeah,” says Tanner. “They’re gonna have to close that up fast. Weird how so many of them will come back at once like that. It’s like that first one woke them up.”
    “What the blue screaming hell is going on here?”
    Tanner nods at the screen. A reporter speaks to the camera: “What we’re seeing here is a post-mortem reaction to the Final Flu. These are not your loved ones all of a sudden getting better. These are—”
    We hear the automatic gunfire echoing loudly among the buildings outside before hearing it on the TV. The camera swings away from the reporter to down the street from the park. A figure falls forward, a broad stripe of blood plastered from his mouth to his groin. As that one falls we see the man behind him, comically barefoot in his Sunday best suit. He’s clasping a woman to him. You can see the woman’s screaming face over his shoulder as he chews