Read War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale) for Free Online Page B

right paragon of motherhood and wifely virtue to the bitter end. She was a fuck-all saint, a woman to be adulated and emulated.
    And look at John Burke, that turd of a husband she left behind.
    Sure, Amy had died, but she didn’t lose her battle with cancer, John did. Her medical bills and hospital stays and pills and treatments had bankrupted them—and then she got sick again. They lost their home, their cars, their everything. John worked two jobs to pay for the fuck-all rinky-dink little place that was just a step up from a mobile home, and he wasn’t no white-collar turd who sat his ass at a desk all day. No, he was a mechanic by day and a stock boy by night. He worked like a man, just as he always had.
    It hadn’t been enough and slowly their possessions had been taken from them and eventually, like a friggin’ third grader, he found himself riding a fuck-all ten-speed to work because there were always new bills. Jaimee went about in cast-offs and sometimes John went without eating for days on end, all so Amy could be “brave” in the face of cancer.
    She was the martyr and he was the unshaven, bleary-eyed goon who went about all the livelong day with dirt under his nails and grease stains on his Goodwill rejects.
    It was an honest to God relief when she finally died. That’s what he felt when he saw her monitor finally flat line. There were no tears or sorrow or grief. John never mourned, not that anyone could tell. He left the hospital by the front doors, got on his ten-speed and rode home. Once in the quiet of his living room he drank beer and watched The Young and the Restless with his feet propped up on the arm of the couch, and all he could feel was this great sense of relief, of liberation.
    By the time Jaimee was dropped off by the sitter that day he had drunk all the beer in the house and was watching Oprah and not understanding the draw whatsoever. “Why do women like this shit?” he’d asked her.
    “Daidy!” she had cried. She had an accent as thick as his and when she said ‘Daddy’ it almost rhymed with lady. “Momma’s gonna be real mad with you when I tell her you been cussing again.”
    “About that,” he said. “I got some bad news. Momma died this morning.”
    Jaimee was just like her momma and took the news like a trooper. Oh yes, everyone marveled at how brave this little four-year-old was. Look how she fought back the tears and look how pretty she was in her little sundress that John had dyed black. With her pale blonde hair and her pert nose she was the spitting image of Amy Lynn. Everyone just gushed and marveled at her. They remarked about her toughness and her spirit. They said: Look at her strong jaw as she places them flowers on her momma’s grave . And look at that low father of hers out drinking away his paychecks .
    This wasn’t strictly true, however gossip was always better than fact. He had indeed begun drinking with the regularity of a Swiss watch, but he always made sure Jaimee was properly fed, that is when he remembered to stop by the grocery store. And he paid a local woman to sit for her and take her shopping for clothes. And he made sure she went to school and had friends.
    He loved Jaimee just as much as he had loved her momma. Though no one could tell from his reaction to Amy Lynn’s death. He had loved his wife so much it had felt like torture. Her pain had been his pain every fuck-all step of the way.
    Now he had to decide if he would allow Jaimee to be tortured just as he had been. His cough had started with a November cold and four months later it was only getting worse. It had been the same for his wife in the beginning and with each passing day he grew more certain that he had what she had. The symptoms were the same: a cough that wouldn’t leave, frequent sickness, pain in the shoulders and back.
    The big difference was that he was afraid of going to the doctors, not in the sense that he was a chicken, but in the sense he would have to face up to the