Read Zombies! (Episode 7): Conflicts of Interest for Free Online Page B

would force him to transfer Linda over to Arthur Conroy but Captain Naughton never showed.
     
     
    Marcus worked through his day content enough with his life and the decisions he'd made. The one that stung was Shawn. The poor kid lay on a cot, feverish. They had done well cleaning and dressing the wound. They had gotten the bullet out, though there would be scarring. But it was a weak later and Shawn wasn't showing any signs of getting better. PJ had told Marcus to just kill him and be done with it. But, through it all, Marcus loved Shawn. He knew it was over between them. But that didn't change things. If Shawn worsened, Marcus would find a way to get him to a hospital. Even if it meant closing up shop and disappearing forever. He would not let Shawn die.
     
     
    Peter Ventura worked a regular shift at the ER, his mind occupied with thoughts of what would be when he met up with Abby that night. He knew she was important to his movement. When he had met up with the likes of Melissa Benford and Emily James, he had fueled their hate and absorbed much of it. But Abby brought a sense of reason to everything. They needed her more than anyone else in the group including him.
     
     
    The sun dropped below the horizon and the cold night began. Those who craved the day found their ways indoors. Those who craved the night dressed for it and linked up with each other all over the city. Peter showed up at Push Ups at exactly five o'clock. He had Melissa Benford with him. Though she didn't show it, Abby wasn't happy. She was still unsure of the relationship between Peter and Melissa although she knew it had something do with Melissa's lost son Jason. In many ways the anger that radiated from Melissa was triple what she'd felt from Emily James. Emily's was more pronounced, more visible, but that had a lot to do with her age and her upbringing. Melissa, on the other hand, was an adult, used to hardship but accepting of the lifestyle it brought. When her son had been taken by the zombie plague, it had been life's scorn. It had instilled in her something new, something vicious.
     
     
    "Let's go have some dinner," Abby said.
     
     
    They went and sat at the same deli where she'd met John Arrick a week before. It was the same deli where a young woman had been killed by a zombie only minutes after Abby had left. She'd heard about it on the news, seen the police tape in front of the restaurant. She'd wondered if Arrick had been there during the attack. Now she was sure he had. Though he hadn't told her as much, there was something changed in him. It wasn't so much that he was losing himself, but that he was finding out he was someone completely different than he'd ever thought. And, she guessed, he didn't particularly like who he was. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
     
     
    Abby ordered her very favorite sandwich while Peter and Melissa ate light. Tonight, she was hungry. When the food arrived, she didn't pick at it as she had the week before. Carrying on with this group was causing her a lot of trouble with Martin, but in the end she felt it would be worth it. If she could get them to see reason.
     
     
    "We are not the police," she said to them at last. When neither of them had any idea how to respond to that, she said. "It's not our job to stop the zombies or to stop the Zombie Rights Association ."
     
     
    "Someone has to," Peter interrupted.
     
     
    "But not us," Abby said quickly, then repeated, "We're not the police."
     
     
    "And what are they doing?"
     
     
    "Peter, if the police weren't doing their job, we'd have the apocalypse you're so afraid of. After three months of an infectious disease and the dead walking the Earth, here we are sitting in a restaurant and having a meal. I agree that someone needs to present a counterpoint to the ZRA . We can do that. We can do it through the web site. We can do it through protests. We can do it by working with the police whenever we discover something that needs to be dealt