All-Day Breakfast by Adam Lewis Schroeder

Author:Adam Lewis Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: zombie;father
ISBN: 9781771620659
Publisher: D & M Publishers
Published: 2015-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

Sunday, October 30.

The fields looked crinkled with frost. We must’ve still been driving east, because the sun was coming up through the trees ahead of us. We’d driven for an hour, not finding enough road signs to be able to connect our blearily lettered Preston Chamber of Commerce map to the actual landscape, so we’d pulled over and slept, Harv and me in the front seats, and Colleen and the rest in the back. I suspect we all farted in our sleep. I woke up in the dark to doctor my burns again with antiseptic wipes, but they’d scabbed over—a medical marvel, sure enough. Colleen staggered back up to us as soon as I got the engine started.

I looked up at the sign again—the white letters said we were on Hutchens Road but could fork off onto gravel McCauley Road if we gave a damn.

“Go slow.” Colleen peered at the map. “Looks like the road’s pretty short.”

“What’ll we do when we find it?” asked Harv.

“Find a place to park,” I said.

“We’re awake back here,” yawned Megan.

“So don’t talk shit about us,” Franny said.

Used-up orchards appeared on either side of McCauley, row after row of upended trees in craters of black soil.

“Looks like somebody’s grandpa’s blowing them up as a long-term project.”

“Really?” asked Colleen. “Yours too?”

“Exploded half of Pawnee County. He was missing a finger too, come to think.”

I flexed my four-fingered hand on the wheel.

“You’re genetically disposed,” said Harv.

“Hey, G,” said Franny, “listen, we got another text from the God of Thunder.”

“Who?”

“Amber. Sent at three-thirty am. ‘We danced in the cooler for Grace but she didn’t notice. Sucks ass!’ she says. That does suck.”

“But then they got to eat,” Clint said. “Where’s our breakfast at?”

“Okay,” said Colleen, a shudder at the back of her voice. “I think this is it.”

I braked and we squinted to our right through the trembling aspens, the ambulance shuddering beneath us. A rambling white house stared back at us—peaked roof, windows, chimney. No cars or people in sight, but the tire tracks frozen in the mud made it look like vehicles came and went on a regular basis. A white picket gate and a path of overgrown bricks. A shed in the side yard, and what looked like a blue barn in the back—that lined up with the cop’s description. No chimney smoke, and though I could hear dogs barking they sounded far away, maybe at the next property. Harv unglued his eyes from the side window to look back at me.

“What’ll we do?”

“Um. Go in with my paramedic routine, play on the man’s sympathies.”

“I’ll come in with you,” said Colleen.

“Aren’t we all going?” asked Harv, eyes large.

“Well, hold on,” I said. “We’ve got one chance to do this with some kind of legitimacy, and I’m the only one who’s dressed for that.”

“Fuck that,” Franny hollered from the back, “we came to rip heads off!”

“Yeah,” Megan said faintly.

“I’m the only one,” I went on, “who’s dressed like he could legitimately, um.” My mind went blank. “Inquire.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.