Resurrection: A Zombie Novel by - (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

“Is there anything I can do?” Kyle said.

Parker should have been the one to say that. Annie would have been impressed.

“You can open that bottle of water,” Annie said.

Kyle twisted the cap off the bottle of water and handed it to her.

Carol moaned and reached toward her shoulder where she’d been bitten. Her shirt was soaked with blood, but the bleeding seemed to be slowing. It wasn’t pooling underneath her.

“Don’t touch it,” Annie said. “You’ll just make it worse.”

She’d also risk spreading the infection to everyone else if she got blood all over her hands, but Parker didn’t say anything. They were all covered in blood splatters anyway.

“Don’t wait for me,” Carol said. “Just set me down on the sidewalk.”

“The hell we will,” Hughes said.

“Shh,” Annie said. “We aren’t going to do that to you.”

“You need to get to that island,” Carol said and tried to sit up. “It will be dark soon and you should get going. It isn’t safe here.”

“We’re going to wait,” Kyle said.

It took everything Parker had to keep quiet. Carol was right. It would be dark in a couple of hours. Then what? Were they supposed to sit out there exposed as the sun went down while she lay there in pain? Someone should put the poor woman out of her misery.

He supposed the humane thing would be to wait for her to pass out. Everyone passes out for an hour or so before turning. She wouldn’t feel a thing when they put her down.

Or was that the humane thing to do? They were all risking their lives just sitting there in the intersection. And for what? So Carol wouldn’t be awake when somebody put a round through her head? She’d die instantly. She wouldn’t feel anything. Instead she had to lie there in agony while knowing she was about to turn into one of those things. Who wanted to spend their last hours that way?

Parker sure as hell didn’t. Once this was all over, he’d make damn sure to tell everyone to shoot him dead on the spot if one of those things ever bites him. Kyle, at least, would gleefully take him up on that offer.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Carol said woozily. She was fading. Good. Maybe they could get out of there.

Nobody said anything. The silence of the world was overwhelming. Parker thought he might hear a pinecone falling as far away as Idaho if somebody didn’t say anything soon. He scratched his face. Kyle looked at him sideways as if he’d just belched in church. What was he supposed to do? His beard itched.

Annie kept stroking Carol’s forehead. No one else moved or said anything. Frank looked as uncomfortable as Parker felt.

“I didn’t want to live in this world anyway,” Carol said. “I was just so afraid.”

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” Annie said.

“I was silly for being so scared,” Carol said. “It hurt for a couple of minutes, but now I’m okay.”

No, she wasn’t okay. She wasn’t even remotely okay.

“You won’t let me turn, will you?” she said. “I want to just go to sleep.”

“We won’t let you turn,” Kyle said.

Parker wondered, Who was this we Kyle referred to? Somebody had to do the deed, and Parker couldn’t see Kyle stepping up for the job.

“Can you not do it now, though?” Carol said. “Can you wait until my little coma?”

“We’ll wait, honey,” Annie said. “We’ll wait.”

“I’m sorry to ask you this, Carol,” Hughes said. “But … how do you want us to do it?”

“What difference does it make?” Parker said. “She won’t feel anything.” God, did he actually say that?

“You,” Kyle said, “are seriously an asshole.”