White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (best color ebook reader .txt) 📕

on your side in a dustup in high school, but who’d added fifty pounds of duff around the middle drinking rum and cokes and pounding chili cheese fries. Tommy joked around a lot, and he laughed a lot too. He always had an opinion, but mostly kept it to himself.

Maybe Evan was feeling more generous toward Tommy this morning because the whole Zombietown kerfuffle had worked out. Tommy had pulled Evan back from the brink of a straight-up raid—guns blazing and people running pell-mell into streams of bullets. This time, talking had been the better play. Tommy had been right about that.

Once Evan got inside the organizational machinery of Zombietown, he’d seen the solution right away: depose “Warlord A” and replace him with more-cooperative “Warlord B.” Evan would eventually have to figure out where to dump the gold chain guy, but it might be as simple as dragging him halfway across the valley and letting him loose on a farm like an unwanted mongrel.

For a second, Evan had thought about pulling the trigger and ending the problem right then and there. But he would’ve eventually had to explain himself, at least to his platoon.

“Blah, blah, blah. Here’s why I couldn’t let a man like that live…”

Jackass or not, the guy had been a cop. Operators and cops shared an understanding—a kinship of sorts. Even if the guy had gone a little sour during the apocalypse, with his stable of meth head sluts and with his shirt open like a pimp, he was still law enforcement, and that demanded a healthy sanity break before dropping the hammer. Apocalypse or not, a cop was a cop.

If Evan had shot up Zombietown, the zombies would’ve drifted back to the stacks of consumer goods in the strip club—like old ladies coming back to a preacher after he gets caught banging his secretary. Consumables would have a gravitational pull.

To move the zombies away from the State Street corridor, he’d have to relocate a butt-load of tampons, booze and Fruit Loops first. It was better to put the supplies in competent hands and give the guns to the highest caliber citizens possible. With any luck, Evan could set the place up as a “way station” for future Homestead forays down the length of the valley—like a trading post garrison. Maybe they could even shuttle some gasoline up to Zombietown for mid-town storage.

If Evan had shot the gold-chained-douchebag, the hot mama Tanya would’ve required an explanation. She’d grown opinions about his ops, and Evan couldn’t just remove her for speaking up like he’d been thinking about doing with Tommy.

While he watched Tommy laugh and joke, handing out rifles and revolvers to a line of bedraggled mothers and fathers, Evan marveled at how quickly Tanya had staked out ground in his heart. Somehow, she’d perceived his attraction and immediately set to work building on it to the advantage of her children—asking for resources and making tactical suggestions. For his part, Evan slid right into the role of protector.

What in the-ever-living-hell had happened there?

Evan scratched his head. He watched the next mom in Tommy’s line, this one dragging a dirty, little boy. She stepped up to the plastic table, hooked her finger in her hair and pulled it behind her ear, showing a bit more of her neck.

Tommy handed the little boy a hulking revolver while giving him a serious look, then laughed and pulled it back as the kid went to take it. Tommy smiled warmly at the worn out-looking mom, exchanged a few words, then handed her a nice bolt-action rifle. Tommy showed her how to load the mag and to work the bolt. He flicked the safety on and off for her, dug around, found a box of shells that matched the gun and gave it to her.

Just like that, she’d used some invisible power over Tommy to score a better gun and a box of shells. The same sorcery must’ve been used on him.

Of course, Evan wanted to score a romp with the hot mama. But he hadn’t given her the slightest indication of that. But somehow, just two days after meeting her, he found himself fretting about how she might scold him for offing some Gucci gasbag during an operation under his commanded. He already decided that she wouldn’t like him using his gun to solve problems, and it’d given him pause. He’d made operational decisions based upon a swirly-wirly weather pattern in his head that she controlled with her witch magic. And she’d done it all while saying only a few words on the matter.

Evan felt like a dumb lump of meat. Worse yet: he discovered that he’d already made his decision: his platoon would take Tanya and the kids with them when they moved south, and Evan would figure out relocation later.

His logic boiled down to this:

1. Taking them would be easier than telling her they were being left behind.

2. He liked the kids. Especially Reagan-Berkeley-Carter.

3. He liked women who knew their own minds, and this lady had made a couple of smart calls since he met her—like suggesting he ask the zombies to talk instead of assaulting.

4. Tanya was smoking hot.

5. If he were being totally honest with himself, Number Four probably should be moved up to Number One.

Tommy finished handing out the guns and stood up from the plastic table. He re-slung his rifle and hitched up his battle belt. Evan had been standing nearby the whole time, lost in thought.

“How’d I do, boss?” Tommy sauntered over to Evan.

“Oh, yeah. I wasn’t looking over your shoulder. I was just thinking about some things.”

“Gotcha,” Tommy smiled. “This turned out better than expected. Right?” Tommy lifted his chin at Zombietown. “Could’ve been a lot worse.”

“I’m not a big fan of you questioning my orders—at least not in front of the guys,” Evan changed subjects. He was pissed about being such a tool for the Hot Mama Tanya, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. So he took a bite