Page 2

Once he had his gear up the tower, he debated leaving the keys in the ignition. He'd seen far to many horror movies where some bimbo gets slaughtered cause she suddenly has 500,000 keys on her chain and has to try out all the new ones while Freddy Krueger is breaking Olympic records in her direction.

But then, when the top predator in the world's max speed is a gimpy shamble, and all the car thieves are dead, what did it matter? He left the keys in the car and climbed back up the tower and started chanting lyrics from a band called Clutch.

"Perhaps it's just the way the light falls
But everything looks like a target to me
And I don't where the gun is
But I'm certain it's pointed at me
And in the jungle wretched jungle
They say the lion sleeps tonight
And all around it is a coliseum
Dripping with a voracious appetite
I said hey
There fella
Whose soul are you tormenting now
Hey
There fella
Whose soul are you tormenting now
Hey
There fella
Whose soul are you tormenting now"

He started dancing, spinning around the cramped roof, jumping up and down the supplies, ignoring the ledge he skated so close to.

"In the course of all the previous events
It is evident that something is about to happen
Come on rear your ugly head to me
I have nothing to lose but my apathy
The root of the problem has been isolated
The root of the problem has been isolated
The root of the problem has been isolated
The root of the problem has been isolated"

He verged on insanity in that moment, and brandished his pistol at the sky and fired three rounds at the sun. He screamed.

"Come on motherfucker come on motherfucker
Come on mother fucker come on motherfucker
Come on motherfucker just try me
Just rear your ugly fucking head
And I'll put it on a platter
Come on motherfucker let's throw down."

He skipped lines, repeated others, but he was frenzied by the finish, shivering with rage and dripping with sweat. However insane he had looked, he knew he was the sanest man in Jasper County. He had made his smoke signal; let them come to him now.

That they did, and he waited, calmly, as they shuffled out of the suburbs of Joplin, what had once been his home. They came from all directions--- from the high school down the road, the trailer park across the road, Oronogo (not many zombies would come from there), and a nice middle class development that bordered the chat pile.

He waited for them to come into range. He had all day. He had no reason to hurry.

Where had they gone? There had been 60,000 people in Joplin alone. He had imagined thousands of them unfolding from the city like clowns out of that stupid car. But there were only hundreds of them. Maybe they had died--- or were following other people! He almost dropped his rifle at that idea, and fumbled with it for a very scary second (oh shit oh shit I don't have that much .45) before he sat down to think about that possibility. What if most people had just retreated… the zombies would follow meat. They wouldn't hang around here for the leftovers. No, these fuckers made Topsy recommend appetite suppressants. Could they be chasing other people?

But that meant there would be barrier of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of zombies between him and the nearest group… and they would assume everyone was dead of fled from here. They no doubt had better things to do than look for the occasional holdout. He fired three quick rounds and dropped three zombies in frustration.

He snorted. Whatever. He was here, they were wherever, and zombies were in his crosshair. He got to work. The sharp blat of his rifle attracted more zombies, until he had a freak show milling around below him that would have made P.T. Barnum yarf.

Most of them were chomped on pretty seriously and quite a few had useless, hanging limbs from were their creator had eaten a tendon (Very rare with a smidgen of connective tissue please) or two along with the rest of the meal.

Where the lamers the only who stayed behind? John found that prospect disturbing. It indicated a slightly higher level of intelligence than that possessed by pet rock. He'd thought disabled zombies would just be chugging along after the pack, the Zombie That Could. John started thinking he should be planning to make a quick exit. He saved up his ammo and let the enemy approach. He tried to sleep, but couldn't, and had to shoot two zombies who got scarily close to the top by moonlight. By frightening, he meant they appeared to have some idea that it was theoretically possible to "climb things" and were planning on see if this far-fetched theory held any water. During the night, especially a night spent surrounded by a couple hundred ravening undead, the meaning of the word frightening dropped fast. The next morning at daylight he grabbed his rifle and started popping.

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