Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Anthony Giangregorio

his ammo belt as he goes into a crouch that pushes his viscera through the now gaping hole; brains leave a head; the downed men writhe on the gore-soaked ground as wave upon wave of bul ets tear into their bodies.
    Forty-five seconds: Corvino keels over, his gun spinning from his hand: He twitches spastical y as he tries to crawl toward a truck. The parking lot is a firework display; as if punctuating the performance, one of the trucks (the one toward which Corvino crawls) explodes as a stray shel hits the gas tank, sending a firebal up up into the darkness, flaming gasoline spraying his smashed body.
    Fifty-seven seconds: Corvino continues to crawl, his intestines uncoiling snakelike as his body burns. He is dying for the second time. There is no pain.
    Sixty seconds: Corvino fades to black.
    Nick Packard pul ed the clip from the Ingram. His ears were ringing. Someone shouted, but whatever was cal ed did not register against the pealing bel s sounding out in glorious jubilation inside his head.
    The young policeman, who had joined the Washington force only six months before, had hardly ever used a gun. Now the Ingram felt like an extension of his right arm. And hot shit, did it feel good!
    Captain Stipe waved to the group composed of cops and civilians to advance. The flaming truck il uminated the carnage. Several gore-slicked zombies thrashed on the ground like maggots. One was trying to lift an M16 with a broken arm, so Packard fired a quick burst at the creature’s head.
    Take that, you friggin’ sonofabitch fuck-faced flesh-eater!
    “No more shooting!” shouted Stipe. Packard’s ears were beginning to clear.
    “Okay!”
    There were thirty of them: seven cops and a ragged assortment of men and women, their ages ranging from late teens to mid-fifties. Al were armed to the teeth with a wide selection of handguns, rifles, axes, pitchforks, a couple of crossbows, and numerous knives. One kid, a zit-covered geek, even had a homemade flamethrower, a Hudson sprayer/blow-torch combo that, despite its primitivism, could real y kick ass.
    “Packard,” Stipe signaled to the young cop. “You’re keen to wipe these things out, so finish ’em off.”
    “Fuckin’ A.”
    Packard fired three short bursts and the last of the dead meat stopped moving. Al but one.
    What remained of Dominic Corvino rol ed over, a final twitch of the death nerve. Packard plucked his .38 special from his hip holster and fired twice into the burning head of what had once been Dominic Corvino.
    Hel , you couldn’t be too careful these days .
    Stipe walked over to a bul et-riddled body that lay face down on the tarmac. The police captain pushed it over with his foot. “Government assholes.”
    “Say again?” Packard said as he drew near.
    “These are government dicks. I recognize this one.”
    “So what?” Packard hawked up a bal of phlegm, which he spat on the creature’s face. “They’re stil fuckin’ zombies. Dead scum.” He kicked the body, his boot breaking a rib.
    “Yes, but these were organized, right? They were working together, not running rampant. I mean, if some of these things are retaining intel igence, we’re in deeper shit than we think.”
    Stipe wiped the back of a hand across his forehead.
    He went to the back of the truck that was not on fire and unzipped a body bag. It contained the corpse of a smal child, a little girl about seven, shot through the chest, her once rosy cheeks dotted with chickenpoxlike splashes of dried blood.
    The child had been normal.
    “Sheeit!” Packard’s eyes widened. “This stil gets to me, especial y the kids. So what do you reckon?” He continued to look at the dead girl, her dimpled cheeks frozen marble under the light of the police captain’s torch.
    Stipe turned to him, his lips pursed.
    “I think it’s time we visited the White House.”
    6. A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned
    By Edward Bryant
    There once was a beautiful young woman with long hair the russet gold of ripe