Living With the Dead: This New Disease (Book 5) by Joshua Guess Page A

But what I feel right
now is an overwhelming desire to gloat over the deep-fried wings and
drumsticks of a new and hated enemy.

Now I'm going to go to
the clinic and make sure I didn't hurt myself too badly. My knees
feel like I've been reminded that I owe a mobster a large debt, and
I'm afraid I might have knocked a tooth loose on the door. I've had
chances over the last few years to feel like a hero, or at least like
I've done Good Things for the sake of others. Hell, I've even felt
like a badass once or twice.

Today? Not one of those
days.

Damn birds.

Friday,
April 6, 2012
Statement
    Posted
by  Josh
Guess It
seems like every time we start to see positives, right when our
emotional level starts to finally equalize, bad things happen. This
time it wasn't something that happened to New Haven, but it still
made for a terrible morning.

We got the word from our watchers
about half an hour ago.

The guard our people saved from a
zombie attack, who not long after started telling jokes at our
watchers across from his position at the fallback point, was just
getting off duty. The replacement sentries came to relieve him and
his partner as they always did, but with them came a squad of people.
That was new.

The additional group wore riot gear. You know
the kind: shiny and black, made to stop bullets and knives, covering
the entire body. There were four of them, heavily armed and walking
with the dangerous step of a wary person expecting violence.

Our
watchers couldn't hear the words being exchanged between the guards
going off duty and the armed and armored people who took him into
custody. It was a quick thing, maybe thirty seconds of heated
exchange and then our comedian was handcuffed. His partner backed
away, hands raised, which seemed to satisfy the captors.

A man
came out from under the darkened overhang of the parking garage
inside the fallback point. We'd blocked that off a long time ago, but
the Exiles made an opening once they moved in. The man wasn't tall,
but our folks relayed that he was big. Broad across the shoulders,
wearing a heavy coat and obviously well-fed. Not fat, but built like
a lineman. Used to work.

He walked up to the captive guard,
squatted down to talk to him. The big guy's long gray hair whipped in
the morning wind across both their faces, he was so close. The
watchers gave a detailed description of this person--the leader of
the Exiles, we assume--and it's one I'll remember. Scar going down
the left side of his face, jutting over sharply to just below his
mouth. Square jaw, heavy brows. Body language that screamed an
absolute lack of mercy.

How could the watchers tell that last
bit? Because when the captive guard began to thrash, trying valiantly
to get away, the scarred man hauled the poor guy up by his handcuffs.
Scar waved away the armored guards as they moved in to help him,
instead walking the captive right to the edge of the nearest bridge
until the guard's feet stuck halfway over the broken-toothed concrete
rim.

Scar didn't shout at our people, didn't make a gesture
toward them. He knew he was being watched. Knew that the chance he
was being sighted down a rifle scope approached a hundred percent.
The big man held the captive guard still with his right hand, and
pulled out a heavy revolver with his left. Without preamble, Scar put
the barrel against the head of his captive and pulled the
trigger.

The spray of blood and brains and pieces of skull
made it almost halfway across the river. The guard slumped
immediately, and Scar pushed him into the water before turning around
and walking away.

As messages go, this one couldn't have been
more clear had it been shouted to us from the heavens. We are not
your friends, it said. We are not your allies. We abide by the terms
of the truce because we have to, but we are and will remain
enemies.

That kind of candor would be refreshing if it hadn't
cost a man his life. Any movement our attitude toward the Exiles
might have made in positive