mistake,” Cy said, “or you could do yourself a good bit of damage.”
And I have to sit next to him in the truck? Daniel thought. Maybe he should assert himself. Why let the priest be the one making all the decisions?
“We’re having a full town meeting tonight, Cy,” Edsel was saying. “Six o’clock at the community center. You might want to come, sort of hang around in back, gauge peoples’ reactions, help us choose the warriors of the faith who most deserve the glorious weapons God has chosen to give us through you, his vessel.”
“Sure thing.” Cy was always affable, even when he was spilling his crazy all over you. “Should I come armed?”
“Most certainly,” Edsel said.
“You know, in a way I’ve been preparing for this my whole life. Learning survival techniques. Guerilla warfare tactics. Living off the land. I didn’t expect zombies, exactly, but I knew something was coming.” He shook his head, then grinned his big crazy grin. “Goes to show you just never can tell.”
12. Philosophical Zombies
“T hat’s the emergency robo-call done.” Harry sat back, feeling like something was finally working halfway right. Maybe it would be the start of a trend. “The meeting’s on. Now give me something to tell them, Stevie Ray.”
“I wish I could. I can’t raise the state police.” Stevie Ray leaned back from the desk full of radio equipment and shook his head. “Not the sheriff either, and I’m not getting an answer from the National Guard unit.”
“What, you didn’t call Homeland Security?” Harry’s tone was halfway between mocking and genuinely outraged. No reason to let the civilians, or Stevie Ray either, know how worried that news made him. If they were really cut off…
“No luck there either. I get busy signals, faults on the line, or just plain empty hissing.”
“What are we going to do?” Otto said, those big pop-eyes of his bulging, made him look like a walleye. Otto had no more spine than an earthworm, but he could do what he was told, and he wasn’t as dumb as some, but Harry would have still sent him home if he hadn’t been a witness to the unmasking of a mass murderer.
“We’ll keep trying, Otto. That’s what we’ll do.”
“You guys bothered to check the internet?” Rufus pulled out one of those fancy new phones, all shiny and round-edged like some kind of technological chiclet. “That’s where the real news is going to break first… Huh. No signal. That’s weird. My coverage is usually good in the middle of town.”
“Internet’s down in here too,” Stevie Ray said. “I called over to WoBoCo, but didn’t get an answer.” WoBoCo was the town’s local internet service provider, and pretty much the only game in town unless you wanted to sign up with AOL, which not many people did anymore. At least those initials “AOL” stood for something—“WoBoCo” sounded like an abbreviation, but it wasn’t, that was just what the kid who ran the place decided to name it, thought it sounded cool. Harry didn’t care what he called it, so long as he kept the service up and running. Harry wasn’t a young man, but he liked young men’s games, and though he had a big TV and some of the next-gen gaming consoles, he couldn’t play his Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games without the internet, and if the lag got too bad he’d been known to make stern phone calls to WoBoCo personally.
“Of course you didn’t get an answer, you idiots.” Mr. Levitt was leaning against the bars of the single jail cell with his arms sticking through, like he was hoping to snag a passerby. God, Harry could have done without the reminder of his existence. A serial killer right here under his nose. That was a black eye and no mistake. Never mind that Harry was stretched pretty thin, being 75% of the police department (Stevie Ray was solid but he was only a part-timer), barely able to keep up with making sure drunks stayed off the road, kids stayed out
And I have to sit next to him in the truck? Daniel thought. Maybe he should assert himself. Why let the priest be the one making all the decisions?
“We’re having a full town meeting tonight, Cy,” Edsel was saying. “Six o’clock at the community center. You might want to come, sort of hang around in back, gauge peoples’ reactions, help us choose the warriors of the faith who most deserve the glorious weapons God has chosen to give us through you, his vessel.”
“Sure thing.” Cy was always affable, even when he was spilling his crazy all over you. “Should I come armed?”
“Most certainly,” Edsel said.
“You know, in a way I’ve been preparing for this my whole life. Learning survival techniques. Guerilla warfare tactics. Living off the land. I didn’t expect zombies, exactly, but I knew something was coming.” He shook his head, then grinned his big crazy grin. “Goes to show you just never can tell.”
12. Philosophical Zombies
“T hat’s the emergency robo-call done.” Harry sat back, feeling like something was finally working halfway right. Maybe it would be the start of a trend. “The meeting’s on. Now give me something to tell them, Stevie Ray.”
“I wish I could. I can’t raise the state police.” Stevie Ray leaned back from the desk full of radio equipment and shook his head. “Not the sheriff either, and I’m not getting an answer from the National Guard unit.”
“What, you didn’t call Homeland Security?” Harry’s tone was halfway between mocking and genuinely outraged. No reason to let the civilians, or Stevie Ray either, know how worried that news made him. If they were really cut off…
“No luck there either. I get busy signals, faults on the line, or just plain empty hissing.”
“What are we going to do?” Otto said, those big pop-eyes of his bulging, made him look like a walleye. Otto had no more spine than an earthworm, but he could do what he was told, and he wasn’t as dumb as some, but Harry would have still sent him home if he hadn’t been a witness to the unmasking of a mass murderer.
“We’ll keep trying, Otto. That’s what we’ll do.”
“You guys bothered to check the internet?” Rufus pulled out one of those fancy new phones, all shiny and round-edged like some kind of technological chiclet. “That’s where the real news is going to break first… Huh. No signal. That’s weird. My coverage is usually good in the middle of town.”
“Internet’s down in here too,” Stevie Ray said. “I called over to WoBoCo, but didn’t get an answer.” WoBoCo was the town’s local internet service provider, and pretty much the only game in town unless you wanted to sign up with AOL, which not many people did anymore. At least those initials “AOL” stood for something—“WoBoCo” sounded like an abbreviation, but it wasn’t, that was just what the kid who ran the place decided to name it, thought it sounded cool. Harry didn’t care what he called it, so long as he kept the service up and running. Harry wasn’t a young man, but he liked young men’s games, and though he had a big TV and some of the next-gen gaming consoles, he couldn’t play his Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games without the internet, and if the lag got too bad he’d been known to make stern phone calls to WoBoCo personally.
“Of course you didn’t get an answer, you idiots.” Mr. Levitt was leaning against the bars of the single jail cell with his arms sticking through, like he was hoping to snag a passerby. God, Harry could have done without the reminder of his existence. A serial killer right here under his nose. That was a black eye and no mistake. Never mind that Harry was stretched pretty thin, being 75% of the police department (Stevie Ray was solid but he was only a part-timer), barely able to keep up with making sure drunks stayed off the road, kids stayed out
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