White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel by Jason Campagna

one AK-47, a Chinese made SKS, 2 Springfield Armory .40 cal XDs, a twelve-gauge shotgun, and a .308 “deer” rifle.  He also managed to retrieve his .45 from the back of the house. The rest of the girls had moved the truck into the garage and collected food from the house.  Ginger also managed to get her husband some better looking clothes to put on.
    Ginger flipped on the radio while the other girls tried to get a cell phone signal.  Throughout the night, they exchanged stories and listened to intermittent emergency radio broadcasts.

 
    Chapter Six
     
    In Pittsburgh, three nurses rushed into Malone's room with a crash cart. Alarms screamed out the dead man's condition.  The bed stood empty, but a trail of lead wires guided their eyes to the standing figure of Malone who grabbed the closest nurse and pulled the man close. 
    "Restrain him," the male nurse ordered the others. 
    Malone's face sunk into the man's shoulder.
    "Fuck!" the nurse screamed.  "Get him off me."
    Malone and the man fell to the floor while the other two nurses tried to pull Malone's dead weight off him. 
    Malone pressed in on his victim taking bits of flesh in his mouth every time he could get his face close enough.  In the tussle, someone kicked the crash cart, and it wheeled back out into the hallway.
    One by one they stopped fighting Malone as life ebbed from their bodies.  Malone picked himself off the floor and left the room.  He walked down the hallway and out of the wing.  The level of the hospital that Malone had been admitted to housed a bridge that connected to the parking garage across the street.  The glass doors obliged Malone's advance by sliding open at his approach, and he shuffled out through them.
    Back in Malone's room, the lifeless medical staff picked themselves off the reddened floor and wandered back into the hallway.  In the abstract, they went back to work.  They rounded on the hundred or so other patients on the floor that were under their care.
    In the parking garage, Malone rounded a structural pier, and ran into a middle-aged woman carrying several helium balloons.  The woman threw her hands out at the naked Malone and somehow the balloons became wrapped around Malone's neck.
    This was all happening in front of a security camera, but no one was watching at the moment.  Security was responding to what they thought was some kind of riot from gang-bangers on the third floor.
    Malone lost interest in the woman fairly soon.  She had a heart condition and gave out to cardiac arrest after just a couple of moments of being eaten.  Her last thought as light vanished from her eyes was that she thought she was being raped.
    Malone left her and continued on.  His naked form dressed only in the balloons strung, around his neck reading, "It's A Boy!"
    On the bottom floor of the garage, Malone found the parking-lot attendant sitting in a tollbooth.  The Hispanic attendant was sitting on a stool and reading the sports page.  He listened to some kind of salsa music on his iPod.
    Malone's feet tripped on the curb in front of the open door to the booth and fell into the booth in front of the attendant. 
    The balloons wacked into the attendant's paper, and he found himself face to face with, "It's A Boy!"
    On the floor, Malone grabbed the man's ankle and bit with his teeth.
    The attendant jerked from the pain and fell over backwards off the stool.  His head cracked into the back of the booth dazing his vision. 
    In life, Malone was one of the rare birds who never enjoyed Mexican cuisine.  In his undead state, he didn’t mind it one bit.
    Malone crawled on top of the dazed attendant who continued to try and free himself. 
    The attendant strained to push Malone off him, but lacked the strength to break the larger man's weight.  Death pressed back down on him.  Fear turned to desperation, then exhaustion. 
    The zombie paid no attention to the despair and shock that set in on his victim's face.
    Malone finished his