Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown

  * * *

  He wasn’t a killer. Really. He wasn’t. He didn’t even step on spiders. Not big ones, anyway. Little ones, sure, so long as he couldn’t see their guts. But not the big ones.

  McGregor gripped the rifle harder. It was an awkward thing: too big, and funny-shaped, and he was sure it was going to be loud as well.

  He wasn’t a fighter. He read books. He translated. He put liquids in beakers and let them bubble and analysed the result.

  He did not execute zombies. That was what the other seven guys were for.

  And yet… that look Truman had given him before he’d left had clearly indicated that shooting this zombie would be far less dangerous than Mitchell finding out he hadn’t shot this zombie.

  Which was why he was going to shoot this zombie.

  Just… open the door, walk in, and shoot it in the face.

  It wasn’t like it had much to live for. It probably wasn’t even conscious. It was hard to be sure without an MRI, but it seemed to be only dimly aware of its surroundings.

  It was like a bug: reacting, not thinking.

  McGregor clutched the rifle in one hand and put his other hand on the doorknob. He took a deep breath. Quick. Painless. That was the way. Like a bandaid.

  But… what had this zombie done to him? Nothing, really. It hadn’t bitten him. Hadn’t attacked; not successfully, anyway. And it had been a good test subject. Hadn’t complained. Hadn’t really squirmed, even, once he’d worked out to distract it with Skylar’s head.

  And because of this zombie, McGregor thought he’d found the origin of all diseases. Surely that earned it a reprieve.

  Surely it didn’t deserve execution.

  On the whole, McGregor didn’t hold any grudge against the zombie on the other side of the door. And yet he was supposed to go in there and kill it?

  Well, Mitchell could just… he could just… he could stuff that, was what he could do. He could get one of his thugs to do it. Normson enjoyed pointlessly hurting things. Let Normson do it.

  McGregor dumped his rifle on the table, grabbed the Book of Three, and left the headquarters. He’d go to the hideout. That’s what he’d do. He’d go there and he’d do what he was supposed to do. What he was born to do.

  He’d translate.