Time of Zombies (Book 2): The Zombie Hunter's Wife by Jill James Page B

people didn’t
see through them. How they followed blindly. But there hadn’t been the
apocalypse before. Could the end of the world as you knew it really make you sheep
led to the slaughter? It wasn’t hard to imagine that lost people would flock
together if someone said they had the answer to it all.
    Jack killed the motor and turned
toward her. “Can you do this? You don’t have to. We can just go in as usual and
you can sit with us.”
    She plastered what she was sure was
as fake as smile as Bennett’s on her face and gazed up to Teddy with adoring,
puppy-dog eyes. “Showtime.”
    He grabbed her chin lightly and got
close to her as if he were lecturing her on her behavior. From outside it
probably looked a lot worse than it felt. She nodded her head and sat still in
her seat until Teddy got out, came around, and opened the door. Sliding out of
the truck, she took his hand and stared at the ground as they walked to the
building.
    The stench of the undead in and
surrounding the cages rose up and gagged her. She couldn’t have looked up if
she had wanted to, the need to pull her gun out of her boot and put them out of
their misery would have shown on her face. Her fingers twisted in the soft
fabric of her dress.
    She was yanked to a stop in front of
a pair of red cowboy boots. Really, red cowboy boots? Did anyone over the
age of ten own a pair of those? Teddy’s voice rumbled from beside her.
    “Reverend Bennett. Oh, sorry. Billy
Joe. I told you I’d bring my woman one of these days.”
    My woman? An exasperated sign almost escaped her . She looked up and caught
Bennett staring at her. With an intense glare, her vision softened and went out
of focus. Mitch had once told her it made her look as if she’d instantly lost
fifty IQ points.
    “This is Michelle. Honey, this is Reverend
Billy Joe Bennett.”
    The man grabbed her hand to shake.
“It is a pleasure to meet Mr. Ridgewood’s lady friend.”
    She gritted her back teeth until her
jaw popped while still smiling at the slimy man. He gazed at Teddy as if he
wanted to start a stud farm with the large man. She trembled when he turned his
gaze on her as if he were measuring her hips for breeding and her breasts for
feeding the future followers of his cult.
    Oh, hell to the no.

Chapter Eleven
     
     
     
    Rule #6    Trust no one in the
zombie apocalypse. The undead want to eat you and the living have their own
agenda. No one has your best interest but you.
     
     
     
    Michelle fingered the end of her
braid. Trying to not look around again, she forced her gaze on the pages of the
worn, borrowed Bible in her hand but the words blurred as tears flooded her
eyes again. Not one woman sitting around her on camp stools had hair longer
than a soldier’s buzz cut. Some had head wraps like the one Beth had been
wearing, although several seemed to be forced to show their chopped hair. One
woman had been smacked upside her head when she’d tried to pull her shawl over
her head in the frigid church. The spring-like warmth of outside refused to
penetrate the dark, cold room.
    Desperation and fear poured off the
women to flood her with a river of emotions. A plethora of hateful ideas to do
in Bennett and his men served to make the preacher’s words from the front a
bunch of blah, blah, blah like the drone of a dull classroom. Even if she
hadn’t been so angry, she still wouldn’t have listened to his mutilation of the
holy word. Every verse was bent to suit his twisted idea of how life should be.
She didn’t recognize Bennett’s God of vengeance and evil doings.
    The only thing that would have made
this worse would have been suffering through this with Maya at her side. She’d
been introduced to the little bitch when they’d come into the church. She’d
wanted to feel sorry for the teen bride to Billy Joe until the girl opened her
mouth and looked at Bennett as if she’d give him a blow job right there in
front of everyone if he’d asked her.
    She grimaced as she