ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel by Will Lemen

my knee and my chin on my hand. “The CDC did say that they thought the sickness had come from feral dogs. Maybe it mutated from rabies, you know hydrophobia , the fear of water."
    "Okay Jake, you want to check out that scope, let’s see if it is sighted in.”
    "Okay dad, what do you what me to do?"
    “Pick out one of them that’s close to the water and see if you can take out its knee. Try to get it to fall into the water," I instructed.
    Jake pulled the bolt back and then slammed it forward, inserting a bullet into the chamber of the hunting rifle.
    “How about the one in the yellow shirt?” Jacob asked, as he raised the rifle up and rested his cheek on the stock of the gun.
    “Sure," I said. "Go for the left knee though, it's closer to the water, and you might have a better chance of knocking the eater off balance and dropping it into the water.”
    “Roger that,” Jacob remarked, as he gently pressed the trigger back toward the rear of the gun.
    The violent report of the rifle broke the morning silence, and the left knee of the zombie in the yellow shirt exploded.
    The zombie didn’t have a chance to catch its balance. It belly flopped into the river, and it went crazy.
    While flopping and flailing around, it wasn’t swimming, I don’t think it could swim, it just churned up the water floundering around and splashing violently.
    After awhile it was able to find its way back onto the riverbank, accidentally I think.
    Even after making it out of the water, the hydrophobic dead man continued to shake and flail his arms around for a while, sometimes shaking like a wet dog and flipping water droplets onto other zombies, which caused them to quickly move away from him and form a kind of empty aura around him.
    Jacob started laughing hysterically at the comical way the zombie looked flopping around in the water, and at the antisocial way, the other zombies reacted to their wet comrade.
    The shot woke up everyone in the boat. Moreover, the shock of seeing the large horde of zombies on the bank soon rendered everyone wide-awake.
    “What’s going on?” Gin yelled, as she rose up quickly, startled by the gunshot.
    “We’re experimenting,” Jacob said, barely able to contain himself long enough to get the words out.
    “Well that thing is loud, next time give me some warning before you scare the hell out of me,” Gin replied angrily.
    “Okay mom,” Jacob said, still laughing.
    “What’s so funny Jake?” Billy demanded, just before he stretched his arms and yawned, a little pissed at being woken up so suddenly.
    “Well, we know for sure those things don’t like water!” Jacob chuckled. “You should have seen that! Look at it trying to stand up with only one good leg. Let’s see if I can do that again.”
    He raised the rife to take another shot and I quickly stopped him.
    “Don’t shoot another one, it’s a waste of ammo, and besides, I think we’re drawing too much attention to ourselves. We don’t know who or what might be within earshot of us. And we don’t need any unwanted company."
    “Looks like we already have some unwanted company!” Billy exclaimed.
    “Yes we do,” I said, noticing that the now one-legged dead cannibal that had just crawled out of the water seemed to be trying to convince its self to go back into the water and come after us. Yet it just couldn't seem to gather enough testicular fortitude to take another dip in the river.
    It was obvious that this zombie didn’t like the water and was very afraid of it, but the drive that it had to get to us, was almost as strong as its dread of the hydraulic fluid it had just crawled out of, and that scared us.
    I had to ask myself, how long it would be before these things might overcome the only fear that we had seen in them since this whole zombie apocalypse thing had started, and be able to attack us in the water.
    We slowly drifted down the river, past the creatures that had gathered on the riverbank, some of which tried to follow