The shotgun guy got to ride a horse. Benny and Chong had to walk the fence line and stop every six or ten feet, grip the chain links, and shake it to make sure there were no breaks or rusted weak spots. That was okay for the first mile, but afterward the noise attracted the zoms, and by the middle of the third mile, Benny had to grab, shake, and release pretty fast to keep his fingers from getting bit. He wanted a close-up look, but he didn’t want to lose a finger over it. If he got bit, the shotgun guy would blast him on the spot. Depending on its size, a zom bite could turn someone from healthy to living dead in anything from a few hours to a few minutes, and in orientation, they told everyone that there was a zero-tolerance policy on infections.
“If the gun bulls even think you got nipped, they’ll blow you all to hell and gone,” said the trainer, “so be careful!”
By late morning Benny got his first chance to test the theory about seeing his zombified reflection in the eyes of one of the living dead. The zom was a squat man in the rags of what had once been a mail carrier’s uniform. Benny stood as close to the safe side of the fence as he dared, and the zom lumbered toward him, mouth working as if chewing, face as pale as dirty snow. Benny thought the zom must have been Hispanic. Or was still Hispanic. He wasn’t sure how that worked with the living dead. Most of the zoms still retained enough of their original skin color for Benny to tell one race from another, but as the sun continued to bake them year after year, the whole mass of them seemed to be heading toward a uniform grayness as if “the Living Dead” was a new ethnic category.