Excerpt From New Series: Zero

For those interested, I'm still grinding on Kid Sensation #6.  In the meantime, in keeping with a request for excerpts from other series that I have in the works, here's a short one from a "zombie apocalypse" story I've been working on (working title: Zero).  As always, the usual caveats apply (mainly that this hasn't been proofed):

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The men looked hard and dangerous, like they’d been in enough scrapes to know how to handle themselves. Zero knew the look and the type. He was on treacherous ground here. (It also didn’t help that he had just narrowly escaped being lunch for a troop of zombs. He was exhausted by the ordeal, and it showed.)

“That’s far enough,” Zero said, rifle at the ready. “Grab your gear, turn around and go. You’re not welcome here.”

Two of the men looked at the third (obviously the leader), who seemed to be sizing up the situation. Zero knew what the man was thinking, as clearly as if he could read his mind: there was only one of him – visibly beat and weary – and three of them.

“Just hold on” the leader said. “We’re not looking for trouble. We just thought there might be something we could use around this place.”

“There’s nothing for you here,”  Zero replied.  “Move on.”

“We’re not looking for a handout,” the man said, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. “We’d be interested in trading.” The man kept talking – saying something about taking some things out of his bag – but Zero had essentially tuned him out, wasn’t listening any more. Instead, he was watching the men, their hands, their feet.

As the leader talked, thinking he had Zero’s attention, the other two slowly, craftily tried to step away and fan out. One of them, the younger one, seemed more surefooted, shifty. Obviously sensing an opportunity, his right hand lazily drifted towards the gun at his waist. 
     Zero shot him in the eye. The man’s head exploded like a watermelon stuffed with dynamite.

The leader stopped speaking, struck dumb as gore splattered him and his friend’s nigh-headless body slid to the ground.

“What the hell!” shrieked the fat one. “You just killed him! Didn’t even fire a warning shot!”

Zero almost laughed. Warning shots were like dodo birds – extinct (along with the people who used them). The current philosophy was that it a person merited a warning shot, then you probably needed to plant a slug in them. Why waste a bullet?