New DEAD series (Book 4): DEAD [Don Evans Must Die] Read online

  I wanted desperately to take all three of these guys down. Despite having what I was certain had to be a sizeable entourage following him, three people would make a difference. That was simple post-apocalyptic math.

  By now, they were giving up their backs to me. Things were looking very much like I would have my opportunity. I extended my pistol arm and gripped my weapon with both hands. Despite that, the moment I squinted one eye to take aim, I could see the slight wiggle of my weapon as my hands began to shake just a bit.

  I inhaled slowly and held it. The muzzle of my weapon was sighted in on the middle of the back of the man in the center of the trio. I’d made that choice with the hopes of causing the most disorientation. If the guy in the middle took a bullet, it was possible that he might trip up at least one of his companions.

  Holding my breath, I squeezed the trigger. The sound of my weapon firing was amplified by the echo as sound crashed off the underside of the bus and was reflected by the road. I didn’t wait, though. I shifted slightly left and fired again. I barely registered the first man I’d shot stumbling forward and going to his knees. The second man was as unlucky as I was fortunate when my bullet slammed into the back of his neck.

  That left one. He was spinning out of reflex, but his eyes had not even begun to scan under the bus. I fired three quick shots that hit him in the chest. Each bullet made him back up a step with its impact.

  Scurrying out from under the bus, I was almost crab-walking to them before I’d fully emerged. Once I was clear, I sprang to my feet and ran to them. Only one was still moving. The first one I’d shot was on his stomach and trying to pull himself away.

  Every image of brutality I’d seen in the past weeks at the hands of Don Evans and his people flashed in front of my eyes and I kicked the man in the ribs hard enough to lift him off the ground. He didn’t flip over, and so I kicked him again. Oddly enough, it took three more kicks before the man ended up on his back.

  He was looking up at me and a small voice in my mind recoiled. If this guy was even fifteen, I would be stunned. A look of terror filled his eyes and he opened his mouth, most likely in an attempt to plead for his life, but blood gushed out in a dark fountain. Rivulets ran down his chin and some of the droplets had come down to splatter his cheeks and even his forehead.

  My eyes fell on something dangling around his neck, and any pity or sympathy I felt was snuffed. A piece of dark leather like the type used as boot laces hung there. Three ears were dangling from that cord.

  Each of them obviously from a dark-skinned individual. I reached down and snatched it from the man’s neck and held it in front of his face like I would a tattered sock when Chewie was a pup and had gone through a period of fondness for my socks and Steph’s undergarments.

  “You piece of shit,” I hissed.

  Oddly enough, the look of fear was quickly replaced by one of hard defiance. Once more the boy opened his mouth, but I had no intention of letting whatever he might manage to spit out reach my ears. I stepped down on his throat.

  His eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets and his face began to turn a deep red. I stepped down harder, and that was when I heard a crunchy pop. I’d crushed his windpipe. I knew that for certain when I pulled my booted foot away and the boy continued to change from red to purple. His feet began to kick, and his heels pounded the pavement in futility.

  Once he quit moving, I looked around for signs of any more trouble. After I was as certain as possible that all was clear, I started off in the direction I was almost sure I’d heard Marshawn run.

  “Marshawn?” I called out.

  My only answer came in the form of yet another moan from a nearby zombie. After several minutes of searching and calling out in between putting down the occasional zombie, I came to an unsettling conclusion.

  I was alone.

  6

  All by Myself

  I crept up to the back door of the house and tapped on the sliding glass door. When nothing came pawing from the other side, I slid the door open and almost dove in.

  For the past three hours, hell, maybe longer—daylight was certainly waning—I’d been evading the zombie children. For whatever reason, they’d decided that I was their target and the bastards had been doing a lot to convince me they had something special about them. The group had broken into smaller clusters that had managed to basically surround me. It did not take long to realize they were trying to essentially herd me to a specific area.

  I realized it almost too late when I’d been escaping one pesky pack of kids that had cut off my escape from another group. I turned down a narrow bit of road that was little more than a pair of well-worn ruts from the countless tires that had once travelled up and down its length to a horseshoe shaped gravel strip with three houses set about it.

  Each of the houses had tall fences and it was clear that these folks had not welcomed strangers with the plentiful “No trespassing” signs nailed up all over. What made this a dead end were the barbed wire strands topping each of the fences.

  I’d had to throw my jacket over the top strand and climb over. When I cut across the yard and threw open the back gate after having to work furiously to get the bar that had been in place to keep it shut, I almost stumbled into the waiting arms of still more of the zombie children.

  I had to backpedal and actually tripped, falling on my butt. I had to roll to the side as a pair of the pint-sized fiends came at me with an odd degree of determination. This was not the hang back and wait approach I’d seen so often. Maybe that should’ve been my clue.

  I made it to my feet and dashed for the patio door of the house I was in the back yard of and threw it open in haste. The smell hit me at the same time as four children between the ages of maybe four and ten came lurching out of the shadows.

  The best I could figure was that maybe they’d been trapped inside. Somehow, the zombie children had made me the unwitting accomplice in freeing them.

  I had to turn around and duck back outside. Of course, by then, the children that had been outside the back gate were shambling across the yard. Luckily, they were still no more agile than the average walking corpse and I evaded them easily enough and darted back through the open gate and into the woods beyond.

  I came out of the woods to the back side of a new housing development. In fact, less than half of the homes had ever seen occupants. I chose one of the homes that at least appeared vacant. Still spooked from earlier, I’d taken the precaution of knocking on the sliding glass door.

  Now that I was inside and the adrenaline was being allowed to recede, I was suddenly exhausted. After going from room to room and making absolutely certain there were no surprises, I found a walk-in closet upstairs and flopped down on the floor.

  It took almost no time for the exhaustion to overwhelm me. I felt my eyes sliding shut, and I doubted I could’ve kept them open if I’d tried.

  ***

  When I woke, it was to an explosive crack that I first thought had to be a shotgun blast. I was still trying to find the doorknob of the closet when a flash of light burst through the cracks in the doorframe as well as underneath the door. A moment later, there was another rumble.

  “Thunder,” I whispered to the darkness. As my eyes adjusted to the near perfect black, I found the knob and opened the closet door.

  I stepped out into the empty bedroom that would never feel the warmth of a new family moving in. A set of french doors opened out onto a second-floor deck. I imagined it offered some sort of beautiful view once-upon-a-time. That was not the case now as I opened the doors to a driving rain. Another flash of lightning revealed dozens of undead drifting along the road, mindless of the downpour. It was likely that they were being drawn by the sounds of the thunder since that seemed to be the direction the storm was drifting.

  Every time a new flash of lightning came, I could see that there were still more zombies passing by. I very quietly pulled the door shut and retreated into the darkness of the empty bedroom.

  I h
ad not intended to fall back asleep, but obviously I did when I jerked my head up and cracked the back of it on the wall behind me. My eyes opened to a blinding brightness of sunshine.

  It seemed that the storm had passed. Getting back to my feet, I eased up to the doors and peered outside to find the street empty except or a lone zombie that was just standing in the middle of the street as if waiting for a signal to tell it where to go.

  I was also able to confirm my previous guess about this house offering a view. Across rolling fields and gentle hillsides, I could see the distinct outline of Mount Hood. Any other time, the view would be peaceful, relaxing, and enjoyable.

  Unfortunately, I had no idea where Marshawn could be…if he was even still alive. I’d lost my way running from those damn zombie children and would now have to try and find out exactly where I’d ended up. I had to at least get eyes on Don Evans and try to come up with a new plan.

  My new worry was that he’d been recruiting more likeminded idiots. That would likely mean that even if I could get a shot at him, snipe him from a distance, somebody would step right into his spot and continue on with their agenda.

  I was standing there, lost in thought when I caught movement to my left. I immediately stepped close to the wall so that I would have less of a chance of being seen.

  I scanned in the general area I was certain I’d seen movement. After what seemed like several minutes, I started to convince myself that I’d been seeing things…or, more accurately, imagining them. That was when a flash of something dark caught my eyes just a bit farther along a row of hedges that served to separate two lots.

  I continued watching and saw a second figure pop up in some tall grass of a lot that had not yet been cleared. The figure brought up a pair of binoculars and scanned across the rolling valley that unfurled into the horizon towards the mountain.

  I scanned in the direction they were looking and didn’t see anything, but since I had no idea what they were looking for, I might be staring right at whatever this mystery subject might be without knowing it.

  I continued to watch and was eventually rewarded with discovering exactly what I had to figure they’d been searching for when a signal flare burst in the sky. I was questioning their wisdom in giving away their position when a second flare popped up.

  From where I was watching, I could tell that these people were in a sort of a triangle formation from each other. I had to now consider that they were either hunting or scavenging. This was a group using coordinated efforts in some united purpose.

  Still, I had no idea what these people’s motives or demeanors might be and decided that it would be best to stay out of sight. As desperate as I was to find Marshawn, I knew better than to reveal myself to strangers. That thought was more than a little unsettling when placed beside the bigger picture of humanity’s ability to survive this new global extinction event.

  I continued to watch as the warm sun began to heat up things inside this house to the point where I was actually starting to sweat. The air was thick and muggy as the rising heat helped the wetness in the ground start to evaporate. The Pacific Northwest isn’t known for its heat or humidity like places in the South, but we still get it to a degree that is made to feel worse by how rare it is.

  I peeled off my jacket and tied it around my waist, and in that small amount of time, the group closest to me had emerged from their cover. One of them had a headset and was saying something. While I envied their technology, I knew it was a short-lived advantage that would eventually go by the wayside.

  I now had to guess they were part of a camp that had a generator or something providing them with power of a sort. I was pondering the possibilities when a second group of five appeared.

  The doors leading to the patio were open just slightly, and I could now hear them talking amongst themselves. They were still too far away for me to make anything out.

  My curiosity was getting the best of me and I decided to creep downstairs. Once on the main floor, I peeked through the crescent moon-shaped window inset in the front door to confirm they were still out there. Once I’d done that, I slipped through the house and out the back.

  Moving along the porch, I reached the gate to the wooden fence that enclosed the back yard and paused. If I held my breath, I could hear them talking, but still could not make out what was being said.

  I didn’t dare try to open the metal latch that kept the gate secure. Instead, I hurried across the back yard to the rear of the property, and after pausing and trying to determine if I might be able to be seen, I scrambled over.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and visualized where I’d seen this small group gathered. I went to where I figured the farthest corner of the fence would be in relation to them and crept along. I took the first corner and paused. Once I felt ready, I started along again until I could hear voices.

  Each step now became a chore as I scanned every bit of the ground to ensure I didn’t step on a stick or something that would make a noise and give me away. When I reached the end of the fence that would now put me right beside the empty driveway, I crouched down and held my breath.

  “…care what you think,” a man said in a gruff voice that screamed of chain smoking. “We lost three of our own and the rover saw something over in this direction. It don’t even matter if we catch the person responsible, as long as we come back with a living body to give over to Natasha.”

  “Why you think Natasha stayed behind this time?” a female voice said.

  “She still ain’t all the way recovered. One of my buddies says that the doc had to cut off another bit of her leg. I guess the stub was infected and startin’ to rot,” a young sounding man said.

  “I bet she didn’t even let him drug her,” the first man said. “I ain’t met no tougher bitch than her.”

  One of the others chuckled. “Man, I’d pay money to be in a room when she heard you call her that.”

  “I wasn’t callin’ her a damn thing.”

  The argument ensued, but I tuned them out. I now had confirmation that these were more of the bad guys. The issue was what I would do about it. I’d gotten lucky once. Did I think I could nail these guys without getting myself killed?

  I peered around the end of the fence.

  Six against one simply wasn’t realistic. Not to mention they had more showing up some time soon. Almost on cue, I heard somebody call out.

  “Nothing out our way,” a woman snarled.

  I chanced another look now that it seemed that all three groups had converged. This third group was decked out in hunter’s camo minus the orange vests. They all had rifles slung over one shoulder and a small arsenal of assorted small arms and blades dangling from them. What set this group apart was that they were also sporting backpacks.

  “Spotted some new fires out towards Kelso Road,” one of the pack toting men said as he pulled out a foil pouch and dug into it, stuffing what I guessed to be chewing tobacco into his mouth. A moment later he spat on the ground before continuing. “Since it don’t seem like whoever was sneakin’ around was dumb enough to stay, we’re gonna head that way and see if it might be a new target of interest.”

  “Them fellas from the jail show up yet?” a female voice asked. There was something to her tone that sounded like she might have more than a casual interest.

  “A few, I guess something went wrong at the jail and a patrol came back saying the place was a bust,” one of the men answered.

  “But Travis had a group hit that place. After they had a little fun, they were supposed to bring anybody worth a damn back with them,” the woman almost whined.

  “It’s the fuckin’ zombie apocalypse, Cassie. Shit don’t always go the way you hope,” one of the men snorted. “Guess that means you are gonna be back on the market with poor old Travis not makin’ it back.”

  “Fuck you, Dave,” the woman, Cassie I guess, snorted.

  I couldn’t see the two from my position, but I heard the distinct sound of a slap. It sounded pretty shar
p, but it was the deeper sound like dropping a roast on the counter, followed by a shriek that only partially allowed to come out before the shrieker apparently had the wind knocked out of them.

  “Hey, Dave,” the woman I recognized by voice as one of the ones wearing a pack snarled. “Why don’t you try that shit with me.”

  “The little bitch slapped me, Linda!” Dave protested. “You know as well as anybody how she been running ‘round like some sorta princess tellin’ folks how things was gonna be this way or that way when Travis showed up.”

  “Don’t let me see you put hands on a woman like that again,” Linda growled so low that I barely heard her.

  I ducked back down the fence. There was no way I would go up against this group. They were well armed and there were simply too many of them.

  I decided maybe this plan was a bust. I’d found where I believed Don Evans and his people were set up. I could go back to my people and gather an actual force. That would have to be enough.

  Once I was around back of the house I’d spent the night in, I took a moment to figure out what I should do. Obviously, it would be best if I returned to McIver and my people. Once there, I could ask for volunteers. We could make an actual plan and then hit Don Evans and his people who were now making Sandy High School into some sort of base.

  I already knew they’d acquired some heavy machinery and were fortifying the place. It seemed like a strange location to set up, but then, I couldn’t talk. I was setting up my own base at a freaking campground.

  “Hey!” a man shouted, causing me to look up and seek out the source of the voice.

  The first thing I realized was that it was awfully damn close. Then my eyes tracked the sound to its source. A man was standing just up the gradual slope that went up and away from where I was hunched down by the fence.

  My first thought was that I’d been discovered. When I saw that it was a trio, my stomach soured, and a bit of bile rose into the back of my throat. I was a dead man. Even if I could drop the three uphill at the edge of a tree line, the other nine around front would be on me in a flash and that was it.