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

“The last thing on my mind in that moment was some zombie taking a bite out of my wife.” Marshawn wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. “I ran up on that guy like I would any normal person who was putting hands on my wife. I jerked him away and he spun awkwardly and actually fell at my feet. When the stench hit me, I had no chance to stop myself and ended up staggering back to be sick. By the time I could recover, that son of a bitch had gotten to his feet and lunged back at Shonda.”

  We walked in silence again as Marshawn slipped into a bit of what appeared to be a trance. I wasn’t about to break into whatever he was struggling through. I was now almost certain that this was the first time he was voicing this terrible moment in his life with anybody.

  “Shonda’s screams drove me back to my feet and I charged the monster. We slammed back into the side of my car. I heard a nasty crack. When I pushed up and off the guy…the thing…I could see that his head was now just hanging limp. Its neck had been snapped to the point where it lolled in this sickening way. The creature was no longer attacking, but I could hear its teeth clicking as it bit at the empty air.

  “All I could think to do was get my girl and my baby into the house. It wasn’t until after I shut the door and leaned back against it that it even dawned on me how not a single person on my street had come out to see what was happening. But even that thought was only a blip as I tended to Shonda and her mangled arm.

  “I tried to call 9-1-1 and got that damned ‘all circuits are busy now’ message. With nobody coming, I had to take care of her myself.”

  Marshawn chuckled, and I had to look to make sure that he wasn’t breaking down. He glanced at me and even managed one of his huge grins that I knew so well.

  “She was crying and wailing, but she actually had the presence of mind to scold me for using one of her good towels when I came in to wrap up her arm. This was also before we’d been told the absoluteness of those tracers in the eyes.” Again, Marshawn went silent.

  As we walked along, the warm spring sunshine a direct contrast to the terrible emotions swirling on the man’s face, I pondered how fiction made these things so simple. A part of me felt that maybe this was the wrong time to be having this conversation. We were out in the open where anything could hit us at any time. Having Marshawn deep into his sentiments might not be the best option.

  “I saw her eyes and those dark…that hideous look that I had to believe at the time was just a trick of the light. She was crying and there was blood everywhere. My little girl was bawling, and I knew that thing was right outside my door.” After a deep breath he continued with his voice barely above a whisper. “We didn’t know anything yet. I took care of Shonda as best I could and went upstairs to get her some ibuprofen and fresh towels so I could try to keep her arm cleaned up.

  “I have no idea how long it took me to get her quieted and get my little girl settled in and stop crying. At some point, I was standing in the living room and I realized that I was hearing all kinds of sirens…and gunfire. We didn’t live in the best neighborhood, but it wasn’t gang central either. And this was not just a random pop or bang. There were flurries of it. Some were so close I was almost certain they were coming from right outside my door. And then there were the screams.”

  It went without saying. We’d all heard them. Hell, I doubted there could be anybody left alive at this point who hadn’t. Sort of like the smell. There were at least two universal constants when it came to the shared experience of the zombie apocalypse. Those had to be the most dominant.

  “With both of my girls asleep, I started cleaning up the mess. Blood was everywhere. It seemed that every single time I thought that I had it all cleaned up, I’d find another splatter drop. I think I became a bit obsessed.” Marshawn’s voice tightened, and I could hear the rasp as he strained with these words. “I never even considered for a moment that Shonda would die. It was a bite on the arm…right? And sure, she’d bled pretty bad, but not enough for blood loss to be that big of a concern. I’d seen plenty of people with much worse be perfectly fine. Hell, one rotation in the ER will set you straight on injuries that are potentially fatal.

  “I was in the kitchen. After cleaning the living room and bathroom…I guess I dropped into a kind of cleaning autopilot. I just needed the entire house to be spotless, ya know?” He began to grip the handle of the large machete hanging from his hip. “So, when I heard footsteps coming, I expected to see a worn-out Shonda. Maybe she would need a recap…be told it wasn’t some terrible nightmare or—”

  The sound of gunfire just around a large, sweeping bend that took us down at a fairly steep angle cut him off. We both stopped and instinctively drew our pistols. It’s strange, but if we encounter one of the walking dead, the habit is to reach for a blade or something that is not a firearm. However, if the source might be the living, the instant reaction is to grab a pistol or rifle.

  As the echo of what I was certain had to be a shotgun blast finished reverberating off the rolling hills surrounding us, I could make out the rattle and cough of an engine. The only vehicle we’d seen since leaving the base camp was the beat-up UPS truck. This sounded awfully similar.

  I pointed to the right side of the road and myself, then I pointed to the left and Marshawn. He nodded in understanding and we clasped hands in what could always be a permanent farewell.

  I ducked through the thick brush and used my spiked walking stick to move blackberry brambles aside. I reached a three-strand barbed wire fence and ducked between the top and middle strands. That put me in a massive open field. I could see a dilapidated old barn structure that had a very distinct lean to the left as if it was about to be folded down to the ground or like something from a kid’s pop-up book.

  The grass was about to mid-thigh and I had to figure that this was going to be beyond out of control before the end of the summer. I hugged the fence line as I headed toward the deep rumble that I was guessing to be the UPS truck.

  As I drew near enough that I could smell the exhaust and the telltale stench of the undead, I slowed. There was no reason for me to rush, but that damned curiosity ramped up to the point that I had to push through the brush. What I saw made me gasp. I doubted that I would ever get to the point where these sorts of things wouldn’t get to me and make my blood run cold.

  The man must’ve veered to avoid a collision with a small pack of about a dozen of the undead. He’d gone off the road and into the two or three-foot-deep ditch that ran alongside the road. He’d gone mostly through his windshield.

  His upper torso was dangling through the broken glass, and I could see a dark stream of blood dripping from his head and splashing the two zombies mounted to the front of the truck. They were squirming and snapping at the air to get at it.

  But that wasn’t the bad part.

  The undead had piled into the open front cab and gone to town on the man’s lower half. A pair of them were engaged in a gruesome tug-of-war involving part of a leg. More still were jostling for position like a litter of ten puppies each trying to nurse from only eight teats. They were ripping away chunks of the man’s lower extremities before being shoved aside for the next one to get in.

  I looked across the road and saw Marshawn poke through some pine trees. He took in the scene and then motioned for me to meet him up the road. I nodded and slipped back into the grassy field. It only took a few minutes for us to be around the sweeping bend in the road and reunited.

  “You don’t think we could’ve found something useful in that UPS truck?” I asked as we resumed our trek.

  “I think we will be able to find lots of stuff as we travel. No reason to put ourselves at risk like that. Pick and choose, that’s how we stay alive,” Marshawn said.

  I shrugged. I guessed that I could see his point. That truck was basically crawling with the undead. Considering they’d been the first ones we’d seen for a while, I had to agree there would be better opportunities.

  “I was asleep when Shonda attacked our little girl.”

  That sente
nce came out of the blue. It was also spoken so softly that I almost thought I’d imagined it.

  “I woke to a shriek that was beyond anything I had ever heard. Maybe because it was my baby girl…maybe my mind has amped it up into something bigger than it really was. But then she started crying and begging her mommy to stop…to stop biting her.”

  “Jesus, man…” I blurted. “I’m so damned sorry.”

  “I went into my little girl’s bedroom…Shonda…the thing that she’d become…she was clawing at my baby girl,” Marshawn continued like I had not said a word. “And I stood there.”

  And then we walked in quiet. The big man had sort of checked out on me. I glanced at him as we walked and could tell that he was miles away in the worst place possible these days: memories.

  I began to doubt that our expedition was going to fare well. In the best situation possible, we were heading into a woodchipper headfirst. We were outmanned, outgunned, and taking on the enemy in what would likely be his own territory.

  “She tore her fucking throat out, man.” The words came out as a sob. “And all the blood…it sprayed the walls, Shonda, her stuffed animals. I could see her little snowman all splattered in red like some twisted Disney parody. And…I slammed the door. I knew it was over. My little girl had stopped screaming and just lay there staring up at the ceiling while her mother ripped her belly open and tore pieces of her out.

  “I think I just passed out…fainted…whatever. Hell, maybe my mind simply switched off because it couldn’t deal. When I snapped back to the world, there was this pounding and scratching at the door to my daughter’s room. I knew it was both of them…that the television hadn’t been telling us the whole story. Still, didn’t want to believe it, but I knew, man. And in that moment, I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to do this without them. My whole reason for living was on the other side of that door, and in that moment, I understood how this would spiral out of control.

  “It didn’t matter that we had a kick ass military or that so many regular citizens owned firearms. People can’t just kill their loved ones…friends…family. We ain’t wired that way. All that crap about ‘taking care of each other if we turned’ is a bunch of damn fiction. I couldn’t imagine driving some spike into Shonda’s head…much less my baby girl’s. Hell, I was ready to let them just take me.” He paused and rubbed his side where his own bite scar existed.

  And in that moment, I knew how he’d been bitten.

  3

  Twists and Turns

  We made our way down the road without any real excitement. Neither of us had much to say and I almost allowed myself to enjoy the silence that is so prevalent in this dead world. It didn’t seem nearly as oppressive or ominous having somebody along with me.

  We were rolling into the later part of the day now, and that meant we would probably need to find a place to hunker down for the night. My first choice was a strip mall that I recalled being just ahead and around yet another of the many twists and turns that this road offered.

  If that didn’t pan out, there would be a gas station a bit further along. As a last ditch, we could try the Home Depot. What I didn’t want to do was wade into a residential area. They offered too many unpleasant possibilities.

  When we reached the strip mall, I wasn’t surprised to see the little pizza place and mini mart had been hit, front windows were busted, and the door on the pizza place had actually been ripped away completely.

  A small nail salon and beauty parlor (did they still call them that?) looked untouched. All we needed to do was make it inside without destroying a window or the door. That is always easier said than done.

  I pointed it out and Marshawn fell in beside me as I started up the shallow incline of the entry drive. Rotting corpses were scattered around the parking lot. Several were haphazardly piled just inside the entrance to the pizza place. They were pretty old looking. This place had fallen to a siege of the undead, but it had been weeks ago at least.

  I made a beeline for the door to the nail place. Reaching the front, I cupped my hands to the dirty glass and peered into the gloom. I didn’t see anything moving. That didn’t mean that the coast was clear. There looked to be at least one back room, what I was guessing to be a closet, and an alcove where I could see the hint of a desk.

  I thought back to when I’d broken into that vet’s office and figured the best way would be to repeat that method. I gave the door an experimental push and pull just to be sure, and then broke in the lower half of the glass front door.

  We crawled inside and discovered the place to be totally empty. After pushing a large cart in front of the hole, we moved to the back room through the archway at the rear of the salon and opened our packs to have a dinner of dried meat, a couple of carrots, and some trail mix. We washed it down with water and then settled back to relax for the night. I drifted off in the silence, Marshawn’s own soft snoring lulling me to sleep.

  ***

  “Hey,” Marshawn hissed in my ear, snapping me out of a dream that evaporated as soon as I opened my eyes, leaving behind only a cold sweat that told me it had likely been unpleasant.

  “Wha—” I started, but he put his hand over my mouth, silencing my bleary question.

  He pointed to the front window. I could see the first promises of morning sunlight filtering through a few of the trees that were scattered about the edge of the strip mall parking lot and across the road. He turned his head back to me and gave a single shake of his head.

  He got to his feet and I followed suit, wincing at the pain in my back. To add to my early pains, my butt was simultaneously numb and sore from sitting on the hard floor all night. If that was the worst thing to happen today, I’d call it a good day.

  Looking outside, I could not even see the road that we’d been travelling along. The undead were so thick, spilling over into the parking lot of the strip mall and into the ditch on the far side of the road.

  “What the holy hell?” I whispered.

  This group was not heading in any specific direction. They were simply standing around. A few moved a little one way or the other, but this mob was not going anywhere. It was almost like they were waiting for something…or somebody.

  “Any idea what fresh slice of hell this might be about?” Marshawn whispered.

  “Maybe they are all gonna drop dead?” My answer came out like more of a question, but I was equally confused. “Or they ran of batteries?”

  Marshawn snorted—whether in disgust or amusement I could not be certain. I took a look around and my eyes fell on the solid metal door on the back wall.

  “We could sneak out the back,” I offered.

  “That door is locked, and I couldn’t find any keys.” Marshawn turned to me. “There is no way we could bust it open and not draw those things to us. They would pour through that window like water.”

  I was about to say something else when a low roar that I could feel to my bones began. Not more than a few seconds later, I felt the ground beneath me shift.

  The building began to creak and groan as anything loose started to fall to the floor in a clatter that was mostly drowned out by the rumble that was now loud enough to almost hurt my ears. I staggered to one side and saw a crack start slowly and then race up one wall.

  Our choices were down to staying put and possibly being crushed to death by this building that did not seem sturdy enough to withstand the terrible shaking of what I now knew to be an earthquake or making a run for it outside where a horde of the undead stood waiting. The choices sucked but staying put was almost a definite death sentence.

  I made for the door and felt my body stagger to one side like I was an actor on the bridge of the Enterprise during one of those overdramatic attack scenes where everybody flailed from one side to the other. As I threw the door open, I saw what looked like a big ripple—the kind you might witness at a large pond—roll across the asphalt of the parking lot leaving cracks in its wake.

  As I staggered across the mostly open s
pace, I could see the undead toppling like dominoes. If you saw this scene from a distance, you might think they were nothing but unstable mannequins. As they fell, each of them remained basically frozen in place. I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly was going on. I took off at a run just as the earthquake ceased, heading up the gradually sloping road. I could hear Marshawn’s feet slapping the pavement behind me just a few paces away

  A few of the undead had wandered ahead of the larger group and I glanced at them as I passed by. They were all seeming to simply stare straight up at the sky. None of them appeared to notice our passing.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder. I expected to see the undead all struggling to their feet and coming for us, but not one of them moved. It was as if they were all frozen in place. We rounded a corner and I saw a single body lying in the driveway of the gas station just ahead. I veered toward it now that we were at least somewhat in the clear.

  As soon as I got close enough, the stench told me it was one of the undead. Drawing my blade, I moved in with caution. I reached the thing and looked down on what had once been a young woman in maybe her late teens or early twenties. Her blond hair was matted and clumped from the filth and blood that they’d been exposed to. Her throat was missing and all that existed where it had once been was a nasty hole.

  The zombie just stared up at me but made no attempt to reach for me. I toed it and jumped when it let out a soft, low moan.

  “What the unholy fuck,” Marshawn gasped.

  He joined me beside the seemingly impotent creature and whistled low between his teeth. After a moment, he also gave the creature a nudge with his booted foot. Again it moaned, but made no move to rise or grab at us.

  “Could this be it?” I asked out loud.

  “No idea,” he answered. “But we should make the best of this while we can.”

  We headed up the road toward a sign that announced a few small restaurants, a mini-mart, and a liquor store.