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

  I looked over my shoulder as we reached the fence and saw that the children had ceased their advance. The crawlers were still coming, but they were far enough away that we didn’t even need to climb the fence and escape through the equipment lot.

  Marshawn reached the fence first and hit it at a jog not realizing that I’d already pulled up. The fence made a metallic rattle that sounded much louder than it probably was in all reality. A sound from behind a small forklift parked in the lot caught us both by surprise.

  The children still remained in place which was a huge relief. The two big dogs that crawled out from behind the forklift were much scarier. Their ribs were visible enough that you could count them individually.

  Both animals pulled their lips back to reveal very wicked looking teeth. The lack of film over their eyes told me they were very much alive, although obviously starving. Still, their muzzles were coated with dried gore which had me searching the area. When I saw the legs jutting from under a toppled stack of pallets, I had an idea what had kept them fed. I didn’t see a ready source of water, but there was a good portion of the lot that I could not see clearly, so I assumed there was something somewhere.

  A closer look at those legs revealed that what I really saw were a pair of booted feet at the end of bones that had been stripped clean. In their current condition, I thought that they should be fairly easy to fight off, but that was not a theory I was willing to test.

  “They’re moving again.” Marshawn poked me in the ribs.

  I turned back to see that he was right, the zombie children and their entourage of cats were making their way in our direction again. It was almost as if—

  “They can see we are trapped,” Marshawn breathed.

  We weren’t exactly trapped. We could skirt the edge of this lot and slip down the back side of it…into what was definitely a neighborhood. Even from here I could see the destruction as well as a few shadowy figures stumbling along the streets.

  I decided I would rather take my chances with zombies that I could at least somewhat predict. We would have to go into the neighborhood and find our way from there.

  I started along the fence, only a little annoyed that the two dogs limped along making a huge fuss. One of them sort of threw itself at the fence when Marshawn got close because the path was so narrow and the brambles on our left were thick and nasty, promising to cause pain.

  I was just a step or two in front of him and lost my footing, falling to my knees. Out of instinct, I reached for the fence and felt a solid pain explode in my wrist. A second later, there was a crunch and a yelp. I rolled over to see Marshawn yanking a knife free from where he’d driven it into the eye socket of one of the dogs.

  The animal had not even hit the ground when its companion began to tear into it. I started to stand up, rubbing my wrist.

  “Did you have to kick me so hard?” I groused.

  “No, I coulda let you get your fingers bitten off.” Marshawn reached out and helped me to my feet. “Now get moving.”

  We scrambled along the path and in no time were to a point where the zombie children were no longer visible. That didn’t mean they’d stopped following us; that only meant we couldn’t see them for the moment. I, for one, did not trust that in the slightest.

  We pulled up at a tall wooden fence that ran along the back of a house that sat at the edge of this neighborhood. From what I could see, these were not houses on the upper end of the price scale. I was guessing this neighborhood to have been built in the 70s. Maybe even before.

  I could smell the undead and knew damn well that our relatively easy trip had just shifted into something much more dangerous.

  I joined Marshawn who had pulled himself up enough to get a look into the backyard. A rusty swing set was the only real form of decoration in the yard that was equal parts dying grass, weeds, and crab grass.

  There was a single step up to a small concrete pad that sat at the back door. The door itself had been white once but was now filthy, faded, and actually very inviting. Mostly because there was not a single splatter of blood on it.

  We both climbed over, crossing the yard slowly as we kept our eyes on the two windows that faced the back of the small house. Nothing seemed to stir, and none of the blinds moved at all. Again, these were all good signs. It didn’t promise that there would be no zombies inside, but this was at least a promising start.

  We reached the door and I gave the knob an experimental turn. I could not help but be surprised when it turned and the door opened just a crack.

  We waited a moment and I know that I gave an experimental sniff. The stench of the undead didn’t come flooding out. In fact, it seemed worse out here than it did inside.

  We opened the door, still staying alert for anything that might come lurching out of the shadows. Stepping inside, we were in a filthy kitchen. The sink was piled with dirty dishes that had long since molded and added their own stink, although it was just a normal one that we could ignore.

  The cupboards were all thrown open and I had to guess that the former residents had grabbed what they could and took off. Very little remained for us to scavenge, but I did find a jar of homemade pickles in the back of one of the cabinets.

  Grabbing it, I twisted the top and allowed the pungent vinegary smell to cleanse the odor of rot and decay as much as it could. Setting the jar down, I peeled off one glove and plucked one pickle from the brine and offered it to Marshawn. He wrinkled his nose, but he still removed a glove and accepted it.

  We both wandered through the empty house and ensured it was indeed vacant. Once we were certain, we returned to the living room and plopped down to finish our snack.

  “Well,” Marshawn groaned after his second pickle, “you think it is safe to venture out now?”

  “No, but I guess that we should do it anyway. We aren’t gonna get anything done sitting here.”

  “I saw what I am pretty sure was that small tavern that those people supposedly were using as their base. It is about three blocks up from that park with the zombie kids.” Marshawn grabbed his canteen and popped it open to take a drink. “If we can slip through this neighborhood, then we should be able to get there without dealing with those damn children.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  I took a drink and then we made another walk through of the house to see if we could scavenge anything before we headed out. Other than a half a tube of toothpaste that I considered a great find and a pint of some generic brand of vodka that Marshawn tucked inside his coat, there wasn’t much here worth taking.

  We went to the front door and peeked out the window beside it. The street was not that busy. I counted less than a dozen zombies scattered about. Getting out would be relatively easy as long as we stayed quiet and tried to hug the shadows and use cover as much as possible.

  My eyes traced a potential route for us, and after a moment of quiet conversation, Marshawn and I had agreed upon the path we would take.

  Opening the door as quietly as possible, I slipped out onto the rickety front porch, wincing at the slightest creak from the loose boards underfoot. We hopped to the ground, using the trees beside the porch as cover and moved in a crouch to the edge of the next house.

  A large hedge ran along the front which gave us excellent cover. We used it and when we reached the end, I pushed through as quietly as possible.

  I emerged and instantly threw myself backwards, colliding with Marshawn and sending us both tumbling to the ground in a heap.

  A low chorus of moans made the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end.

  The zombie children had gathered en masse, and I’d popped out with my head just a few feet from the nearest. As I’d fallen back, I was certain that every head had turned my direction.

  4

  Strangers

  I scrambled to my feet and brought my pointy-ended walking stick up and to the ready as the bushes vomited a horde of zombie children all reaching and clutching at the air for us. I’d seen them
revert to a “normal” zombie anytime they’d been confronted with a weapon. Since it was unlikely they’d seen mine, I had to guess that perhaps the sudden fright or whatever had been the catalyst.

  Marshawn was up as well and had a blade in each hand. We were both bracing for the first of the undead children when a moan from behind us made me spin around. A pair of regular adult zombies were trudging toward us from across the street, obviously drawn by all the racket.

  We needed to get the hell out of here. This was quickly reminding me why I didn’t want to venture into a neighborhood.

  Marshawn took off toward the regular undead and I came after him, hot on his heels. Both of us stepped up and made short work of the closest, but it was now clear that we’d rung the neighborhood dinner bell.

  Zombies were emerging from practically everywhere. I spun in reaction to a loud crash and saw three pour through a shattered living room window. This was another bit of proof to the age of this neighborhood, because that window had been nothing more than a single pane by the looks of the jagged remnants. I saw one of them struggle to its feet with an enormous shard of glass jutting from its face.

  A low moan brought me back around and I easily dispatched the next closest of the approaching undead with my blade plunging into the temple of a short, skinny woman with a chunk ripped out of her face that had allowed her left eye to come out at some point leaving behind a massive crater on that side of her head.

  We pushed on, breaking free of what was becoming a constricting noose of the undead. Our choices were to go straight, which would lead us deeper into the neighborhood, left which I was pretty sure would take us in the direction of that tavern where those people were supposedly hiding out, or right which I was certain would also take us into the neighborhood as well as towards the zombie children—provided I hadn’t been spun around in this little melee.

  I had not realized that neighborhoods were this bad. I’d guessed, and had seen some examples, but I think I’d been secretly hoping that maybe some of them had thinned out by now.

  It was not lost on me that I was only seeing adult versions. I had to guess that perhaps every child in this neighborhood had gathered together into that little pack we were now fleeing.

  Marshawn veered away from me to take down a trio of undead. All three were wearing scrubs and I shuddered to think of how many people in the medical profession had likely fallen in the first wave. Law enforcement as well as any other first responder types would likely be hard to find.

  I slowed as I approached a girl of perhaps twelve. She had been gutted, for lack of a better term, and had more of her insides dangling from the gaping hole in her gut than remained inside. Later I would need to try and figure out where the age cutoff might exist. She was clearly a child, but she was not exhibiting behavior I associated with the child versions.

  I let her close the last steps and brought my blade up under her chin. Snatching it back, I stepped over her downed corpse and kept pushing on for what I was hoping would be the right direction to the tavern.

  We cleared the neighborhood and arrived at an intersection with the highway that wound through Boring. I almost missed it because of how small it was, but my eyes finally found a sign that announced the “Not So Boring Bar & Grill”. There was a reader board out front announcing, “Sat nite par y wit RPM—9 M”. Obviously a few letters had fallen.

  I altered my direction and reached the tiny parking lot. I skidded to a stop in the gravel and felt my stomach turn.

  “Dammit!” I hissed.

  Staked to the ground were five dark-skinned individuals. Somebody had taken the time to drive four stakes into the ground for each of these poor bastards. It wasn’t hard to guess who considering that they had all been staked hand and foot with arms and legs out wide to make human Xs.

  Now, what remained were five undead. Each of them struggled and thrashed at my arrival. They snapped their teeth and moaned at me as I stood staring down at them. The savageness and brutality of their injuries were varied, but each gruesomely violent. The ones on the edges seemed to have taken the worst of it. But I had to imagine the horror of those fortunate to be in the center as they had undoubtedly been forced to watch the fate that awaited them.

  Again…there was no doubt as to the culprit.

  One of the victims, the one in the very center actually, was a dark-skinned woman. Profanity had been cut into her forehead.

  “Seriously,” I blurted. “The fucking world is falling apart…the dead are eating the living and this bastard has the time to do this?” I pointed at the woman for emphasis.

  I looked at Marshawn and saw absolutely no expression on his face. How could he not be blood-boiling pissed right now? After all we had seen, I didn’t understand how he was not grinding his teeth and seeing red.

  “We need to get out of the street,” Marshawn said.

  He looked back the way we’d come, and I saw a few of the undead stumbling from the street that emerged from the neighborhood we’d just escaped. One of the zombies in the lead of the pack looked like a moldy version of an extra from Deliverance. He was barefoot and wearing tattered coveralls. One of the straps had been unclasped and dangled in front of him. He was shirtless and I could see at least three individual chunks ripped from his shoulder and arms.

  I stepped around the writhing corpses on the ground and took maybe two steps before I spun and spiked each one in the head. By then, Deliverance-zombie was a few yards away. He opened his mouth to moan and ropy, grayish-black drool spilled from his lips. With a snarl, I rushed him and drove my spiked walking stick through his face.

  I couldn’t explain it if I had to, but for some reason, that guy made me think of every racist piece of crap I’d ever known. Hell, he could’ve been the nicest guy in the world in life, but at that moment, he was a symbol.

  I yanked my staff back and turned. Marshawn had not stopped to wait for or watch me. He was jogging up the highway.

  I took off after him, glad when he slowed up after what felt like forever. By the time I caught up, I was gasping for breath.

  “You need to get your shit together, Evan,” Marshawn said by way of greeting.

  At first I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. I squinted against the sting of sweat rolling into my eyes and then fell into step beside him.

  “Not sure I follow.”

  “Your emotions, man. You have them on your sleeve on the regular.”

  “You mean my getting pissed about what we just saw?” I couldn’t hide how incredulous I was at what he was saying. How was he not seething?

  “We already know what we are dealing with. Why would anything that human filth does come as a surprise to you? He’s hung children for Christ’s sake…based on skin color. So how is what we just saw with that sister back there any different?”

  “So we just stop caring about what an animal this guy is?” I snapped.

  “No, dumbass. That ain’t what I am saying. What I am saying is that you can’t keep letting your emotions get the best of you. People make mistakes when they get emotional. That’s how a mother fucker ends up dead.” He paused and even stopped walking as he turned to face me. “And if you screw up bad enough, I end up dead as well. That’s not something I plan on letting happen. You feel me?”

  I opened my mouth two or three times, but nothing would come out. Was he seriously getting on me about this? How could he not feel something? How could he not be seeing red right now?

  “I feel plenty,” he said as if reading my mind. “But here and now is not the time to be consumed by it. We are out here in the fucking wastelands for all intents and purposes. We could cut ourselves climbing a fence, get an infection and die…toss in zombies and crazy people…this is the worst possible situation to be in. We have to keep our heads if we want to have any chance of surviving this to return home. And hell, that’s even if we didn’t find this Don Evans prick.”

  “But how can you not be mad?” I winced at how weak my voice sounded to my o
wn ears.

  “You think I’m not pissed?”

  “You sure don’t—” I started, but Marshawn cut me off.

  “I want to skin the piece of shit alive. But if I let those emotions out, I might not be able to get them back in and I won’t be focused on what is happening in the here and now.”

  Marshawn turned and started walking again. I followed in silence for a while. I wasn’t sure what to say so I mulled over his reprimand for several minutes.

  Nothing sucks more when you know somebody is right, making you…wrong. The problem was how I could change things. It wasn’t something I was all that familiar with…the shutting off my feelings and not showing them.

  Stephanie had pulled those strings out a long time ago and I don’t think I knew how to cut them off or stuff things back inside. It was like the rubber bands inside a golf ball—once they were let free to uncoil, there was no way to make them fit inside again.

  As we continued up the two-lane highway, I lost myself in the thoughts of what was ahead for us. We were out in the Wilderness, as Marshawn called it. And we were going to murder another person. That was not a thought I could ever imagine just a short while ago.

  I’d already killed somebody on this excursion. A woman at that. I hadn’t been forced to do it. I’d made the choice. I knew there was no way I could let her go unless I wanted to be looking over my shoulder ever minute.

  “Hey,” Marshawn whispered.

  I froze.

  Looking around, I didn’t see anything. Not a zombie, and not a living person that was for sure.

  “Ahead and to the right,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “The light reflected off something and then the bushes moved.”

  I looked in the direction he indicated, but I didn’t see anything. I was about to say something when the distinctive crack of a rifle caused me to jump and then dive into the deep ditch that ran along the road to allow for the volumes of water that would come during a snowmelt.