What I saw nearly broke my heart. Kara stood on the edge of the water, staring out at us. I could almost feel the waves of dark intensity flowing off her. I wanted to think it was longing in her eyes. Longing to be with us, but I feared it was an unholy, dark fury.
Her legion of the dead swarmed around her, skirting the edge of the water. Zombies weren’t afraid of much, but somewhere ingrained down in what was left of their primordial lizard brains was the fear of fire and running water. Fire usually could ward them off, but they would venture into water if either desperate or hungry enough.
More than once on our trip in, zombies dive-bombed us from bridges, but zombies were never all that smart. Maybe they thought jumping into the water from a bridge really wasn’t jumping into water, but they thought they were landing on boats. That was a much more challenging feat than their shriveled little brains could conceive. We had a couple of close calls, but in some instances, zombies did headers onto the land. That got rather ugly.
As I looked back at Kara, my insides felt as if someone were twisting them with barbed wire. If it hadn’t been against the man-code, I might have wept.
Why had she been cursed like this?
Why was I being tortured like this? I had done everything God had wanted me to do. I had risked everything, been beaten and battered, and lost friends. Certainly, there had to be some limit.
But when the truth was told, apparently, I wasn’t there. Probably not close if this is the way things were going.
That’s when Kara stepped into the water. Unlike me, she didn’t even wince at its icy coldness. She was up to her knees when her zombies followed her in. Like her, they showed no reaction.
Naveen couldn’t help herself and shouted, “No, Kara! Stay out of the water.”
Naveen had trouble conceiving that Kara didn’t feel the frigid waters like we would. She didn’t feel anything like we did. In fact, I’m not sure she even felt her humanity any longer.
She was up to her hips and surging toward us. More of the undead soldiers followed her in.
Alex said, “Good, get all of those undead sons of bitches in the water. Let them freeze all the way to hell.”
I didn’t look Alex’s way. I was transfixed on Kara, who had water washing around her at chest level by then. More and more of the undead entered the water behind her, intent on following their queen. Their queen of the dead.
“Stop looking at her and paddle, Joel,” Alex said in her cop voice.
Alex was right. I had to shake myself out of my trance. Kara and her undead army cut through the super-chilled water as if it were a warm bath, and they were making significant progress on us.
“Think of Naveen,” Alex said.
I looked Alex’s way and saw her churning her paddle through the water. Lori looked stricken, but while I was sure she had probably never paddled a boat before, she was pounding at the water with her paddle. I’m not sure how well she was doing, but their canoe was picking up speed.
“Naveen, do what you can to paddle,” I said.
“But it’s so sad,” she said.
“I know,” I said, “but we have to get out of here now.”
Despite her small size, Naveen followed my lead and began to paddle in earnest.
I looked back over my shoulder at her and said, “We’ll come back with the cure. We’ll save Kara.”
She looked at me, and I could see the tears in her eyes. “Yes, we will.”
I looked past her and saw Kara’s head disappear under the water. It was an eerie sight, but not as chilling as watching her deaders slip beneath the surface, following her to the ends of the earth.
I had no idea whether she would drown or not. That or freeze solid in the ice-cold waters.
A part of me hoped she would. Maybe that would end her suffering? But a bigger part of me desperately prayed she would surface, unharmed.
In the end, my responsibility at that moment was to keep Naveen safe. That’s what I told myself to keep me from turning around to pull Kara free from the water.
So, I kept paddling. Paddling south and away from Kara. Paddling toward a cure. Paddling for hope.
Chapter 46
A Note from the Author
Just a little about me. As a child, I wanted to be a lot of things. I wanted to be a paleontologist and then play centerfield for the Cincinnati Reds. But before any of that, I wanted to tell stories. I loved reading and I loved the places stories would take me.
With that in mind, I greatly hope you liked this book. If you did, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or wherever you can. Reviews are the social proof to other readers that this book is worth reading.
One final note, Books of the Dead 10 is being written now. It’s title is, Dead of Winter and it continues Joel’s adventures as he looks for some desperate way to save Kara from her terrible half-life. Look for it soon.
Other Books by R.J. Spears
Books of the Dead
Sanctuary from the Dead
Lord of the Dead
Dead Man’s Land
Into the Deadlands
The Living and the Dead
Dead Run
Dead End
The Living Dead Girl
The Deadland Chronicles
Running from the Dead
The Undead Horde
The Endless Dead
Siege of the Dead
Books of the Dead | Book 9 | Dead of Winter Page 22