“You can, but the power cable for that’s also a charger. I wanted to sit in my room and play, and it was almost out of battery. But I don’t know what I did with the charger.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, kid,” Jon said. “Just going to have to look harder.”
Spencer raised his eyebrow. “What are you guys doing in bed so late? And how can you be under those covers? It’s hot in this room.”
“We’ll see you in a little bit, Spence,” Carrie said, urging her son to get out.
“No, but seriously, why—”
“Spencer!” Jon said.
The kid laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, fine. Bye.”
When their son left the room, shutting the door behind him, both Jon and Carrie laughed, kissing each other once more. Carrie then rolled over and took her phone off of the nightstand. She switched it off of silent and it immediately beeped at her. As she began swiping the screen, it beeped at her a few more times.
“Do you really have to keep all those notifications on?” Jon asked. “Why do you need to know every time someone likes one of your food pictures or selfies?”
Keeping her nose to the screen, Carrie didn’t respond. She continued to scroll, her eyes darting over the device. Another notification chimed. Jon sighed.
“Seriously, babe. Do you—”
“Look,” Carrie said, finally putting down the phone and grabbing the television remote. She clicked on the TV and navigated to a national news channel.
Two talking heads appeared on the screen, and the bottom third read, “Several dozen more cases of the mysterious virus confirmed in Africa. WHO warns of a potential outbreak.”
Jon watched the report for a minute before scoffing. “They’re just trying to get eyeballs on their channel. That’s the clickbait world we live in now.”
“I don’t know,” Carrie said, holding up her phone. “This seems pretty serious. It’s all over my news feed.”
“And something else will be all over it tomorrow. Probably some political blunder, sex scandal, or racist bullshit.” Jon sat up and leaned over to kiss his wife on the cheek. “Everything is going to be fine.”
But as he looked into his wife’s pale face, he could see that she wasn’t so sure.
Carrie wore a purple pendulum around her neck, which she often turned to for guidance. Jon had never understood it, and had picked on her about it early on. But it was important to her and, over time, Jon had quit messing with her about it. She pulled the necklace off now and held the pendulum over her open palm as she concentrated on it.
Jon watched her, feeling a little awkward. He knew she asked it questions and was likely doing that now. His curiosity got the best of him.
“What are you asking it?”
She hesitated, finally looking over at him. “If we’re going to be okay through all of this.”
Jon looked at the pendulum and noticed it was moving slightly. He smiled. “Well, that’s good that it’s moving. It’s bad if it doesn’t move at all, right?”
Her face was pale, making Jon’s smile disappear. “It always moves. If it moves front to back, that’s a good thing. But it’s moving side to side, which means it’s giving me a no. As in, no, we aren’t going to be alright through all of this.”
4
“Alright, you ugly bastards.”
Jon measured up the remaining two zombies as he stood over the battered corpses of their two friends.
Next to his right foot lay what had once been a man. It hadn’t been turned very long, and Jon could see he had been in his 50s when alive. Now, he had a split in the back of his head from Jon’s hatchet.
Several feet away to his left, a woman lay near a bush. The rotted skin and missing patches of hair on her head told Jon that she’d been dead for at least a year, probably longer. It had been harder for him to take down women at first. But when one had jumped out from a backroom in a general store Jon had been scavenging only a few months after society fell, Jon had quickly learned not to discriminate. It had been easy to drive his knife into this one’s temple.
He glanced back and forth between the remaining two, hatchet in hand and his knife on his waist, where it was easily accessible if he needed it.
“Which one of you wants it first?”
Both creatures had been men before being turned and looked like they could have been twins. The dead fucks all started to look alike after a while.
Jon grew tired of waiting.
He raised the hatchet over his head and drove it into the forehead of the thing on the left. The skull cracked and exploded, sending matter and blood all over, including onto Jon’s face. The hatchet lodged in the zombie’s face and didn’t immediately come out, so Jon kicked the other monster in the stomach, sending it flying back against a tree and then onto the ground. He then reached behind his head and grabbed the baseball bat.
The creature snarled and pushed itself up, its back against the tree. Jon waited, resting the bat on his shoulder and tensing his muscles as the zombie worked its way up to its feet.
When it finally stood, Jon aimed and reared back. He came forward already swinging the bat as hard as he could.
The wooden barrel connected with the zombie’s nose, right where Jon had aimed. The blow rocked the zombie’s head back against the tree, and the rotting corpse couldn’t take the impact. The head exploded, sending fluid everywhere as the body slumped down the tree to the ground.
Jon stepped over to the other zombie he had just slain. He kicked it in the shoulder to confirm it was dead, then squatted down and wedged the hatchet out of its head. He glanced around the area, observed his four kills, and decided that was enough for the day. He returned both the hatchet and the bat to his back.
Following his tracks back out of the trees, Jon arrived at his bike. Opening his saddlebag, he pulled out a towel and wiped his face. He then used it to clean off his blade. Looking at the old cloth, he decided it was beyond saving now. He tossed it onto the ground and drew in a deep breath as he looked around. With the adrenaline wearing off, his brain began registering the pain in his arm. Still, Jon shrugged it off. He was used to being sore after hunting.
Jon had just lifted his leg over the saddle when he heard a woman scream nearby. He looked back, following the direction from which it had come. He remained still, listening for it again.
“Help!”
The scream sounded like it had come from inside the woods across the street. Hopping off his bike, Jon took his hatchet from his back and crossed the road. He crouched, keeping his footsteps light in stepping over the pavement. He made it to the edge of the trees as the scream came again. The woman sounded more desperate. Jon gave up on silence and hurried into the woods.
Forty yards into the trees, when he expected to hear the snarls of the dead bastards, he instead heard other humans. Men. He moved swiftly, careful not to make too much noise, finally seeing the humans beyond some trees.
“Stop it!” the woman said.
The woman had tears in her eyes as an overweight man held onto her arms from behind. Another man was on the ground on top of someone. Jon watched him raise his fist and bring it down onto the victim, ramming it into their face.
“You’re going to kill him!” the woman said. “Please stop it!”
“Maybe his black ass shouldn’t be walking around with a pretty white girl in the woods,” the man holding her said.
She lifted her foot and kicked her heel into the shin of the man holding her. He cried out, loosening his grip on the woman. She tried to get away, but he brought her back to him.
“Fucking cunt!”
The man turned the thin woman toward him and backhanded her across the face.
Jon had seen enough.
He stepped out from behind a tree and whistled. The only one who didn’t look his way was the man lying half-conscious on the ground.
“I know I didn’t just see you hit a woman.”
The man beating up the guy on the ground let go of th
e beaten man’s collar and stood. He had an inch or two on Jon and at least twenty pounds. He laced his bloody fingers together and popped his knuckles.
“Get the fuck out of here, man,” the guy said. “You don’t want to mess with us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Jon drove the hatchet into the tree next to him and took off his jacket, hanging it on a branch. He tossed his bat onto the ground. Then he stepped forward and raised his fists in a fighting stance. “I’ll even give you the first swing.”
The man laughed and glanced back at the overweight guy holding the woman.
“Get ‘em, Rog,” the plump guy said.
Rog shook his head. “You’re dead, motherfucker.”
He came at Jon and raised his fist. As Jon had promised, he gave Rog the first swing. The punch connected, sending Jon back but not onto the ground. The iron taste of blood hit Jon’s tongue, dripping from his lip. He wiped his mouth, then flashed a crimson smile at Rog.
“That all you got?”
Rog snorted and bared his teeth, raising his fist again. He reared back and lunged forward, aiming right for Jon’s nose.
Waiting until the last second, Jon shuffled to the right, moving out of the way. Rog’s fist kept going, though, soaring past Jon and landing in the tree behind him. The bones in Rog’s hand were crushed on impact, and the man screamed. He raised his hand to look at his mangled fingers, only to see blood pouring out and two of the fingers crooked like question marks.
Jon grabbed the stunned man by the hair on the back of his head and slammed his face into the tree. It hit the trunk with a splat, and Rog fell limply onto the ground.
Turning around, Jon looked at Rog’s buddy. The man shook, unsure of what he’d just seen. As Jon started toward him, the man let go of the woman, and then turned and ran.
Jon drew his knife from his waist. The guy was breathing hard as he moved, and once Jon was past the woman, he aimed and threw the knife. It entered the man’s calf, spraying blood, and he fell down screaming.
Jon walked over to him, taking his time. He pulled the knife out of the guy’s leg and the man screamed again. Jon kneeled down next to him as blood poured from the wound.
“You might want to be quiet. If I haven’t already killed all the deads in this area, they’ll follow your whiney voice… if they don’t already smell the blood.”
The man turned over onto his back. “Please don’t kill me, man.”
“That’d be too easy,” Jon said. “But I promise you this. If you happen to make it out of here and I see you hanging around these woods again, what I did to your friend or what the zombies would do to you if they found you here would seem merciful compared to what I’ll do.” Jon playfully slapped the man on his chubby face. “Now, I suggest you find a way to patch that shit up before you bleed out so you can limp your fat ass out of here before the deads come.”
Jon stood and made his way back over to the woman and the victim. The man had made it to his feet, his face already swelling and blood leaking from his mouth. He had his arm around the woman, who was holding him up.
“You alright?” Jon asked the man.
“Yeah,” the man said with a cough, clutching his ribs. “I’ll be fine.”
“Thank you so much,” the woman said, her green eyes staring at him. She pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes. “You have to let us repay you for helping us.”
“There’s nothing you can offer me,” Jon said. “Arm yourselves next time if you’re going to hang around these woods.”
He moved past them and headed back toward his bike.
“Wait,” the woman said.
Jon stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“You have to at least tell us who you are. We’ve seen you around. You can come back to our camp. There are good people there.”
Jon waited for a moment before replying without turning around to face the woman. “Go home.”
He walked away without ever looking back.
5
Her hand brushed across his leg, and he put down his e-reader and glanced over at her.
Carrie wore her sunglasses over her eyes, an oversized floppy hat on top of her head, and her smile shined brighter than the sun. The black one-piece swimsuit complemented her athletic body to perfection, which she worked hard to keep up at the age of forty-three.
“Whatcha readin’ over there?” Carrie asked in her sweet southern accent, which was only one of the things that had made Jon fall in love with her at first sight.
“I found this new author I like named Blake Crouch,” Jon said. “Been blowing through some of his books.”
“Does he write that horror stuff?”
“Kinda. It’s more thriller with some supernatural and sci-fi elements.”
“No, thanks.” Carrie removed her sunglasses, revealing her blue eyes, and wiped them with a cloth. “I’ll stick to my Nora Roberts.”
“You’re like an old lady.”
Carrie slapped him on the leg. “Watch it, mister.” She narrowed her eyes at him playfully before putting her sunglasses back on.
“Yes, ma’am. You keep hitting me like that, I’ll do whatever you want.”
Carrie grabbed his hand and they both looked out toward the ocean as Spencer emerged from the water to jog up the beach toward them.
“How’s the water feel, bud?” Jon asked.
“Great. You gonna come in?”
Jon nodded. “In just a few minutes.”
“Oh, Spencer, sweetie, your face is red. Did you forget to put sunblock on?”
“Oops.”
Carrie exhaled. “You can’t do that. You don’t want to burn or you’ll be miserable.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“I left the lotion up at the house.” Carrie squeezed Jon’s hand. “Do you mind running up to the house and grabbing it?”
Jon sighed. “I guess.” He pushed himself up, setting his e-reader down in his chair. He felt a sting on his ass as Carrie slapped it.
“Thanks, old man.”
Smiling, Jon leaned down and kissed her.
“Gross!” Spencer said.
“You’re twelve years old, and you still think that’s gross?” Jon shook his head and laughed.
“Just hurry up so we can throw the football!” Spencer said.
Jon rustled his son’s hair. “I’ll be back. Warm that arm up.”
Jon glanced down at his wife, who’d already laid back down and gotten comfortable again, her arms up behind her head and her eyes closed under the sunglasses. Then he marched through the sand and made his way back up to the rented beach house.
The house they’d rented sat beachfront in Garden City, their favorite place to stay near Myrtle Beach. They'd claimed a spot on the beach that was only around thirty yards from the house, so Jon didn’t have to walk far. He climbed the stairs up onto the patio and saw the bottle of sunscreen sitting on a table. He thought to run inside and grab a beer, but he’d already had two down on the beach. He wanted to get back and play football with Spencer.
But when he walked back down to the beach, he didn’t see his son. He used his hand as a visor and scanned the beach, but he didn’t see him. Then he noticed something else that was strange.
All that was left was the umbrella and chairs where his family had made camp. No one else was on the beach.
Jon jogged over there, the sand kicking up beneath his feet. He kept his eyes out on the beach, looking all around for Spencer even out in the ocean. He asked Carrie, “Have you seen Spence?”
No response.
Continuing to search, he reached down to grab his wife’s arm. “Sweetie, have you—”
The skin on Carrie’s arm felt frail. He looked down at her, and saw her face was covered entirely with the wide-brim hat. Reaching for it, he pulled it away from her face.
Her face was pale and worn. The sunglasses fell from her face, and he saw that her eyes had turned yellow.
Jon jerked away from her. “What the fuck?”
Then he heard a mellow snarl behind him. Slowly turning around to face the noise, he saw his son standing before him.
Only, the thing was no longer his son.
It had the same red eyes as Carrie, its skin frail and saliva dripping from its lips.
“No,” Jon mumbled.
The creature screamed and leaped at him.
“No!”
Jon sat up in bed, his mind instantly awake. He breathed heavily, sweat on his brow and all down his shivering arms. Looking around, he reminded himself that he wasn’t on the beach, but in the cabin instead. His labored breathing continued, but he brought his hands up to wipe his face and his eyes, and then he tossed the covers off and threw his legs over the side of the bed.
Leaning over, he rested his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands.
Another nightmare.
He grabbed the glass of water he’d left next to his bed and downed the rest of it. Standing, he looked at himself in the mirror.
His body was almost unrecognizable from who he’d been in the dream. That had been before the scars. Before, he’d only had a mark on the lower part of his stomach from appendicitis surgery. Now, he had cuts all over his body, all from zombie hunting.
Jon took a deep breath and turned away from the mirror. He grabbed his handgun off the dresser and stuffed it into the waist of his pants. He also retrieved a clean shirt off the nearby chair and threw it over his shoulder before heading into the other room.
The sun peeked in from the cabin’s east windows. It was later in the morning than he usually woke, which was surprising, considering how shitty he’d slept. One of the first things Jon saw when he walked into the living room was his bat resting against the wall in the corner. He’d planned on taking the day off from hunting to focus on some things around the house, but that was unlikely after the dream he’d had. He needed to let off some steam. Laundry and maintenance could wait.
He stepped out onto his front porch, wanting to check the weather. Gray clouds scattered in the sky were looking to soon hide the sun, and humidity in the air signaled that it might rain. But that didn’t matter to Jon. Depending on how hard it rained, he might wait to go out, but he would hunt today regardless.
Dead South Series (Book 1): Dead South Page 2