Dead America: Lowcountry | Book 3 | Lowcountry [Part 3]

by Slaton, Derek

  “Three egg ham and cheese omelette?” Ace asked, buzzing like a kid at Christmas. “Who’s in?”

  Dante shrugged. “Might as well,” he replied. “Probably going to be awhile before we can have another one.”

  “Lil?” Ace asked, pointing at her with the egg carton.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have one.” She looked around, spotting the large coffee maker against the wall. “I’ll get us some coffee going, too,” she said. “What kind do you want?”

  “Whatever sounds good to you,” Dante replied with a smile. “As long as it’s hot and full of cream, I’m good.”

  Ace clapped his hands. “He likes his coffee like I like my women!” he cried. “Hey-oh!”

  Lily rolled her eyes and headed for the coffee maker as her boisterous cousin cracked open eggs with flair, dropping them onto the hot plate and mixing in ingredients like a seasoned pro.

  “Looks like you’ve done that before,” Dante said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms.

  Ace grinned and saluted him with the spatula. “Worked at my uncle’s restaurant through high school,” he explained. “A few things stuck with me.”

  “Lucky for us,” Dante replied.

  “Coffee will be ready in five minutes or so,” Lily said as she headed back over to them.

  Dante nodded at her gratefully, and then Ace inclined his head to him as he fussed over the omelettes.

  “Okay Scarface,” he began, “how are we doing this today?”

  “Figured we’d take your truck into Beaufort,” Dante replied with a shrug, “and get what we need to get. Then hit the store on the way out.”

  Lily nodded, leaning against the counter next to him. “If things don’t look too bad, we may want to check out the Marine base,” she suggested. “It’s on the north side of town.”

  “I suppose so,” Ace replied, drawing out his words. “If anybody is going to have their shit together, it’s going to be those boys.”

  Dante nodded. “We can certainly do that,” he agreed. “So who do we want to take with us?”

  “I love Cam and Phillip to death,” Lily said with a wince, “but I could kick both their asses at the same tie. Not sure they’re going to be much use out there.”

  Dante frowned. “Same thing with Bailey,” he admitted. “Don’t know what we’re going to be running into out there, but she’s going to be more of a liability than an asset in a fight.”

  “We can still put ‘em to work, though,” Ace cut in. “Sooner or later some of those things might work their way through here, so we’re gonna want to get the house fortified.”

  Lily nodded. “It should be safe enough for them to clear this place out, too,” she suggested.

  “But not any of the houses,” Dante added, putting up a hand. “Could still have those zombies, or whatever they are, locked up in there. They don’t need to be dealing with that.”

  Ace barked a laugh. “Holy shit, zombies?” he asked incredulously.

  “You got a better name for them?” Dante challenged, raising his eyebrow.

  The shorter man pursed his lips for a moment in thought and then shook his head as he flipped the omelettes. “Well… not really,” he admitted. “Guess that’ll work.” He checked the food and then snapped his fingers in victory before grabbing three plates and dishing up breakfast. “Alright y’all, eat up! Looks like we got a long one ahead of us.”

  The trio took the plates, savoring the fresh hot meal that was surely to be one of the last they’d be having for a long while.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The trio headed down the street, bellies full from their big breakfast. They sipped at their large paper to-go cups of coffee, Lily carrying a tray of three more for the others.

  As they approached the house, they spotted Bailey on the front steps, hugging her knees. When she saw them she leapt up and ran over to them.

  “Are you okay?” Dante asked when he noticed her red-rimmed eyes.

  She nodded jerkily, forcing a smile. “Yeah, I am,” she said shakily. “Just… had a bad dream, and when I woke up, you guys were gone. I just… freaked out a little.”

  Guilt washed over him for having left without telling the others, and he put his arm around her to calm her down. She leaned into him, letting out a deep sigh of relief, and he gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze as they headed back to the house.

  “Are the others up?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, they were flipping through channels when I went outside,” she said.

  “Let’s go see if they found anything good,” he suggested, and they walked up the stairs and back inside.

  Cam and Phillip were sprawled on the couch, watching an old black and white gangster movie. They both looked up, eyes lighting up at the tray in Lily’s hand.

  Ace glanced at the TV and then back to the guys. “You boys know I have movies, don’t you?” he drawled.

  “Just trying to enjoy the thrill of finding something while flipping through channels,” Phillip replied with a shrug.

  Lily laughed and held out a cup of coffee to Bailey. “Slim pickings, I take it?” she asked, setting the tray with the other two on the coffee table.

  Cam held up the remote and started flicking through channels as Phillip dove for one of the coffees. Virtually every one was either a blue screen or a static Please stand by image.

  “Guessing the news networks are out of commission?” Dante asked, letting go of Bailey to sit on the arm of the couch.

  Cam nodded. “All of the cable ones are gone,” he explained, “which isn’t surprising since they’re either in New York or L.A.”

  “What about the local one?” Lily asked.

  He flipped it over and the scrolling message at the bottom of the screen was still there, but was different.

  Day two… still locked inside. Whatever those things are, several of them are in the control room. Please, if anybody is out there, come get me.

  “We’d better get to it,” Dante said, taking a deep breath. “You want to get our gear?”

  Ace nodded, chugging the last of his coffee and vanishing into his bedroom.

  Bailey wrapped her hands around her cup, but didn’t take a sip. “Are we going to get my family?” she asked, eyes hopeful.

  “We are, but you’re not,” Dante replied gently.

  Her brow furrowed. “But… why?” she asked.

  “Because we need people who can fight,” Lily cut in, and glanced at the couch. “Same goes for you two losers.”

  The boys flipped her off in unison, but relaxed, used to her good-natured abuse. Bailey looked dejected, chewing her lip, but nodded in agreement.

  “Don’t worry,” Dante assured her, “we’ll get your family. You just need to show us where they are.” He spotted a notebook laying on a shelf by the door, and grabbed it along with a pen, holding it out to her. “Can you draw us a map? Give us anything that might help us?”

  She nodded vigorously, and took the supplies, plonking herself down on the couch and setting her cup on the coffee table.

  “Hey, y’all come get your stuff,” Ace called from the bedroom.

  Dante and Lily headed inside, where their host had stuck a crate on the bed. He cracked open the lid, revealing several weapons. There was a shotgun, a hunting rifle, and a few handguns. Several large knives in sheaths were piled up along the one side.

  “It ain’t much, but should give us a fighting chance when we run into these…” Ace paused, wrinkling his nose. “Zombies.”

  Dante reached in and plucked out a handgun, an extra mag, and a knife. Lily snatched the shotgun, grinning.

  “That’s pretty big Lil,” her cousin teased, “you think you can handle it?”

  She glared at him and loaded up a few shells, forcefully cocking it. Ace playfully held up his palms in surrender.

  Dante picked through the rest of the crate, only spotting two extra handgun mags. “You have any more of these hiding somewhere?” he asked.

&nbs
p; Ace shook his head. “That shit was expensive, man,” he drawled. “Decided to spend the money on more ammo so I could shoot more.”

  “Hard to argue with that logic,” Dante admitted, and handed one of the mags over to the shorter man, pocketing the other one. Each of them attached a knife holster to their belts, and then headed back out to the living room where Bailey sat, clutching her finished map in her hands.

  “Here you go,” she said, standing up and holding the paper out to Dante.

  He stared at it, running his finger along her crude drawing. “So if I’m reading this right,” he said as he traced the lines, “we get across this big bridge and then head south? And it’s what, a mile down or so before turning?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, nodding as she sidled up next to him to point it out. “It’s the first main turnoff after the bridge, and it connects to my street.”

  Lily regarded the paper from the other side. “And the TV station?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Bailey replied, and took the map out of Dante’s hands, studying it for a moment before clicking the pen open and drawing a side road off of her street. She put a big X where the studio was. “Just go up about three more blocks and hang a right, you’ll see it.” She handed the map back over and then snapped her fingers. “Oh, and one more thing.” She headed over to the corner where she’d left her work vest after waking up and plucked her name tag off of it. “My mother is a lot of things, but trusting isn’t exactly one of them,” she said as she headed back over and extended the tag to Dante. “She might freak out when you come knocking, especially since my sisters are in there. Just show her this and she’ll come around.”

  He nodded, pocketing the tag. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll bring ‘em back safe.”

  She smiled thinly and then sat back down on the couch.

  “So what do you want us to do in the meantime?” Cam piped up, taking a noisy sip from his cup.

  Ace jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I got some wood out back by the shed,” he drawled. “Find you’s some hammer and nails, and start fortifying this place.”

  “You can also go up to the gas station and start clearing out anything that might be useful,” Lily added. “Food, drinks, medicine, whatever you can find.”

  Dante held up a hand. “Just don’t go into any of the houses,” he said firmly. “We’ll clear them as a group once we get back.”

  “Get a couple gas cans too and fill ‘em up,” Ace added. “I got a generator out back for when the power goes out.”

  There was a long stretch of silence as the thought of having no power settled over each of them. The world was crumbling to the ground around them, and it was only a matter of time before the power was all gone.

  “We’d better get moving,” Dante finally said.

  They headed outside, and the three travelers got into the large black pickup as the three staying stood on the porch to watch them go. Lily sat in the middle, wriggling to get comfortable as Ace fired up the beastly vehicle.

  “Hold on to your butts,” he declared, and peeled out of the driveway, fishtailing a bit as he squealed towards Beaufort.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ace pulled the truck to a stop just shy of the highway 170 bridge. The three of them looked out over the bridge spanning the massive inlet, trying to take it all in.

  The two-lane sides of the bridge had a large gap in between. To the left side was a massive pileup, with a transfer truck jackknifed and several smaller vehicles pinned beneath it. Just behind that, several cars and trucks were in a massive pileup, apparently unable to stop. Then the original wreck happened.

  Even though they were a hundred yards away from the cars, they could still see movement inside. Trapped zombies flailed at the glass, trying to escape their metal tombs.

  The right road was completely clear, with the exception of a lone abandoned vehicle on the far side of the road. As they peered into the distance, there were a few zombies outside of the pileup wandering around, emerging from behind the wreckage.

  “You think there’s anybody alive in there?” Lily asked.

  Dante shook his head. “Looks like there was a violent crash,” he replied. “If they did survive, I doubt we’re going to have a way to get them out. Still, we’ll have a look as we go by.”

  “Guess that’s my cue,” Ace said brightly, and hit the gas, though he drove at a far slower pace than he had been before.

  When they came up alongside the wreckage, he all but stopped the truck. A few of the zombies by the crash rushed towards them, but hit the concrete barrier. One smacked into it with so much force that it toppled over, careening down to the water below.

  Ace barked a laugh. “Ain’t the brightest bulbs, are they?” he asked.

  “Be thankful for that,” Dante replied dryly.

  “Oh, I am,” Ace assured him. “That shit was just funny as hell.”

  Lily smacked his arm, and he groaned playfully as if it had hurt terribly.

  “Come on, cuz,” she said, motioning him forward, “let’s get going. I don’t see anybody alive in there.”

  The trio sat silently as they moved up the road, pausing at the car on their side. There were bloody handprints on the driver’s side windows, the back just completely smeared with gunk and gore. They peered closer, and saw the passenger window wide open against the far side of the bridge, leaving the vehicle empty.

  “Whoever was in there must have taken a swan dive,” Ace said, brow furrowing.

  Dante nodded. “Let me tell you, that’s a hell of a fall,” he said.

  “Especially in these waters,” Ace agreed, nodding. “May not look like it, but that current is strong. Unless he got lucky, he’s now in the middle of the Atlantic.”

  Lily shook her head. “From the looks of things, he’s in a better place than he was,” she murmured.

  Her cousin hit the gas and continued up the road. When they approached the end of the bridge, Dante unfolded the map Bailey had drawn for them.

  “Okay, according to this,” he said as he traced his finger along their route, “we need to take the highway coming up on the right.”

  Ace nodded and made the turn. “Yeah, this cuts through to the other bridge in a few miles,” he said. “Where am I turning?”

  “About a mile and a half up on the left,” Dante replied, pointing. “Sandy Cove Lane.”

  Ace continued, looking intently out the window for the road so that he didn’t miss it. The other two gazed around at the neighborhood. The side streets were full of signs of struggle, although the outdoor zombie population was somewhat smaller than they’d expected, only a dozen or so over the course of three blocks.

  “I would have thought there would be more,” he murmured.

  Lily shrugged. “The Marine base is up north, and there’s a lot of shopping areas up there too,” she pointed out. “These things like noise, and they’re probably causing a hell of a ruckus up there.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m all for it,” Ace declared, and finally found the target road, making his turn.

  “Bailey said her house was a block down on the left,” Dante instructed, and they crept down along the row of houses, looking at each one.

  Some of them appeared to have been broken into by zombies, and there were a couple of corpses on the front lawns. Most of the cars in the driveways were gone, with one sitting in a driveway with the driver’s side door open.

  “There it is,” Dante said, pointing to a small brick house on the corner. The front door was closed tight, and the car was still in the driveway.

  Ace idled for a moment as they looked for any signs that the house had been breached, and then put the truck into gear, driving on.

  “What are you doing?” Lily asked, blinking at him.

  “I was just thinking,” he drawled, “we’re going to have a tough enough time at the TV station without having to babysit. They look like they’re just fine, so they can wait a little longer, don’t you think?”

&nb
sp; Lily glanced at Dante, and he nodded.

  “Good point,” he agreed, and inclined his head forward. “Three blocks up on the right.”

  Ace paused at the last intersection before the station so they could scope it out. There were four ghouls in the parking lot, mostly by the back door.

  “Any ideas, Scarface?” he asked, leaning his head against the headrest. “Or you just want me to start picking them off?”

  Dante pursed his lips for a moment, contemplating. “We need to limit gunshots,” he reminded them, “because the last thing we want to do is draw a crowd. You got a crowbar?” he asked.

  Ace reached behind the front seat into the tiny space between the seats and the back. He pulled out a large crowbar and handed it across to Lily. “What you planning on doing with that?” he asked.

  Dante just smiled and opened the door, jumping down. He moved to the bed and clambered up into the bed of the truck.

  As he did that, Ace grinned as it dawned on him what his plan was, and he reached back to slide open the small window panel behind him. “You hang on tight,” he instructed. “I’ll do my best not to fling you out when I spin it around.”

  “That would be appreciated,” Dante replied, taking a knee. He hooked his arm into the window, holding on as Ace hit the gas.

  The truck sped towards the TV station, squealing into the parking lot. He cut the wheel hard, doing a 180 as the tires shrieked across the pavement. The noise attracted all four zombies by the door. They rushed towards the truck, smacking into the side of it. Thanks to the lift kit, they struggled to reach over the side.

  Dante stood up, and casually walked to the edge of the bed, looking down at the four ghouls trying to grab at him. They were a mix of ages from twenty to sixty, all with various wounds marring their bodies. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that they weren’t people anymore.

  He swung down hard, cracking a skull, and built up his momentum. In a manner of seconds, his assault was over, a quick game of whack-a-mole complete with carnage. Four corpses lay on the ground, and he stared at them for a tense moment to make sure they were truly dead and not about to get back up again.