Death Squad (Book 2): Zombie State

by Dalton, Charlie

  “Craig was being Craig,” Lisa said.

  “And you think it’s all right for a boy to act like that with his friends?”

  Lisa shrugged.

  “Do you like it when he throws things at you?”

  Lisa shook her head. “No.”

  “Why don’t you tell him how it feels?”

  Snot was running from Craig’s nose. His toes barely touched the dirt, scrabbling for purchase.

  “We don’t like it when you throw things at us,” Lisa said weakly. “You throw things too hard and it hurts when we catch them. And when they hit us, it hurts even more.”

  Old Man Marley leaned down to Craig’s ear.

  “Did you hear that, Craig?” he whispered. “You hurt your friends when you throw things too hard. Are you going to stop throwing things at them?”

  Craig nodded adamantly. It was difficult for him to do even that much with the crook of the old man’s elbow wrapped so tightly around his throat.

  “I’m not sure he understands,” Old Man Marley said. “How about you show him how it feels?”

  Lisa looked up into the skinny, pointed face of the old man. He nodded to the metal ball in Lisa’s hand.

  “Throw it at him,” he said. “Aim for the belly. It’s a big enough target.”

  Lisa peered at the ball in her hand. The twisted reflection of the old man made him look demonic. Lisa shook her head.

  “Throw it,” Old Man Marley said. “Throw it, or your friend goes home with me.”

  Craig struggled harder against the old man’s unflinching grip. To no avail.

  “You think he wants to go with me?” Old Man Marley said. “He’s not struggling very hard. Maybe it’s for show. Maybe I’ll take him with me anyway.”

  Craig attempted to punch the old man with his free hand. As he did, the old man seized that arm too, twisting them into a bow about his head.

  “You ought to know better than to pick on a girl,” Old Man Marley whispered in Craig’s ear. “You want me to treat you like a girl? Is that what you want?”

  He made slapping sounds with his lips and tongue. His arms were skinny and without muscle and yet they didn’t let up for a second.

  “Go on, girl,” Old Man Marley said. “Take your shot.”

  Lisa weighed the ball.

  “Oh boy,” Old Man Marley said. “This is going to be fun!”

  He jittered on the spot like a dog excited about being taken for a walk.

  Lisa ran her thumb over it. One edge was bent, sticking up from where it’d collided with something hard. She wished she’d never laid eyes on the thing. She wrapped her fingers around it. It was almost a perfect fit. She tossed the ball, underarm, at Craig. It struck his stomach and fell to the ground with a hollow thud.

  Old Man Marley raised his eyes from the ball. All the joy and jubilation he’d exhibited were gone, replaced by searing disappointment.

  “I know you can do better than that,” Old Man Marley said. “Go on. Try your hardest.”

  Tears were running from Craig’s eyes. Lisa already suspected he would never throw another thing at them so long as he lived. He was a bad kid—some kids were born rotten, she supposed—but no kid deserved to be treated like this.

  “I don’t want to,” Lisa said. “He can have the ball.”

  “I’m not going to let the boy go until you do,” Old Man Marley said. “If you let him walk over you now, then him, and boys like him, will be walking over you for the rest of your life. Do it. Properly this time.”

  Lisa bent down and picked the ball up. Its heavyweight carried dark purpose. It could do real harm if it struck the right—or rather, the wrong—place. Like the soft forehead of an ancient skull. . .

  Lisa didn’t need to hit Craig. She eyed the old man’s face. It was aged and brittle. No doubt the ball would do a great deal of damage. The old man would have no choice but to release Craig then. But the target was so small. And if she missed, she might catch Craig instead.

  Craig turned his head to look at her. In his eyes, she saw acceptance. And perhaps, a small nod of approval. To end this. At least, that’s what she hoped she’d seen.

  Lisa pulled her arm back and hurled the ball forward, ensuring the jagged edge, at least, didn’t strike her friend. Craig grunted in pain but didn’t howl. His attention was taken up with the hand wrapped around his neck.

  “One day, my boy, you’re going to discover the arms of a woman are about all the comfort you can expect in this harsh world of ours,” Old Man Marley said. “The sooner you realize that the better for everyone.”

  He released his grip and shoved the boy forward.

  “If I find you kids out here on these streets again when you should be at school, consider today a prelude of things to come,” he said.

  Lisa joined the others in getting a safe distance from the old man. Halfway down the alley, Craig turned back. He rubbed his neck and swore at him. It was loud enough for the gang to hear but it’d never reach the old man’s ears. He’d done it for the benefit of the others.

  Old Man Marley turned to leave. He paused in midstep when something caught his attention amongst the rubble. He bent down to pick something up.

  Lisa realized something and checked her pockets. The ball. She’d hurled it at Craig but hadn’t picked it up again afterward. The old man held the ball up, extending it for Lisa to come and get. Lisa felt a shiver up her spine. There was no way she was going back there to get it. Not in a million years.

  “Come on, you guys,” Lisa said. “Let’s get to school.”

  “Are you kidding?” Craig said. “My teacher will kill me if I come in this late.”

  “Better than the alternative,” Lisa said, eying the old man at the end of the dark tunnel.

  Craig didn’t offer another word of resistance.

  12.

  THE OPERATION was far larger than the original sweep. The entire military had been sent in this time instead of small, independent teams.

  Now that the undead were no longer hidden away and they operated under their own volition, no trap could be sprung. The military moved freely, taking out the undead with ease.

  The sweep teams formed broad circles that allowed them to fire in every direction at once. Acting alone, the undead were incapable of intelligent strategies. Air support hung overhead like watchful guardians, breaking down the thick bunches of zombies that clumped together.

  Injured men and women did filter into Samantha’s medical center, but not in the same volume as the original attack. This was how she’d expected it to happen the first time around.

  Even from outside the wall, she could hear the booming thunder of explosions and distant popping of rifles. Samantha wasn’t nervous. Tommy was nowhere near the battlefield this time.

  Once the sweep was successfully carried out, the construction teams would move in, backed up by a heavy military presence. Samantha would be free to relocate her research and development center inside the walls. She’d be closer to the zombies they’d capture. With the hundred-foot walls wrapped around them, there was no place more secure against the virus.

  Her task was to research these creatures and come up with an effective treatment or cure. No pressure.

  The virus had already escaped. And if Tommy failed to stop it, it might doom the entire country. Perhaps even the world. That would make her work extremely important.

  At home, Tommy could be messy. She was used to cleaning up after him. She only hoped he was successful in his mission. She didn’t want to have to clean up this mess if he wasn’t.

  13.

  EMIN HAD set up the base of operations in a field beside the motorway where Michael had last been sighted. It was a hive of activity. Jeep trucks shuttled in and out of the center, guided by men with flags. Helicopters loaded up on military personnel took off for distant destinations. Others were loaded with roadblock equipment that hung from their undersides via ropes and nets.

  One chopper landed. Tommy and Guy got out and approach
ed the large open tent in the center of the facility.

  They found Emin in the middle of it all, doing three things at once. She was bent over a map where circles had been drawn; locations along the country roads and motorways where roadblocks had been set up. She issued an order for another roadblock to be set up closer to the city of La Grange. Men nodded and took off.

  Tommy recalled vividly the reticence of uninfected soldiers at the sight of Tommy walking amongst them one day earlier. He witnessed none of that now. It had been forgotten, or perhaps more accurately, temporarily put on hold. They couldn’t have liked working side-by-side with a Walker, especially not taking orders from one, but they responded well to confident orders, no matter whether they agreed with them or not.

  “Emin, we—” Tommy said.

  Emin held up a finger to silence him as someone handed her a satellite phone. She offloaded into it. Apparently, the units had arrived at a certain location but hadn’t been issued with weapons or tools to set up the roadblock.

  “I’ll have them sent to you now,” she said, handing the phone back to the assistant.

  Sean was wide awake now. He sat on a stool playing a handheld video game. Tommy supposed there wasn’t a lot for him to do.

  “How’s it going?” Tommy said.

  Emin glanced at him, then double took. She’d been so far buried in her work she hadn’t noticed him standing there. She looked relieved and hugged him. It was more for her than him.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Emin said.

  “Has everyone been behaving themselves?”

  “A few teething problems at the beginning, but who doesn’t have those? How was the house?”

  “Empty,” Tommy said. “What have we got? Anything new?”

  “Nada. If Michael came this far on the bike, he must have changed vehicle at some point.”

  “Any idea what? Has anyone located it?”

  “No. It’s a long way between the speed cameras. He could have come off any of these junctions. Thanks to the speed camera traps, we know he headed this way.”

  “He was speeding?” Guy said. “What an asshole.”

  “No, he wasn’t speeding. But modern cameras record every vehicle that passes by, even if they’re not speeding.”

  “Seriously?” Guy said.

  “Sure. They’ve been doing it for years.”

  Guy made a face. He didn’t much approve of that.

  “It’s reasonable to expect he took this route to get to Houston,” Emin said. “I ordered roadblocks at each junction. Hopefully, we can cut him off before he gets there.”

  “That still leaves these smaller country roads,” Tommy said. They snaked out like a spider’s web. “He could have taken any of these to reach the city. What are we doing about those?”

  “We don’t have enough men,” Emin said. “The military is setting up the major roadblocks. I figured Michael would head for the big cities rather than the smaller towns.”

  “That makes sense. What about local law enforcement? They can lend a hand.”

  “I didn’t know we had access to them.”

  “We didn’t. I’ll make a call. I’m sure we can get them on board with something as important as this.”

  Emin nodded. There was something else on her mind.

  “We can’t be sure he did come this way,” she said. “It’s difficult to know what he might try to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he’s smart enough to get out of Austin the way he did, why would Michael make it so obvious where he’s going?”

  “It isn’t obvious,” Guy said.

  “He’s heading west. He appears to be heading for Houston.”

  “You think he might have changed vehicle and headed in another direction to give us the slip?”

  “It’s just an idea.”

  It made sense. Difficult with how many men they had though.

  “I’ll get local police to set up roadblocks on the other side of town too,” Tommy said. “No hint of anyone having been infected yet?”

  Emin shook her head. “No. But that’s strange too, isn’t it?”

  “Damn lucky’s what I think,” Guy said.

  “It’s strange no one has turned yet. I mean, he’s a Walker, like us. He’s carrying the infection in his veins. He could easily infect people. But he hasn’t.”

  “Correction,” Guy said. “We assume he hasn’t.”

  “Right,” Emin said. “It might be he infected someone and locked them up somewhere for someone to discover them. . .”

  She shook her head at the idea.

  “Doesn’t make sense?” Tommy said.

  “No,” Emin said. “It does. But I don’t believe he would leave things to chance like that. He didn’t with the drones. He didn’t with getting Michael out of the city. It was planned to perfection. Why should his plan to spread the virus be any different?”

  “What do you suggest we do?” Tommy said. “If we go down that route, there’s no end to the plans he might have made. We’d end up tying ourselves in knots. Anything we come up with, we have to assume it might be a part of Michael’s plan.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” Emin said.

  “We keep our eyes peeled and look for something that looks like it might be an accident.”

  “Right. But how do we know the accident wasn’t part of the plan too?”

  Emin gripped her hands in her hair like she wanted to rip it out in frustration.

  “We don’t,” Tommy said. “I like your line of thinking. Why haven’t people been infected already?”

  “If he had infected someone already, we would have stopped them already,” Guy said.

  Tommy and Emin turned to look at him. He held up his hands.

  “I’m only thinking out loud here!” he said.

  “We could shut him down one town at a time,” Emin said. “We did it with Austin, so we can do it with smaller towns too. What we can’t do is shut down an entire state, or several of them.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, we should expect Michael to pursue the very worst—to us—scenario that might happen. That’s how we can intercept his plans.”

  “What’s the very worst thing that could happen?” Guy said.

  “World domination,” Tommy said.

  Guy blinked rapidly, his expression painted clearly on his face. Yikes.

  “In the meantime, what do we do?” Guy said. “Sit here and look pretty?”

  “I’m not sure you could manage that,” Emin said. “Don’t worry, I have enough prettiness for both of us.”

  “We’ve cast our net,” Tommy said. “All we can do now is wait for something to bite.”

  14.

  OLD MAN MARLEY stalked the streets he’d spent his entire life in. The town hadn’t always been this way. It’d once been a place of purpose, of opportunity. Now, it was a ruin, a memorial to the way it used to be.

  Oh, it might make a resurgence one day. He’d lived during the middle act when everything had gotten worse and worse. He’d never live to see the third act with the happy ending. The story of your life depended on luck and happenstance. In that, Old Man Marley had been one of the least lucky SOBs to have lived in recent times.

  He turned a corner, onto the street he lived. The other houses were empty, the ancient shutters on the windows flapping in the wind. During windy nights, they slammed against the wall, making him jolt awake. He never took them down. They reminded him of himself, holding on no matter the ferocity of the storm. Just barely.

  He lived in a small house at the front of the property. He spent the majority of his time in the backyard. At the beginning, it’d been nothing more than an old shed, now it was a large barn.

  The gaps between the wood slats had come about naturally. He liked them. The entire building was a windchime. The wind came in and blew through the gaps and holes in the building and sang to him their sad song. The wood creaked and groaned. No one was perfect, so
why should their buildings be?

  He opened the door. The wind caught it, as it always did, and blew outward like a large sail. Once, it’d wrenched his shoulder clean out of its socket. It was one of the few things on the barn he’d had fixed. It was attached to a thick length of rope a yard wide.

  He stepped into the gap and pressed his hands against the door, bracing its weight as he edged inside. He waited until the wind died down before he shut it and attached the lock. It was nothing more than a lever arm. He slipped the hooked end into its metal hoop fastening. The wind continued to buffet the door, making it bang lightly against the doorframe.

  Inside was a single massive room. The tall shelving units that ran its full width had never been cleaned. Dust an inch thick dusted every surface. The floor had never seen a brush before either.

  The shelves were crammed with items. Car parts, engine parts, computer parts, machine parts. If something could be taken to pieces, then some of those pieces could be found here. Everything was filmed and recorded, tucked away in the back of Old Man Marley’s mind. There wasn’t a single item he couldn’t find with a split second’s thought.

  Along the back wall was a broad workbench. On it were dozens of unfinished projects. The blood and guts of various machines and computers he’d attempted to assemble but got bored of due to lack of motivation. Nobody would ever see these machines. He could fix things in his sleep. In another time and place, he might have been a great engineer, working on cutting-edge technology. But that wasn’t the life he’d been given.

  Sometimes people brought their old cars and motorcycles to him. He’d wheeze and complain, but he always ended up solving their problem. They’d never bring it to him when they first had the problem. They’d try to fix it by themselves first. After they’d made the situation worse, they brought it to him.

  Old Man Marley removed the small metal ball from his pocket and deposited it on the workbench. He picked up his microscope and peered at the ball with it. It was an interesting piece of engineering. High quality build, he thought.