The Dead Chronicles (Book 1): The Dead Chronicles

by Hendricks, Michael

  “Good point, but you didn’t have to make it gross.”

  Smiling to myself I said, “Yeah I kinda did.”

  I began walking to the door with Katy behind me wielding my machete. I reached the door and listened at it. I thought I could hear something but couldn’t tell exactly what it was. I turned towards Katy and handed her the flashlight and took my machete from her.

  “I’ll go in with you shining the flashlight over my shoulder. Hopefully there are no dead in here and we can make a direct left to the garage door. I turned the door knob and pushed the door open. As Katy shined the flashlight into the room I could definitely hear the all too familiar sound of multiple dead in the workshop but saw nothing. I immediately went to the left and Katy followed closely. I could hear Katy breathing quickly and hear my own heart beat in my ears. With the light coming from the flashlight I easily located the garage door, unlocked it, and opened the door allowing the flare of the sun to illuminate the entire work shop. Beside me I felt Katy completely freeze. I slowly turned around and saw five dead in the center of the workshop. With the noise of the garage door and the sun now shining in they slowly turned around and noticed us for the first time and began slowly trudging towards us. All five appeared to be former employees of the work shop, all much older at least in their 50s or 60s and all wearing over-alls. By their look and their smell, I guessed that they had died and risen some time ago.

  “Back up with me to the car so that you can get your machete. This should be quick work.”

  “Okay.”

  We backed our way to the car. While I was keeping an eye on the dead. Katy went to the vehicle. The closest dead to me was now a few feet ahead of me and I quickly slammed the machete into its skull splitting its face in two as it stopped moving and fell to the ground. The second one had closed the distance and I sliced through the top of its head. Some of the blood from the dead splashed onto my shirt. By that time Katy had returned from the car with her machete and quickly dispatched two more of the dead. In the short time I had watched her take out those dead, the final dead had also turned from me and focused on her blocking her from my view. I stabbed toward the back of the dead’s head and as my machete pushed through the back of its skull I saw Katy’s machete push through towards me. We had stabbed at almost the same time and our machetes came within inches of each other. I pull back as did she and the dead fell lifeless and limp to the floor of the workshop.

  “We need to plan that better next time.” She said under heavy breath.

  “Agreed.” I looked around the shop. “Do you see what you need?”

  She had already began walking off to the left. “Yup I see everything I need, in fact. While I’m getting what I need see if you can’t find the missing walkies and if so go back up front and grab the base.”

  “Will do.”

  I went to the right looking for the walkies while she started gathering what she needed.

  ***

  Everything was loaded into the car. All the equipment she needed in order to cut and weld were in the back. I was able to locate four walkies and had gone back up front and grabbed the base. They all now sat in the back seat. We were loaded up. But there was something I had to do. I walked back into the garage and headed towards the front.

  “Liam. What are you doing?” Katy asked.

  “The right thing.” I said.

  I walked into the office and to the door of the owner. I turned the knob and pushed the door open. Mr. Sherwood was hanging from the ceiling in a self-made noose but was looking at me. Once the dead Sherwood realized I was there he began growling and reaching for me. In order to kill the dead Sherwood, I’d have to find a way to cut him down as his head was out of my reach.

  “Katy.”

  “Yeah.” She said. I jumped a little, not knowing that she had followed me in. “Sorry”. She said.

  “No worries. We need to cut him down to put him out of his misery.”

  I could feel the tension of her standing next to me and I understood that she didn’t like the idea one bit. “Can’t we just leave him? He’s already dead.”

  “Would you want to be left like this if someone could help you?”

  “There’s that sane part of your mind. I’m starting not to like it. It makes too much sense.”

  “Noted.” I said. “Find a chair. We should be able to stand behind him and cut the rope without him being able to get at us.”

  Katy walked into the front of the office and found a sturdy chair and brought it back to the office. I took it and walked being Sherwood and stood on the chair. Standing this close to him I could smell the death coming off him and it turned my stomach enough that I gagged. This caught Sherwood’s attention and he attempted to turn towards me trying to grab ahold of me. I reached up to cut the rope with my machete when one of his hands gripped the arm I had absent-mindedly placed on his shoulder. I yelled out, which caused Katy to yell and I cut the rope. Mr. Sherwood immediately fell and hit his desk bounced up and onto the floor in front of Katy. She acted quickly and slammed the machete into the back of his head ending the threat. I checked my hand but found no scratch marks.

  “I’m okay. He didn’t get me.”

  “Are you sure Liam?” Katy asked.

  I jumped off the chair and walked over to her showing her my hand that Sherwood had grabbed. “Yeah, no marks.”

  “That was stupid, Liam.”

  “Yes it was, but it was the right thing to do.”

  “I suppose.” She said. “Can we go now?”

  “Yes.”

  We walked back out to the garage and out to the car and got in. I turned the car around back to the road and turned left onto it. Looking to our right the horde had made some progress but not a lot. The way we came was still clear.

  I came to the end of our street and turned right and then left onto highway 64. I turned right at the next road before the viaduct and stopped and got out.

  “What’s wrong?” Katy asked getting out of the passenger side.

  “Just checking on our horde.” Looking back at the horde they had made some ground but were still a quite a distance from the intersection.

  “I’d say we have half an hour to an hour before that horde makes it to this point. We are even with where the tankers are over there.” I pointed to another street to our right. “As long as we don’t face any huge obstacles we should have a tanker and long gone before they get here.”

  “But if the tankers are off in that direction, even if we do face a complication it won’t matter if they make it past the overpass will it? They won’t be able to hear, see, or smell us so there’s no reason for them to take any other direction that they are currently going.”

  “You’re right, Katy. And when you’re right, you’re right.”

  She rolled her eyes and got back in the door. “Let’s go captain, my captain.”

  “Oh, who’s doing cheesy lines now?”

  “Just trying to keep up.”

  I got in the car and drove off towards the tankers.

  ***

  We didn’t face any issues or complications getting to or getting the tanker. There were indeed two of them there, both empty. I had hoped one would be full of gas, so we could take both and have extra fuel. With both being empty we picked the one easiest to get out. We managed to find the keys and Katy, true to her word knew exactly how to drive it. I let her take the lead, so that if there were any dead in our path back to the community she could easily plow them out of the way.

  We did run into a few dead on the way back but didn’t have to run any of them over. As we pulled into the community I pulled the car into the garage while she pulled the truck around the side of the house where I had already determined where to put it. We joined each other at the gate to close it and lock up.

  That’s when we heard it. The sound of a massive horde off in the distance to our east. Katy said maybe it was the horde that we had encountered in town. I had said, no it sounded my larger. We walked up
to the bridge and looked to our east. Katy suddenly grabbed my hand and let out a groan.

  Ahead of us to the east and coming our way was the largest horde I had seen to date. It completely covered both sides of the interstate, the middle section between the roads, and spilled over on both sides. This horde, that we could not see an ending to, easily numbered in the tens of thousands.

  “How are we going to survive this?”

  For the first time since we had met, I had no jokes, no quips, no words. I just stared ahead.