Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  “Are you expecting any of those preacher’s fuckers to come back?”

  “No, not them, something else. Look,” I pointed at the dock our boat was coasting toward. Two figured lumbered in a meandering gait, while another with no legs crawled, grasping at the smoke as it swirled past. They must’ve smelled the fire and come to see what was cooking.

  Kyle came to stand beside me, “Are those things wearing combat gear?”

  I hefted my rifle and peered through the scope. “Yeah, RCMP is stenciled across the back of that one’s flak jacket. They were cops.”

  “Too bad we don’t have a high-powered, silenced sniper rifle.”

  “A what?”

  “A silenced rifle.”

  I shook my head. “Shit.”

  “Shit, what?”

  “I mean ‘shit’. Wedo have one. It’s under the seat near the captain’s chair. At the time I didn’t know what it was, but thought it was damned impressive looking.”

  “Oh.”

  While Kyle left to gather those who were able to shoot, I hurriedly ran and grabbed the case from the seat, then stared dumbly at the many separate components. “Kyle!”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “I don’t know how this goes together, and we’re almost at the dock.”

  By this time, seven of the kids had come up on deck, all carrying crossbows. They lined up and took aim at the creatures who were now no more than fifty yards away. Smoke drifted from the engine, shrouding the figures of the three dead in a haze.

  Kyle picked up the stock and barrel, slid them together, and twisted until there was a click. “I think I can get this. Take my crossbow and help them. I’ll be right there.”

  Still too far away to fire with any sort of effectiveness, we waited. Forty, thirty, twenty yards. I raised my arm. “OK, wait for my signal, then fire. Head shots only, ladies.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, all seven of them fired. Most struck their targets ineffectually in the chest or legs. They reloaded and fired again, then again. I was going to have to work on their listening skills. The two standing infected resembled a pair of pin cushions, but neither seemed hurt. All but one of my own shots went wide, and I wasn’t aiming for the one I actually hit. So far, the crossbows were doing no good, but at least they were quiet and kept the kids focused on something besides Marcus.

  Kyle tapped my shoulder. “Got it,” he said, and handed me the sniper rifle.

  I immediately raised it, thumbed the double safety, chambered a round, aimed, and fired. The concussion took me back a step, and the noise was deafening.

  Through the scope, I watched as the monster’s head disappeared. The body jerked for a few seconds before collapsing.

  My eardrums felt like they’d exploded along with the thing’s head. “I thought you said this fucking gun was quiet!” I yelled.

  “You didn’t let me finish. I was gonna say ‘all we gotta do now is screw on the silencer’.”

  I rubbed my shoulder where the rifle had kicked me. “Well. Now I know that.”

  He took the rifle and held it while I threaded the silencer onto the muzzle. It was heavy. No wonder he said it was a two-man job.

  From behind me, one of the teens said, “Got ’em!” Then another whooped and said, “Me too.”

  Less than a minute later, our boat bumped unguided along the side of the dock, splitting through the hull and tearing up a few boards from the dock’s surface. It wasn’t pretty, but we made it.

  Two of the boys jumped from the boat and tied us off while another three walked over to the dead and shot another arrow into the head of each, just to be sure. So much for the infected. We didn’t need the sniper rifle after all.

  Before any of the teens could take off and get themselves hurt, I called for everyone to gather around so we could work out what to do next.

  “All right, we’re here. It ain’t perfect, but it is what it is, and we gotta make do. Here’s what’s gonna happen: the three injured kids are to remain here at the boat, along with another couple who’ll act as sentries. The rest of us will offload enough shit to sleep the night away from the boat, ’cause we sure as shit don’t wanna be close to this boat when those ambushing green boys come this way looking for us. Then we’ll come back for the injured.

  While Kyle supervised the offloading of supplies, I searched my motorcycle for bullet holes. One smashed mirror and a hole in the front fender. Not bad. Using the boat’s hydraulic hoist (which still worked, thank God) I maneuvered the motorcycle over to the dock, then rolled it a short distance away into the bushes.

  For better or worse, this was our jump-off point.

  I pulled the bike into the bushes and covered it with a few branches. Before leaving, I boarded the boat and climbed down into the cabin. Marcus’s body had been wrapped in a sheet and placed in a sleeping bag that was then tied closed. Sorrow aside, the kids still had their wits about them. We didn’t know whether the disease was confined to those bitten, or everyone who dies. It was safer to not take chances.

  I took in the three wounded, then the two left to keep watch. They were terrified, and I didn’t blame them. I was scared shitless. To Kelly—who, with her short-cropped hair and grimy face, I still couldn’t tell apart from the boys—I said, “You’re doing great, kiddo. You guys keep an eye out for those green boys and the dead, and we’ll hump it back here as soon as we find a safe spot to squat for the night. You cool?”

  “Totally.”

  The boy I’d told to stay with her—I couldn’t remember his name, but thought it was Jake—said, “Yeah, we got this.” His gaze drifted to the lumpy sleeping bag. “Are you gonna take that outside, or…”

  “Yeah,” I said. A lump rose in my throat. This kid was tough. They all were. As gently as I could, I picked up the bundled sleeping bag. “Marcus was a good guy. We’ll have a service later on, when we settle in at camp.”

  *

  I guessed the preacher’s camp was west, somewhere not far from the dock where the green boys had opened fire from the trees, so I led the group in-country to the east. After fifteen minutes of walking, we’d seen nothing alive—no birds, no squirrels, nada—which did nothing to quell the nagging sensation we were being watched. Each footfall, cough, or whisper from our group seemed amplified, and I thought the green boys would have to be deaf to not hear us clomping through the forest.

  And then I heard something that froze my heart and stopped me in my tracks: gunfire. We all dropped, not knowing where it was coming from, only that it wasn’t close by. Then it hit me, and I felt like I’d puke.

  “Oh my god,” I whispered. “The boat. They found the boat. Kyle, keep ’em safe. I’m going back.”

  “Nuh-uh, fuck that. We should all go. Those are our friends back there.” He started forward, and I pushed him back.

  “No, you’ll fucking listen to me and keep still. I’ll take one person with me. Justin, tuck in your dick and grab your gun. The rest of you—Kyle’s in charge so listen to him, unless he tells you to head back to the boat. You see more dead than you can count on one hand, you run like hell in the other direction.”

  Loaded down as he was, Justin did well to keep up with me. We slowed about twenty yards from the tree line, and I crouched and crept forward. The gunfire had died out a couple minutes before we arrived, but I could hear people speaking.

  I parted the leaves of the bush I was using for cover and raised my head. I counted four of the green-clad gunmen. Two joked near the end of the dock, and the others led four teens from the boat at gunpoint. All four had their hands tied behind their backs, and a rope tethered them together like a line of cattle. A quick scan revealed the other sentry lying sprawled near the edge of the dock, his blood pooling around his mid-section. He was dead, and I might as well have killed him myself.

  At the sound of a twig snapping behind me, without turning, I said, “They got ’em, Justin.”

  Justin didn’t answer. Even as I spun, reaching for the gun tucked in
to my waistband, one hand clamped over mine, and another over my mouth. Strong arms lifted me and flipped me onto my stomach.

  Then a mouth was at my ear, “Stand down, we’re not here to hurt you.”

  I struggled and nearly broke free, but a second shape stepped up and dropped a knee into the small of my back, then twisted my arm up behind my back to my shoulder blade.

  “OK, we’re in a bit of a time crunch, so I’m gonna take my hand off your mouth and let you up—but only if I get your word you won’t cause a fuss. We golden?”

  I nodded. What other choice did I have?

  As soon as the man relaxed his grip and let me up, I twisted and lunged at him, hitting him in the jaw. He fell back and I jumped on him, throwing wild punches as I fell.

  Before I could call out, the butt of a rifle struck me in the face, stunning me and knocking me backward. When it fell again, the lights went out.

  *

  I awoke upside-down, my head bouncing against the back end of the man carrying me. My head throbbed with each step he took. They’d tied my hands, but not my feet, and I’d been gagged. There were two of them, both wearing police tactical gear with the letters RCMP stenciled across the back.

  “Mfff ffft ffft.”

  “Gerry? Are you OK?” Justin’s face appeared before mine. He hadn’t been tied or gagged. He tugged on the sleeve of the man carrying me, “Can I take his gag off now?”

  The burly man stopped and shrugged me from his shoulders. I fell clumsily to the ground and rolled over. The man turned, pulled a knife and cut the gag from my mouth. He bent and stuck a thick finger in my face, “One fucking word and I’ll cut your tongue out this time, got it?”

  Then the other man stepped around his partner, “No you won’t.” He extended a gloved hand and I took it. After he pulled me to my feet, he cut the ropes from my wrists.

  To me, he said, “I’m sorry for the rough stuff, but you’d have given up our position to the men who took your friends.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “about that: why the fuck didn’t you do something back there?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m sorry about that, but the four you saw at the boat weren’t alone. They were part of a larger party. If we’d have engaged them, we’d be food right now.”

  “Food?”

  “Yes. They eat people.”

  “That crazy preacher lured us to that dock to eat us? What the fuck?”

  “Preacher? Oh, you mean Randall’s lieutenant, Micah. Yeah, there’ve been other boats hijacked. You’re the first people we’ve gotten to before them.” He slapped me on the back. This is a lucky day for both of us. Let’s go catch up with the rest of your people. They should be just up here with the rest of our team. I had them rounded up as well.”

  I grabbed the cop’s shoulder and spun him to face me. “Let me tell you something, buddy: if your people hurt any of my kids, I’ll fuck you up. Got it?”

  “Jenks,” he said. “My name is Jenks, and the gorilla over there is Thompson. Your kids’ll be fine. My guys might’ve put a little scare into ’em, but that’s all. I told ’em no rough stuff.”

  After a few minutes, Jenks raised a hand to stop us, then turned with a finger on his lips. He pointed to a pile of gear heaped in the center of the clearing, “That yours?”

  I recognized the sleeping bags. “Yeah, that’s ours. But where the hell—”

  Jenks tugged a gun from his holster and swept the tree line. “Shh! You hear that? Sounds like moans.”

  Thompson raised his shotgun and crept forward. “Yeah, it’s coming from all around us.”

  The trees were thick, but the infected would make enough noise for you to hear them coming fifty metres away. This was something else. I reached for my gun, then realized it wasn’t there.

  I poked Thompson. “Hey, gimme my guns back.”

  Without pausing his scan of the forest, he took one hand from his gun long enough to reach into his flak jacket and retrieve both my .45s.

  As I thumbed both safeties, Justin placed a trembling hand on my arm. “Gerry.”

  “Kinda busy, sport.”

  “Look up.”

  So I did. There, bound and gagged and hanging upside-down twenty feet off the ground, were four men dressed in the same gear as Jenks and his partner.

  Jenks took a step toward the pile of gear in the center of the clearing, and two arrows hit the ground inches from his front foot. He froze, but didn’t lower his gun.

  From somewhere to our left, a familiar voice said, “Drop your weapons, dicks. We got you surrounded.”

  “Kyle?”

  First Kyle stood, crossbow trained on Jenks’ chest, then the rest of the boys followed suit. Not one of them had been more than ten feet from us, and we didn’t even hear them.

  Kyle glanced at me, then Justin, then he searched behind us. “Where’s everybody else? Still back at the boat?”

  I shook my head. “They took them.” I glared at Jenks as I went on. “There were too many of them.”

  Kyle lowered his crossbow and blinked. “You let those pricks take them?”

  “I’m sorry, Kyle. I was kinda busy being knocked out.”

  Justin nodded. “It’s true. The big guy there pounded the crap out of him.”

  Jenks stepped between us. “Enough. Where’s my team?”

  Kyle pulled a knife and held it out to Jenks. “They’re over your fucking head, pig. Feel free to cut them down yourself.” He dropped the knife in the dirt and turned toward me, then turned back. “Oh, and FYI, they went down like a pack of bitches. I think the short one peed himself when we strung them up.”

  *

  While Jenks and Thompson cut the rest of their team down and untied them, I filled the boys in on what happened at the beach with the green boys, and then with Jenks and his partner. While we spoke, one of the boys dug into a pack and handed out food. The kids all huddled around the police officers, and I took Jenks aside to see if he could shed a little light on The Coven of the Lamb and their people.

  After Jenks took his helmet off and used it as a stool, I said, “We mean to get our kids back. What do you know about these creeps who took them?”

  Jenks took a swig from a bottle of water and then dumped the rest over his head. “I know a lot about Randall’s people. But what I know doesn’t mean shit anymore. Things have changed…they’ve changed.”

  “And how come you guys are out here in the sticks, anyway?”

  “We were part of a larger detachment, here gathering intel on the Coven’s activities. When the infection hit, most of us stayed. Since all this shit started, we’ve dwindled from fifteen to the six you see before you. Two days ago we lost our captain and two others.”

  “Yeah, and I think we found them this morning.”

  Jenks nodded. “You did. I saw their bodies near the dock. I’m sorry about that. We were out tracking them when I saw your boat go past the first time.”

  Micah’s radio sermon came back in a flash, and a shiver ran through me. “So they’re a cult?”

  “Yeah, they’ve been here for years, but only hit our radar after a few hikers went missing last year. We were getting ready to wrap things up and start making busts, but then everything went to hell and the dead started walking. After that, Randall and his people began to get bold. No more hikers for them. They took an old school bus into the closest town—Freemont, I think—and snatched a bunch of people right off the street. We didn’t know what they wanted them for at the time, but knew it wasn’t anything good.”

  “Why didn’t you try to help them?”

  Jenks chuckled grimly. “We were kinda busy, mister, what with staving off an army of the dead and all. Not everyone had a boat to keep them safe.”

  “Yeah, but you’re cops. You had to help, right?”

  “Once things quieted down, we did. A few weeks go by and we find out they’re keeping slaves, so our captain has us rush in for the rescue.”

  “How many did you get out?”

&n
bsp; “None. There was no one to save. They were all dead.”

  “And you let them get away with it?”

  “Let? Shit, those of us who made it back out were lucky. We lost five men that day for nothing.”

  “So, what,” I said, “these people they took were used as some kinda human sacrifice?”

  “No. You already know what they were doing with them. I told you at the water.”

  I flashed on the faces of the kids I’d left on the boat, then to what Jenks had said earlier about them luring us to the other dock. “Oh, no.” Panic rose within me, but I stopped it from taking over.

  Jenks held my gaze for a moment before speaking. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “I know why you’ve been asking me all these questions, and I know what you plan to do, but I’m not gonna let you do it.”

  “You don’t know shit,” I said. “I’m not leaving those kids to die. You try and stop us and maybe I’ll make sure the boys leave you in the tree this time.”

  A grin suddenly split the RCMP officer’s face. “Yeah, that was kinda funny. And I also know you weren’t going to be talked out of this, but I had to try.”

  “Yeah? So what are you gonna do about it?”

  “We’re going with you.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  Jenks snorted. “You won’t think so when it goes down. This is gonna be a horror show, Gerry. Their compound is big, but it’s not the only one. There’s another one to the west about ten kilometres.”

  “Kyle!”

  Kyle leaned out from behind the bulky frame of one of the police officers, “Yeah, boss?”

  “Get the boys ready, we’re going to war.”

  CHAPTER 23

  South Central British Columbia, Canada

  Lucia

  The zombie fairy woke me up. A small zombie girl appeared to be about eight years old and was dressed in a pink fairy costume that looked like the hem had been dipped in blood. Her sheer wings were embellished with glitter and atop her head sat a princess crown, but she had lost her wand somewhere along the feed. She gasped in cougar hisses as she jumped at the truck window. After I shook the initial startle off, I almost laughed as I pulled away.