The woman stopped removing the creature’s clothes and raised the rifle to her eye. “Beater number two,” she said, and took aim at the creature’s chest, firing three rounds and leaving a large hole where the heart should be. It was now a mangled mess of fried meat.
The final man had completely removed the creature’s black polo shirt. He had begun working on its pants when the creature opened its eyes.
“Watch it, Ricardo,” the woman said, taking aim at the creature. “Beater?”
“No,” Ricardo replied. “Still new. Continue searching. I’ll hold him down.”
Machete Man continued removing the creature’s pants as Ricardo took something out of his pocket and shoved it into the thing’s mouth. Careful to avoid actually touching its mouth, Ricardo swung the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, knelt down and snapped the creature’s neck. He held the head that continued trying to find the stability it needed to move.
“Find it yet?” the woman asked. “There’s more coming.” She pointed in the direction of Kyle’s truck, then knelt.
Kyle stared at the six advancing dead passing his truck.
“Found it,” Machete Man said and quickly impaled the creature’s left foot. Pink sludge poured out, which indicated that the creature had finally met its death.
Ricardo let go of the creature’s head the second it was put down. He spun, quickly retrieving the rifle strapped to his shoulder, knelt, and took aim.
“Wow,” Kyle said, amazed. “They’re very well trained.”
“Too bad they weren’t here last night to save my mom,” Victor added, making Kyle feel uneasy.
Victor gave one quick look at the boy and then continued staring at the group fighting the dead like a well-oiled machine.
“Virginia,” Ricardo called out, looking through his scope, “Second from the right.”
Kyle looked at the Existing Dead Ricardo mentioned. What are they looking for? he thought.
Virginia took aim at the creature’s chest and fired. Large amounts of fried tissue exploded from the exit wound. Then she took aim at its head and fired again. The creature stopped dead in its tracks and collapsed to the ground.
Machete Man stood behind them with the blade in his hands. There was a strong resemblance to a Civil War Colonel who would stand behind his men at the front line of a battle, giving orders. All that was missing was a revolver in his hand for shooting at the advancing men.
Ricardo and Virginia wasted no time in continuing the fire power at the five remaining dead. Their shots were precise, dropping the dead with as few shots as possible.
Machete Man quickly ran to begin the clothes-removing process. All three of them had to work as quickly as possible to find the boil which could be anywhere on the body, and destroy it. Kyle wondered what they would do if they ran out of time and the dead rose again. This was quickly answered by Ricardo’s action. He moved from body to body, snapping the creatures’ necks with a swift movement, just as he had with the Existing Dead that had reopened its eyes.
After the final Existing Dead in the area was dispatched, they did one last sweep of the area. There were no more active dead anywhere.
Machete Man took a small bottle out of a vest compartment and squirted its contents over the blade and used a cloth from his back pocket to wipe the blade clean. After, his machete looked brand new. He looked toward the roof of Morgan’s house. The house that was supposed to be safe from the dead.
“Morgan,” the man said in a heavy accent.
Victor looked to the side and walked out of view. Kyle pointed down to where the remaining bits of Morgan’s body lay.
Machete Man sighed. “Wait der.”
“I have nowhere else to go,” Kyle replied in a low voice.
The three of them entered the house with their guns drawn. A few shots were fired, followed by heavy heaves of machete hitting bone. Not two minutes passed when Ricardo and Machete Man walked out of the house carrying a two-storey ladder. Virginia followed with her weapon still drawn. After she realized there was no longer a threat, she let the rifle swing around her shoulder by the strap.
The two men began to unlock the ladder, making it long enough to reach the top. All the while, they spoke to each other in Spanish.
“Aqui,” Machete Man said. “No quiero molestar el cuerpo de Morgan.”
The two men began to set up the ladder a good ten feet away from where the body of Morgan lay.
Kyle began to go down the ladder, telling Victor to follow him. The boy didn’t listen. “Come on, Victor. It’s time to go.”
Victor stood and walked toward the ladder. He peered over the ledge and saw the remains of his mother. “Would I survive if I jumped?”
Kyle looked above him quickly. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“If I jumped, would I survive?”
“Stop talking like an idiot and come on.”
“What if I jump?”
“Then I’ll kick your ass for jumping when I reach the ground. It’s a two-storey drop, you’ll survive.”
The thought of jumping did cross Victor’s mind, but something else did. He began thinking of what his mother would say about his thoughts. Nothing. His mother was dead.
“Come on,” Kyle said as he continued to descend the ladder.
Victor turned and put his foot on the ladder step. He began to climb down.
Kyle reached the ground and was searched by Ricardo.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said looking at the tall man.
“Searching you. We don’t know who you are. All we see is the eaten remains of our friend and you,” Ricardo said, his brown eyes completely focused at what he was doing.
Virginia had her weapon trained at Kyle as Victor stepped off the ladder. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Are jou Bictor?” Machete Man asked.
Victor nodded with a stern expression on his face.
“Este es el hijo de Morgan,” Machete Man said to Ricardo, who had taken the Glock away from Kyle. That was the only weapon he could find on him.
“What happened to Morgan?” Virginia asked as Ricardo gave the signal that meant Kyle was clean.
“Last night we were going to bed. The streets started to fill with them. Sometime during the night they came into the house.”
“How did they get into the house? We secured it so they couldn’t get in.”
“They broke in through the window.”
All of them stared in the direction of the window. The broken glass littered the ground below. They didn’t understand how they could have not noticed that before.
“I guess the mustard doesn’t work anymore,” Virginia said, looking at Ricardo.
“God, these fucking things are morphing way too fast. As soon as we find one thing that works against them, they turn and it no longer matters,” Ricardo said, clearly agitated.
“What are you talking about?” Kyle asked, trying to get some questions answered.
“Cuidado,” Machete Man said. “Careful.” He stood motionless after telling Ricardo to be careful. The man was on the shorter side and a little soft around the edges. His shaved head seemed to glow in the sun’s rays.
“Careful? About what?” Kyle said, getting tired of secrets.
Machete Man sighed. “Kyle, si?”
“Yeah, I’m Kyle.”
“I’m Ignacio. Do jou know what’s happening to the Existing Dead?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue. I’ve been watching them ever since they fell to the ground a day or so ago. There’s so much crap going on and no one seems to know what’s happening to them.”
“Kyle, please,” Ignacio said with a slight grin. “They’d been doing dat for about a week now. I’m surprised jou’ve only see them do dat since yesterday. Come here.” He turned to face the door of the house. “You see der?” He pointed to a few flowerpots that were near the door and windows.
“They’re just potted plants. Mustard I think it is.”
&n
bsp; “Si, Kyle. Dey don’t go near the mustard. Dey don’t like it. Dat’s why dey never enter this house. This is why it was a safe house.”
“So you’re telling me that these things came back to life and started eating everyone, but mustard makes them sick?”
Ignacio nodded. “We think is because the color. They have bery good night visions.”
“It did at least,” Ricardo said.
“Why?”
“Why did the dead decide to come back to life? We don’t know. All we know is that it worked and now it doesn’t,” Virginia added.
“Do you at least know why most of them don’t come out in the sunlight?” Kyle asked.
“Der changing,” was all that Ignacio said before walking down to the sidewalk. “Come, we go to Embassy. Many questions, doctor have answers.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “We’re not all gonna fit in my truck. You can ride up front with me and everyone else can go in the bed.”
Kyle walked toward his truck, avoiding the bodies on the ground, and reached into his pocket for the keys. As he approached, he noticed a large puddle of black liquid dropping from under the pickup. He looked closer at the front bumper. Three large bullet holes stared back at him like dark hollow eyes.
“You shot my truck,” he said.
“Dats okay, we can walk,” Ignacio replied.
“Yeah that’s great, but how the hell am I going to get to California?”
“You’re going to California?” Virginia asked.
“I have someone waiting for me there.”
Victor snickered.
“You know it’s a thousand times worse there than here, right?”
“Yeah. That’s why I need to know everything I can before going there. I’ll need transportation now.”
“We have a ton of cars at The Embassy. You can take one of those,” Ricardo said.
“Victor, help me carry some of this stuff,” Kyle said opening the door. He grabbed the robot backpack and flung it over his shoulder, then reached for the bloodstained Winchester. Victor opened the passenger side door and began grabbing anything he could.
“Let’s go,” Ricardo said.
Kyle used his hips to close the door to his truck and kissed it goodbye. That truck had been very good to him over the years. He was sad to finally have to see it go.
The five survivors studied the road in front of them. With Ignacio leading the way, they began their journey to The Embassy.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They had only been walking for a few minutes when Victor opened a bottle of water and chugged it down in three gulps. The Nevada heat was really starting to kick in.
“It’s hot. Wasn’t it just raining a day ago?” Victor said.
“Did you just move to the desert, kid?” Kyle said.
“Shut up.”
They continued walking with Ignacio taking point, followed by Ricardo and Virginia on opposite sides of Victor and Kyle. Everyone was silent, slowly walking out of the small neighborhood.
“Where do they go?”
“What?” Virginia said.
“The Existing Dead, where do they go during the daylight?”
Virginia and Ricardo both stopped walking. They turned to face Kyle and pointed to one of the houses with a large window. Kyle and Victor squinted at the glass until their vision began to focus.
“Holy shit,” Kyle said as he saw a dozen pair of eyes staring at him through the window. He looked toward another window and saw a few more heads. All around him in every window were unmoving heads that just stared at them. The scene could have been taken out of something from The Twilight Zone. “What the hell are they doing?”
“They’re staring at you. They’re waiting,” Ricardo said in a grim voice.
“What are they waiting for?” Victor said already knowing the answer.
“They’re waiting for the sun to go down.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Ignacio said, finally realizing that no one had been following him.
Kyle began to move keeping a close eye on the heads that continued to stare at him from the windows. “Why don’t you just burn the house? Drag them out of there? Won’t the sunlight kill them?” Kyle said, making assumptions.
“The sunlight doesn’t kill them,” Virginia said. “It just aggravates them. We don’t have enough man power to handle that many at once. Best thing for us to do is to keep walking and ignore them.
“Easier said than done,” Victor said.
Once they finally made it out of the small neighborhood, it didn’t take them long to reach the chain-link fence that ran all around a large collection of buildings.
“The Embassy is the Rosters High School?”
“Yeah. It was the only building around here that’s fully fenced,” Ricardo answered.
They walked toward the entrance as Ignacio took out a key from his pocket. There were large chains keeping the gates closed. He opened the padlock and began unhooking the chain. The door swung open freely.
After the five of them walked into the first gate, they waited for Ignacio to finish locking the gate up.
Directly in front of them was an office building that had no windows. They had all been replaced by particle board. Exiting the sides of the building was another set of chain linked fences that ran to walls on opposite sides, making the office door the only entrance through the fence.
“We’re back,” Ignacio said.
The door to the building slowly opened revealing two men wearing the same black uniforms. They pointed rifles before slowly walking outside.
“Is everyone all right?” the taller man said in a deep voice.
“Yes,” said Ignacio.
“Where’s Morgan?” the other man asked, his voice more juvenile then everyone else. He was young, couldn’t have been any older than twenty. There was an air of cockiness about him, as though he had been through a lot in order to survive.
“She’s dead,” Ricardo said.
The young man looked to the ground. “Damn,” he said. “She was a nice piece of ass.”
Victor’s eyes grew wide with rage. Before anyone else had time to react to the comment, Victor sprinted for the man, fists clutched, jaw locked.
Kyle quickly reached for Victor and grabbed hold of his shoulder. “Let me go,” Victor yelled.
Everyone in the area tensed and began to react at what was happening.
Victor jumped and kicked trying to reach the man, but Kyle’s grasp wouldn’t let him. “Calm down!” he shouted.
“W’the fuck’s his problem?”
“This is her son, you fucking idiot,” Kyle said, enraged now himself.
“Ah, well, that explains it,” the younger man said, then slowly walked back into the building, disappearing into the darkness.
“Don’t mind Carter; he’s what some would call, annoying,” the other man said.
“He’s a fucking idiot is what he is,” Kyle said, loudly enough for Carter to hear. He slowly loosened the grip on Victor.
“Well, that too,” the man said with a smile and extended his arm. “I’m Albert.”
“Kyle, and this is Victor.” He extended his arm to meet Albert half way.
“Is everyone at lunch?” Ricardo said.
“Yeah, they’re just about finishing up. Carter and I were just waiting for your return. Now we can go eat.”
Albert led them into the dark building. Zero sunlight entered the small office. Virginia was the last one inside. She closed the door behind her and everyone stood in pitch black for a few seconds. A door opened on the other side of the room, slicing sunlight into the darkness.
The room had a large secretary’s desk directly in front of the door. They moved to the left to walk around the desk. There were papers, pens and other things anyone would find at a school’s front office. As they walked around the desk, the room began to expand into a much larger space with two doors on opposite sides. There were smaller desks scattered all over the bigger room, probably belonging to
the assistants.
Carter stood next to the open door, waiting for them to come closer.
“This way,” Albert said.
They walked through the opened door and stood on the inside of the gates. To their right, the two fences they had passed were visible, and to their left was what resembled a T-intersection. Planted on a few open patches of soil were trees surrounded by mustard plants.
Albert led them to the T-intersection and made a left. The hallway was made of two buildings on opposite sides. Each wall was coated by small school lockers. The short walk through the hall led them into a bigger open area that Kyle instantly knew was the school’s quad, mostly because there was a rock sculpture in the center of the field with the words “Senior Quad” on it. The campus was quiet, and other than his guides, Kyle hadn’t seen another soul, nor did he feel any presence.
“Here we go,” Albert said, pointing at a door to his left. “This is the cafeteria.” He opened the door for them.
The sound of generator’s roaring grew loud as the door opened. Ignacio walked into the room, which only led him to another door a few feet away from the other one. Two generators were placed on opposite sides from each other in the tiny room. He opened the second door and walked inside.
There were six rectangular tables set up in the room. One of them had an assortment of food atop it. Bread, lettuce, deli ham and turkey, all the fixings to make sandwiches. No one else was in the room.
“Where is everyone?” Kyle asked.
“Working,” Carter said.
“Go ahead and help yourselves,” Albert added.
Everyone except for Victor approached the table and began picking at what was left of lunch.
“Come on, Victor,” Kyle said. “Get some before it’s all gone.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said, walking to one of the chairs and taking a seat.
Kyle finished making a sandwich and sat next to Victor. “Here,” he said, offering half of his sandwich to him.
“I don’t want any.”
“All right,” Kyle said taking a large bite.
The overhead lights in the room were fully lit, thanks to the generators. Kyle couldn’t remember the last time he saw light bulbs lit. He looked around the room and stopped as his gaze met a large whiteboard mounted onto the wall. There were many markings on the board. No words, just markings, like check marks. Possibly indicating how many days this place had been here. He counted nine individual lines.
Existing Dead Page 18