Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine

by Fisher, Sean Thomas

  A Little More Dead

  GUNFIRE & SUNSHINE

  by

  Sean Thomas Fisher

  Copyright © 2015 by Sean Thomas Fisher

  Cover design by Creative Paramita

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  DAY EIGHTEEN

  Half way down the balcony stairs with the Beretta waving wildly in his hand, Paul could see the sun-splashed horde closing the distance on Cora. Like running on a loose rug, her feet slipped in the sand and, for a moment, everything slowed to a painful crawl. He had time to realize how tired she must be from going without food and water for God knows how long. Had time to understand that if she fell now, she’d be just as tattered and torn as the red robe fluttering in the ocean breeze behind her. Leaping the last four steps, he landed with an oomph bursting from his lips and scrambled toward the tall fence surrounding the backyard. Feet slipped in the hot sand. Panic bubbled and pestering questions whisked through his mind, threatening to derail his rescue: How did she get here? Was she bit? How could she have survived for so long on her own? It was impossible.

  The undead were so close now Paul could hear their snarls and grunts over the crashing Gulf Coast waves. The grisly mob herded Cora into the outstretched arms of the elderly corpse in dirty shorts coming from the opposite direction. Boxed in, she was quickly running out of beachfront real estate and this wasn’t looking good. At the gate, Paul’s vantage point improved and he realized there were more of them than he thought – at least twenty, maybe more. Gripping the warm metal in his free hand, he yanked hard, nearly pulling his shoulder from its socket.

  Locked.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, startling the horses and turning back to the three-story beach house behind him. Wendy galloped down the outdoor staircase with her pink gun drawn and Stephanie hot on her heels. Long hair floated out behind them like veils, sunlight exposing the worried lines engraved into their faces. “Where’s the key?” he yelled over the battering waves.

  “Troy!” Stephanie shouted, a heavy handgun accentuating the toned arms spilling from her black tank. She hit the sand at roughly the same time Troy burst from a ground level slider.

  “Coming,” he yelled, holding the key up and hurdling a lounge chair.

  Paul started shooting through the black cast-iron bars, deciding Cora didn’t have time to wait for Troy to unlock the damn gate. Wasting ammo on high-risk shots was stupid but, unlike the tireless pack behind her, Cora was already slowing down and this really wasn’t looking good. After everything Brock did for them, Paul owed it to the cowboy to step in and failure wasn’t an option. Heart pounding in his ears, the sun beat down on his bare chest as he took out the old straggler with more shots than he cared to retell before starting in on the group behind Cora.

  Troy reached Paul’s side and fumbled with the skeleton key in the lock, cursing under his racing breath. “Who is she?”

  “Just open the gate!” Paul missed his next two targets, the iron bars interfering with his aim.

  “I’m trying!” Troy clenched his teeth and fought with the lock, a handgun tucked in the small of his back. “Got it!” The sweet sound of a metallic click pierced the dead moans getting closer and the gate popped open. Everyone spilled onto the beach. The sand slowed his speed and Paul had time to think how he and Wendy just escaped certain death aboard Wavy Gravy less than two hours ago and here they were running right back into the Reaper’s outstretched claws. Curtis finally caught up with a shotgun tucked against his bare shoulder, the gate slamming shut behind him with a spring-loaded clang that made Paul shudder. Curtis stopped and planted his feet, firing a booming blast right next to Paul’s head that made his ears ring and his next shot miss. He blinked to clear the rotating thunder clapping inside. It was a cluster-fuck of gunfire and sunshine, the prior as deafening as the other was blinding.

  Their shadows stretching across the sand, they unleashed hell upon the rotting throng coming at them. Paul shook with the handgun’s recoil, dropping a guy with curly blond hair that reminded him of Dan. The man fell to his knees and a chubby redheaded woman barreled over him, knocking him to the sand and reaching for Paul with hands that appeared to have contracted leprosy. Dragging in a heavy breath, he put a round in her in the shoulder, jerking her to the side. Undeterred, she sneered and corrected course, kicking up sand as she charged. Adjusting for the wind and forcing his breathing to slow, her head blew off just before he pulled the trigger. He glanced over at Curtis who gave him a coy wink before pumping in another shell and turning back to the crowd.

  “I’m out!” Troy cried, cracking a black guy in the face with the butt of his gun and knocking out the man’s two front teeth.

  “Get Cora inside!” Paul slowed his shots and backpedaled toward the gate, checking the pockets of the shorts he commandeered aboard Wavy Gravy. His spirits sank. Empty. One magazine hid in his holster and it would have to last but the way those things were coming, there probably wouldn’t even be time to change it out. Every hollow point had to count, so he waited until he could smell the rancid stench on their breath before firing. It was a gamble but one he had to take.

  Troy scooped Cora up into his arms, biceps bulging from a Chevy cutoff, while Paul, Wendy and Stephanie closed the wall behind him. For every zombie they dropped, another took its place. Paul could see the rips and tears in their irate faces and it didn’t take a genius to realize their ammo wouldn’t outlast them.

  “Get back to the house!” he yelled, putting a hole through the forehead of a young boy who made him think of Mike. Moving as a single unit, they crept to the gate with the undead literally dropping at their feet, the wind painting their faces in blood. Paul could taste the metallic liquid in his mouth and wondered if he was infected, wondered what it would feel like to suffer through what Sophia did.

  A stalking man in a suit and tie came out of nowhere, blasting through what was left of the pack like bowling pins. Hair thinning and gray, he must’ve weighed over three hundred pounds and came fast as hell. Paul took aim at the snarl on his face and waited for him to get closer. An old woman in a dress limped nearer on his right but he stayed on point, drawing a bead on the man’s scrunched up nose. Squeezing the trigger, he braced for the recoil that never came. “Shit!”

  With no time to clear the jam, he brought the gun back in his hand, tensing every muscle in his body. A thundering boom sent the thing sideways. Paul looked over, barely catching another one of Curtis’ shit-eating grins before the old lady in the olive-colored dress was on him. He shoved the Beretta against her face, craning his neck to avoid her snapping jaws and slashing nails. She looked fresher than the others but just as hungry.

  “I’m out!” Wendy shouted, backing to the gate.

  Stephanie put her gun barrel to the old woman’s head and blew the thing’s brains out the other side. Paul threw the stiff to the sand and spit blood from his mouth before hitting a dead man in the face with the butt of his gun and sending him to the ground. Curtis finally joined their crumbling wall, using his shotgun like a baseball bat while egging those things on.

  “I’m out!” Stephanie cried, deflating what was left of Paul’s hope and then planting a roundhouse kick into a woman’s peeling face.

&nb
sp; The good news was only four corpses remained on their feet. The bad news was only four corpses remained on their feet and everyone was out of ammo. Paul turned and ran, fighting off a skinny black teen blocking his path to the gate. He couldn’t tell who wanted to kill who more and all that black lives matter bullshit didn’t matter now. It was kill or be killed so Paul skull-clubbed him, sending the kid staggering. A blond woman darted past with a sun hat dangling from her neck. Paul tried tripping her but the teen pounced, driving him backwards in the sand.

  “Jesus Christ!” He held the kid’s gnashing teeth at bay, instinct the only weapon left in his arsenal, which wasn’t much.

  Someone screamed behind him and Paul wanted to look but couldn’t. He grunted when the teenager slammed him up against the fence with surprising strength, knocking the Beretta from his hand. Weaponless, he punched him in the face and the thing screamed back, breath cold and rank. Paul stuck a leg behind him and shoved, sending him cart wheeling to the beach. Spinning, he saw Troy struggling to unlock the stupid fucking gate with the sunhat woman chewing on his shoulder from behind.

  The gangly pharmacist ripped through Paul’s mind, gutting him from the inside out. He grabbed her sunhat and yanked. Troy screamed when her teeth tore a piece of flesh from his shoulder. Throwing the behemoth to her stomach, Paul stepped on her back and pulled, strangling her with her own hat. Tendons bulged in his neck as he arched his back, straining his muscles and gritting his teeth. He screamed to the blue skies above, ripping the cord through her vertebrae and severing the head from its body. Her arms and legs moved on the ground. Teeth snapped. Glistening blood gushed from the stump in her neck. Operating on automatic pilot, he grabbed a fistful of blond hair and swung the head into a man trying to eat Stephanie’s face for breakfast. The man teetered to the side and Paul snatched his gun from the sand before hurriedly following Stephanie inside the fence. Troy slammed the gate shut behind them and jumped back as rotten arms shot through the bars.

  Everyone stared at the dead teenager and short woman desperately trying to breach the gate, chests heaving. Troy rested his hands on his knees, too gassed to even notice his wounded shoulder. He spit to the sand. “Well that didn’t go so hot.”

  “Fuck you, bitches!” Curtis barked, wiping the blood and guts from his tattooed chest and flinging it at the corpses.

  Paul heard a clicking noise and looked down, realizing he was still clutching the blond woman’s head in his hand. He held her up by the hair and watched eyes blink and teeth snap. Tossing the cranium over the fence, the ghouls chased after it like dogs, giving it a few quick sniffs before returning to the fence and reaching through the bars. Planting his hands on his hips, he exhaled a winded breath. “Jesus fucking Christ! Does this shit ever get any easier?”

  “Troy!” Stephanie rushed to his side. “You’re bleeding!”

  Paul and Wendy looked at each other while Cora cried in the sand at their feet, her robe so tattered and torn it barely covered her naked body beneath.

  Troy clutched his shoulder and winced, eyes bulging when he saw the blood coating his hand. “Shit!”

  “Everything is going to be fine. We just have to…”

  “Stay back,” he yelled, pushing her away.

  Stephanie held her hands out like he was a wild animal, inching closer. “We just have to clean it,” she said, lowering her voice. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Her words sent a pang straight through Paul’s heart.

  She didn’t know.

  How could she not know?

  She came all the way down from Kansas City with her brothers and she didn’t know? But Paul knew. Without taking his eyes off Troy, he ejected the mostly spent mag to the sand next to Cora and quickly cleared the jam.

  “Just stay back, Steph,” Troy pleaded, backing toward the narrow beach house. “I could have it.”

  “Don’t you say that! You don’t have it!”

  Troy nodded at Curtis. “Curtis, get the guns and ammo from inside and start reloading. There could be more coming.”

  Curtis stared back with his jaw dangling and a blood-covered shotgun hanging limply in his hands.

  “Now Curtis!”

  Blinking back to reality, he darted into the house while Stephanie eased closer.

  “Troy, let’s get inside and get you cleaned up. We need to sterilize it.” Her voice was soft and calm and Paul admired her for that.

  Troy ran a bloody hand through his dark wavy hair. “I can walk on my own. Don’t get too close; I don’t want to hurt you.” He looked back at the others. “Any of you.”

  Paul and Wendy traded a somber look as Stephanie helped Cora to her feet and followed Troy inside to the soundtrack of dead moans and grunts.

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “Nope.”

  “How can that be?”

  Shrugging, he holstered his weapon. “Haven’t seen anyone survive with just a bite yet.”

  Wendy turned back to the corpses at the gate and smeared blood across her cheeks like a tribal warrior. “Not even lunchtime yet, and we’ve almost died twice today.”

  Squinting against the sun, Paul watched the dead with his blood boiling. He mourned his old life and the safety he once took for granted and the fact that he couldn’t even get two minutes of peace and quiet to mourn his wife pissed him off even more. He couldn’t see Sophia’s face again and it was like being buried alive in somebody else’s coffin. Watching the teen snarl and hiss at him, he slowly shook his head. “I punched that kid right in the face and it didn’t even faze him.”

  Wendy frowned. “Why would you do that? He could’ve bitten you.”

  “He knocked my gun out of my hand,” he replied, examining his knuckles.

  Taking his hand in hers, she inspected it through narrow blue eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He pulled away. “But these damn things are starting to give me a headache.” Stomping over to the gate, he drew the Beretta PX4 Storm and put an end to their relentless whining with a few close-range head shots, scaring up a flock of seagulls feasting on the newly fallen bodies in the sand. He jammed the gun into the nylon holster strapped around his right thigh and stormed past Wendy. “Let’s get inside before Troy kills everyone.”

  Chapter Two

  Curtis paced back and forth through a stripe of sunlight coming through the glass walls in the lower level living room while Paul stared at the sleek couch with clean lines. It looked expensive and Troy just ruined it with his blood. But in Paul’s mind, it wasn’t a charcoal gray couch with white trim. It was the mint sectional back at the Jacobsen house. The one Sophia ruined with her blood. The one she died on. Forcing his eyes to Cora in the armchair next to him, he took her hand and tugged at her weepy gaze.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  She gave him a half-hearted smile, her hazel-colored eyes that used to shine like pennies now sunken and dark. She looked older. Frailer. Nothing like the sparkly woman prancing about her kitchen playing hostess while Brock grilled up fresh cuts out on the back deck.

  Paul glanced at Stephanie tending to Troy’s shoulder before turning back to Cora. “What happened to you, Cora? Where’d you go?”

  She pulled her ripped robe tighter around her and sat up straighter, attempting to compose herself and losing the battle. “I’m sorry for leaving like that but I had to get out of that car. I just... I don’t know. I had to go.”

  Exchanging a wary look with Wendy, Shelly1 slipped through his mind. “Where did you go?”

  Cora shook her head, shaking tears down her cheeks, voice escaping as a pathetic whine. “I don’t remember much. I ended up at some abandoned house and just slept for a while.” Pressing her lips into a thin grim line, she grew quiet and wrung her hands as Curtis paced the room. “A few years back, when my son died in a motorcycle accident, I didn’t think I could go on.” She nearly laughed. “I thought I was lost then but this...”

  Everything got quiet and even Troy was watching her.r />
  “Sometimes at night,” she continued in a soft voice, studying her hands through faraway eyes. “I would hear his bedroom door click shut and think, Oh good, Chuck made it home safely.” Sobbing, tears glistened on her cheeks. “And then I would wake up and find his room just the way he left it before the accident took him and I was so sad. And now I am sad and I am scared but I don’t want to give up.” She looked up at Paul. “I know what you must think but Brock wouldn’t expect that from me and I’m sorry for leaving like that. It was a mistake.” She sighed and turned to the others. “Thank you for what you did for me out there. I don’t know you people from Adam and it means the world to me and I’m sorry you had to do that.”

  Wendy swiped at a tear and took Cora’s hand. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  “I wish that were true,” she replied, coughing into her hand.

  Wendy turned to Curtis. “Can you get her some water, please?”

  Curtis stopped his pacing. “Do I look like a fucking waiter to you? Get your own damn water!”

  “I was thinking of something stronger,” Cora wheezed.

  Stephanie grabbed an open bottle from the coffee table and brought it over, flashing Cora a warm smile.

  “Who the hell are you anyway, lady?” Curtis planted his hands on his hips and there was no mistaking the disdain in his voice. “Tell me again why my brother just got bit saving your ass!”

  “Her name is Cora and she’s with us,” Paul said. “So you can just relax.”

  Curtis staggered backwards. “Relax? Your little catatonic friend here just about got us all killed.”

  Paul rose to his feet. “Look, her husband just lost his life and she nearly lost her own.”

  “And now my brother is losing his!” Curtis got in his face, nudging him with his chest. “We were doing just fine before you showed up.”

  Paul backed away, holding his hands up in surrender. “I get it and I’m sorry, man. I really am.”