New DEAD series (Book 2): DEAD (Alone)

by TW Brown

  There was a moment where I thought she would balk. When she nodded once, I let out a little sigh of relief. We clasped hands and then moved away from each other. Arlo was speaking again, but I was no longer paying attention. I was about to kill somebody…or die trying.

  11

  Survivor

  Maybe later I could take the time to analyze everything that I’d done these first weeks. For now, I would not allow my conscience to get in the way of what I knew had to be done.

  I’d only been getting it partially right up to this point. I’d had no problem with the idea that the world had changed and the old rules no longer applied. When it came to putting that into practice, I’d been very selective. While I don’t believe that I will ever embrace this new reality…I must accept it fully. That would certainly mean doing things that I would’ve never imagined just a few weeks ago—hell, even a few hours ago most likely—but I would survive.

  I slipped into the backyard of the house on the right and heard something snuffling in a cluster of nearby rhododendron bushes. I barely had time to think of any good expletives when what was left of a brindle colored Boxer crawled out, its head lolling my direction as its tongue licked at the air in anticipation of just how tasty it figured me to be. One of the legs had been gnawed down to the bone, and its belly had been savaged so that all manner of viscera spooled out behind the poor thing as it fought to get free of the large rhododendron and make its way across the small expanse of lawn that existed between us.

  Reaching down for the large knife sheathed at my hip, I drew it and drove it into the head. At least that had been my intention. Apparently the skull of a dog is a bit harder than I anticipated and the point of the blade did little more than dig a furrow down the side of the canine’s head and ended up plunging through the upper lip. I jerked back fast and drove it into the filmed over left eye.

  The dense base of the budding bush gave a shudder and then vomited out another zombie Boxer. This one did not seem to have any visible injuries, but I seriously did not have the time to give it a thorough inspection. I hastily repeated my actions of sticking it in the eye socket with my blade.

  Deciding to stay low, I crawled on my hands and knees until I reached the actual house. As my little dilemma was unfolding, I think two more shots were fired from each location. I heard some return fire, but it was disturbingly minimal. I began to wonder if there would be anybody left to save by the time I got up onto the roof and took out the sniper.

  I scurried to the small back porch. It had a sturdy railing all the way around it. I winced twice when a board creaked as I crossed the porch and then climbed up. The next part would be tricky. It would also be the point where I had the greatest chance of being spotted. Considering the fact that I would be completely helpless as I got up onto the roof, I was about to launch myself into a live-or-die situation. It wasn’t as if life didn’t exist in that state now, on a constant level, but I would be upping the ante.

  I peeked up over the lip of the roof and was relieved to see that the sniper was very focused on whatever was happening on the street below. I considered just pulling my handgun and taking this guy down, but that would eliminate any chance Miranda and I had of surprising these people. Since I had no idea how many others were part of this task force, I was going to try to save using the gun as a last resort.

  I was smart enough to draw the weapon, give it a quick visual check, and then set it quietly in the trench of the house’s gutter. Holding my breath and gritting my teeth against the pain I knew would come from using my still-injured arm, I planted my palms on the roof and then swung my right leg up. Like an idiot, I reflexively glanced down. That almost cost me as I felt my heart begin to thunder in my chest. It suddenly seemed like a long way down if I were to fall. That was an aspect of myself that had never gone away despite my years in construction. I knew some guys who would just bound around up on a job. Not me…despite the amount of ribbing I usually took from the fellas.

  Shoving those thoughts away, I pulled myself up just as I heard Arlo begin hollering out another series of threats and ultimatums. That masked the small amount of sound I was making as I heaved myself up onto the roof and laid flat. I grabbed the pistol in my off hand and once more drew the big knife that I’d just used to put down those two Boxers.

  I got to my feet, but stayed down in a crouch. The sniper was sweeping to his left, and then he fired. That almost made me fall back as it startled me just enough to cause my footing to slip. That was also enough noise for him to realize that there was somebody on the roof with him. He started to turn and I did the only thing that I could think of—I adjusted my grip on the knife I was holding so that I had the tip pinched between my thumb and fingers, then I whipped it at him as hard as I could without upsetting my balance too much.

  That always looked so cool in movies and television. Unfortunately for me, my blade simply thudded into the sniper’s shoulder…handle first. It clattered to the sloped surface and slid almost halfway back to me as I stared like a deer in the headlights at the business end of the rifle pointed at my chest. Luckily, the man was caught just as off guard as I was and was staring dumbly down at the impotent weapon that slid away from him after causing absolutely no damage.

  Okay, maybe it bruised his shoulder a little, but that would be about the extent of things. I recovered first and did the only thing left for me to do in this situation: I raised my pistol and fired. My shot rang out and the bullet slammed into the center of the sniper’s chest. He didn’t go flying, but simply slumped over backwards, his body folding back on his knees. Just as my knife had done, the sniper began to slide down the sloped surface of the roof. His rifle clattered on the shingles and slid by much too fast for me to adjust and grab it, but I was able to retrieve my knife and jam it into the sheath on my hip. Just as the rifle hit the deck below, I heard a scuffle and looked over to see Miranda pulling her knife out of the lower back of her target. Unfortunately, I’d just committed a mistake by taking my eyes off the body. In that brief moment, the situation had changed dramatically.

  At first, he’d merely slumped down and began a slow slide, then, it was as if gravity had changed because suddenly he was rolling at me like a human bowling ball. I had to move to my left in a hurry and got out of the way just in time as the body tumbled past and careened off the deck with a nasty cracking sound that might not have been wood splintering.

  I scurried up to the chimney and peered around it. At first glance, I counted seven bodies sprawled on the street, obvious victims of the twin snipers. My eyes did another scan and easily discovered where at least Arlo and a few of his party were hunkered down.

  There were five people besides Arlo and they were all crouched down behind a decent looking RV. It was sitting parallel to the street and offered maximum coverage from Kolowicz and the others.

  Now that I was getting a better look I made a discovery that punched me in the gut. Katy was one of the bodies sprawled on the street in a dark pool of blood that was staining the asphalt. It didn’t seem fair. She’d been terribly injured and disfigured; she defied the odds and proved immune to the infection that turned people into the walking dead only to be taken down in a senseless killing by a bunch of narrow-minded ass hats.

  Pistols are not really designed for long range. They are capable of hitting distant targets, but their forte is the up-close attack. If I had to guess, I put the distance between me and Arlo to be at about forty yards or so. That would be close to the edge of my effective range.

  Up until now, at least it did not seem as if Arlo was aware that he’d lost his snipers. I would probably only have one shot. I was confident that he was at the upper end of the chain of command with Don. Killing him now would save me doing it later. I was not going to commit the cardinal sin of letting one of the important bad guys get away.

  I brought the Glock up and took careful aim at the man’s body. Part of me hated the idea of shooting a man in the back. It seemed a bit cowardly, but that w
as quickly snuffed when I watched him gun down one of the people they’d ambushed as he or she tried to sprint across the street to one of their downed companions.

  It was just one simple squeeze of the trigger, but in that moment, everything changed for me. I felt a sliver of icy coldness take root in the deepest part of my heart. There was no nausea or regret flooding me. I felt no trace of remorse as I saw the man twitch violently as the bullet pierced his body. Before he could react, I fired twice more. The second shot went just a bit wide, but I corrected for the third and saw his body jerk again.

  I had no idea where my round scored until he flopped onto his back and began drumming the ground with his feet as his hands clutched at his throat. Even from this distance, I could see the darkness of his lifeblood trickling through his fingers as he clutched at his neck.

  I didn’t have time to watch any longer as the people around him were all leaping to their feet and searching frantically for the source of the gunfire that had just ended one of their own. Another squeeze of the trigger caused one of them, a woman, to stagger back as my round caught her in the middle of her chest.

  The report of a rifle to my left let me know that Miranda was now joining in the slaughter; and that is exactly what it was. It was the very massacre that Arlo had threatened; the big difference existed in the targets. It took Miranda and I just a few seconds to put an end to all those who had been gathered around Arlo behind that RV which was now splattered with blood that ran in rivulets down its exterior.

  The brick of the chimney suddenly exploded right next to my head. I felt a stinging sensation bloom on my right cheek and then felt a much bigger pain erupt around my right eye socket. The first thought was that I’d just lost my eye.

  I dropped to my knees and slid partway back down the slope of the roof. My free hand went to my face and I felt a flap of meat dangling just above and to the side of my right eyeball. My hand came away soaked with blood, but I was cognizant enough to be at least temporarily thankful that my eye still seemed to be intact.

  I wanted to get back up and join Miranda in the fight, but the pain had me struggling with the simple act of standing. To make things worse, all the blood was screwing with my ability to judge things like distance. This became clear when I reached up for the chimney in order to pull myself back up to the top of the roof. My hand swiped through the air and caught nothing except for my knuckles which grazed the sharp corner of the brick structure enough to cause me to let loose with a very undignified yelp of pain.

  I jerked my hand back, amazed that I had any pain receptors left to send signals to my brain or that I could hurt myself enough to feel it past the white-hot agony already emanating from my right eye.

  Another shot was fired from Miranda’s direction and I heard her swear which made me believe that she must’ve missed. I scooted on my butt to reach the crown of the roof and tuck in behind the chimney as best I could.

  “Evan!” Miranda hollered.

  I looked her direction, but the blood from the injury was now stinging my good eye which was already seeing through a bit of a blurry haze to begin with. I was about to ask her what she wanted when I saw a hand come up onto the lip of my roof from pretty close to the same spot that I’d climbed up.

  Before I could ask Miranda if it was friend or foe, she fired another shot off, this one sending up a chunk of the section of shingle where her round hit. “It’s one of the bad guys!”

  That seemed a bit pointless considering her most recent action. Still, I brought my Glock up and fired at the arm attached to the hand that had just come into view. I have no idea where that bullet went. It didn’t hit anything close to where I was aiming. My depth perception was worse than I thought.

  I adjusted down a bit and fired again. Nothing. However, the person trying to climb up onto my roof apparently decided that was a bad idea and the arm snaked away from view.

  “I have no angle on that guy!” Miranda called, and then fired again.

  I was about to ask her why she was wasting ammo when I glanced over and saw the blurry outline of her profile with the barrel of the rifle definitely pointing out towards where the rest of the bad guys were apparently organizing their counterattack. I made that assumption based on the sounds of bullets slamming into the chimney that I was hiding behind. I was guessing that Miranda was coming under fire as well, but until I could get my eyes cleared, I would have no real idea as to the extent.

  I jerked the bottom of my shirt free and cut a big piece of it off using my knife. I wiped at my face to get as much blood cleaned away as possible considering the circumstances. Next, I shoved the wadded-up cloth against where I figured my injury to be. There was a stinging sensation that told me I’d most likely hit the mark. Not having any better ideas, I stuck my knife into the roof and shoved my Glock behind my back, then I just yanked off another big strip of cloth and wrapped it around my head, cinching it as tight as I could stand.

  As I did this sloppy bit of field triage, I kept my eyes glued to where that arm had appeared. Nothing reappeared and I snatched my pistol from behind my back and kept it at the ready. I knew I still had a few rounds in the magazine and decided to point my weapon down a bit further than my earlier attempts. I pulled the trigger and got a bit of good news mixed in with the bad. On the good side, at least I’d hit the roof this time as a section of shingle erupted in tar paper, wood, and grit. On the bad side, my shot was still way above where I’d figured it to be…and a few inches to the left.

  A wave of relative silence suddenly washed over the scene. I glanced over to see if Miranda was okay. She seemed fine, crouched behind her chimney and fiddling with her weapon. I continued to watch as she patted down the body of the individual that she’d killed on her roof. She produced a box and I figured out that she was reloading. I risked a peek around the corner of my chimney and saw nothing more than a few zombies staggering down the street. They were all veering towards the house that Miranda was on top of, but I didn’t see any signs of a living person.

  Had we gotten here too late? I wondered.

  “Evan? Is that you?” The relative silence was finally broken by Kolowicz.

  “Yeah. You guys okay?” I called back.

  “No…no we are very much not okay.” I heard her voice break up a bit. It was hard to imagine anything that could cause that woman to choke up, but it was clear that she was on the verge of tears if she hadn’t already teetered over the edge. “Katy’s…dead.”

  Of course I already knew that, but it still took a bit of air from my lungs to hear it confirmed. I’d been pretty sure that I recognized the body I’d seen sprawled on the street.

  “Wait…she’s moving. I think she may be alive!”

  That caught me by surprise. I almost lost my balance as I hurried to my feet. That was all it took to renew the attacks from the remaining survivors of Arlo’s squad. A barrage of gunfire erupted from several locations almost at once as if they’d been just waiting for a target of interest to appear. I ducked back down, but not before I caught a glimpse of Katy’s body stirring. She was trying to get up to her hands and knees. I’m no doctor, but I didn’t think that was a good idea with all the blood it looked like she’d lost.

  I looked over to Miranda and saw her kneeling, her head tilted just a bit as she peered into the scope and swept the area for a target. The moment she found one, the rifle bucked in her grasp and a coil of smoke rolled from the barrel.

  As fast as it had started, it was over. The sound of gunfire had completely ceased. All that remained were the moans of the dying…and the undead. I risked another look from my perch behind the chimney, holding my breath as I waited for another round of gunfire. Nothing came and I got to my feet.

  “Oops, big mistake,” I groaned as a wave of dizziness and nausea rolled through me. I pressed my back against the chimney as I slid back down to my butt.

  My vision was already horrible, but when you coupled it with the blurriness from the sick feeling that was washing over me
, I was going to end up falling off the roof and dying from a broken neck if I wasn’t careful. From where I was sitting, I saw Kolowicz kneeling beside Katy. It looked as if, despite the terrible injuries, the smaller woman was trying to get to her feet.

  “Should she be moving?” Miranda called, voicing the very thoughts that were bouncing around inside my own head.

  I was starting to struggle with my focus. I sure as hell didn’t want to pass out. Once again, that was likely to end up with me falling. I’d come too far to die this way. I wanted to call out for help, but at the moment I felt like Katy was in a more dire predicament than me. I could hold my tongue for another minute or two at least until they got her out of the street and to relative safety.

  I saw a few of the other members of this group starting to emerge from wherever they’d hidden during this confrontation. A thought flashed in my head that these people were certainly ill-equipped to survive this apocalypse if their big move during a fight was to run and hide. I was stunned as I saw at least twenty people emerge and start trying to help those who were injured.

  The scream snapped my head back down to where Kolowicz had been attending to Katy. I had to rub my eyes because I was having a hard time processing what I was seeing. Katy was immune. I knew that to be true. Yet, if that was true, why did she have her face buried in Kolowicz’s throat? A spray of blood shot skyward as Katy pulled free, leaving a nasty wound behind that was spurting a crimson jet in time with its owner’s heartbeat.

  Miranda wasted no time bringing her rifle up and firing. I saw Katy’s head snap back as the bullet entered from the rear and exit the front in a slurry of brain and bone.

  Meanwhile, Kolowicz had pushed away and was trying desperately to staunch the flow of blood from her throat. I could do nothing but sit and watch as she struggled from her knees to a standing position. She took a step, staggered first to the left, then the right before crashing back to the ground. I winced when she hit. Her hands had made no effort to break the fall, and when her face slammed into the street’s surface, it bounced off it with an audible crunch.