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

by TW Brown

  Besides the smell, the other bad part about the dark were the screams. I kept thinking that they would eventually stop. There could not be that many survivors in the area…right? Apparently there were either many more than I believed, or else people were so spread out and scattered in small pockets of just one or two. Either way, for whatever reason, the screams were more common after dark. Some were surprisingly close, and once, I was almost certain that it could be no farther than the parking lot of this church.

  On the fourth day, I woke to Marshawn giving me a shake. I forced my eyes open and bemoaned the fact that there had been no coffee in the church pantry. The gloom told me that it was still not quite sunrise, so I was curious as to what this was about.

  “We need to move out,” he whispered.

  I looked around to see a few others waking the rest of the sleepers. We’d kept lookouts posted on the roof in shifts. A few people questioned the need, but Marshawn had said simply that it was a precaution and that it wasn’t up for debate.

  “We have a band of raiders in the area. They are doing a systematic search of pretty much everything that interests them and setting fire to anything that doesn’t,” he whispered in response to my unasked question.

  We’d been smart enough to load up packs and carry bags with food, water, and other assorted supplies, and stack everything in the dais where the pastor or priest or whoever handled the religious stuff would do the sermons. In moments, everybody was loaded up and hustling out the back door to the church.

  We were at the intersection of Southeast 132nd and Sunnyside Road. Just across the street from us was the Sunnyside Elementary School. That location had been very quickly crossed off the list of places to go near. One of the scavenging teams had returned to say that a cluster of zombie children were, for lack of a better term, in control of that location. That report and the resulting shivers from a few of my fellow survivors meant that at least some of them had encountered zombie children and noticed something different.

  We were all moving across the church parking lot in the gray of pre-dawn. I was still trying to wrap my head around the report of raiders when a scream that was more of a battle cry came from what sounded like the front of the church. A moment later, there was a roar, and a terrible explosion.

  15

  New Friends and Enemies

  I felt a hand slam into the middle of my back and send me sprawling facedown. Luckily, I was almost to the edge of this section of the parking lot, so I ended up in some bushes that acted as a bit of a border to the property. Oh…it still hurt, but much less than asphalt.

  “Coming around from the left,” a voice cried just before a barrage of gunfire erupted all around me.

  In the days we’d spent recuperating in the church, Marshawn had done a great job cleaning up and checking on my injured right eye. It turned out that I’d suffered a nasty tear of the actual eyelid, but not enough to lose it or the eye itself. I’d also had a big chunk of meat from my eyebrow torn away. That had been the worst injury between the two; it was that piece of dangling meat that had initially been mistaken for my eyelid.

  Marshawn had snipped it away with a pair of scissors and then cleaned and bandaged the area. I no longer had a patch over my eye, but it was still swollen enough to hamper vision from that side and make everything seem just a bit blurry around the edges.

  At the moment, I was almost blind as I tried to crawl to the other side of the shrub I’d landed in. I could hear somebody just to my right as they racked the slide on a pistol. The distinctive sound snapped me into action as I pulled my own Glock and rolled onto my back as I emerged into the clearing. I got my bearings and started crawling for the fence that separated the backyard of a house from the church. I knew that we’d already checked this house and most of the other ones nearby, so if I could get inside, then I could position myself to fight back against whatever or whomever was attacking.

  By the time I managed to reach the waist-high fence, two more loud ‘WHUMP’ concussions exploded behind me back in the direction of the church we’d just abandoned. I made it to my feet and pulled myself up. Just as I swung a leg over, I heard a yelp from just to my left. I looked over to see Amy stagger forward a few steps and crumble to her knees. An arrow was jutting from her hip and she was now trying to stand while also tugging on the feathered shaft.

  Looking past her, I could see black smoke starting to pour out of the back door of the church. One of the ornate stained glass windows mounted up high had busted and there were flames and smoke roiling out of it as well. There were several dark figures moving down each side of the large, brown building and I could see that some of them were sporting bows, a few had rifles and were sweeping the area behind them like they feared a flanking attack—either that, or they were keeping an eye out for any undead that might move in, drawn by all the noise.

  As I watched, a pair of the ones holding rifles stumbled and fell on the heels of the reports of what I had to assume were our own high-powered rifles. That made the raiders scramble and dive for cover. That also offered me the perfect opportunity to swing my leg back over and scurry to Amy.

  “Put your arm around my shoulder,” I hissed when I reached her.

  “If we keep saving each other, people are gonna talk,” she managed through gritted teeth.

  I was on her right side, the opposite one from the arrow. She limped along, still sporting the projectile from her hip as she’d been unable to remove it up to this point. I didn’t even bother to look back as I got us to the fence I’d just about been ready to climb over before she’d been hit.

  “How are we gonna do this?” she whimpered, and I could tell that the pain was getting worse with each step she’d had to take.

  I pulled her to the ground, able to put her against the trunk of a tree. I stayed in line with her so I could utilize as much of the cover as possible. Kneeling, I looked her in the eyes and then glanced down at the arrow.

  “Just do it,” she managed, knowing what needed to be done.

  “Close your eyes,” I said over the sound of a volley of gunfire that was exchanged between our group and the raiders.

  Amy did as I asked and I reached down. I positioned my hand, making a circle around the shaft of the arrow without touching it yet. I knew this was going to hurt, and I had no idea what sort of damage would be done by me yanking it out.

  I was about to do it when the fence shook and a head appeared just a few feet from us. I grabbed for my Glock—I have no idea when I’d put it away—and pointed it at the new arrival. My finger was just starting to squeeze the trigger when I realized who it was.

  “Jesus, Marshawn, you want to get your head blown off?” I snarled, setting the handgun beside me just in case. That was when I realized that Amy had shifted just enough to pull her weapon as well and held it in her extended arms. She let her arms fall and her head drop.

  “Not really,” the man panted as he threw his other leg over and landed on the ground in a heap when the cuff of his pants snagged on the top of the fence. “I try to keep the number of times I get shot per day down to one.”

  I saw a dark stain on the sleeve of his left arm. That was the one thing about a Kevlar vest, it didn’t do a damn thing for the extremities.

  “Can we get this freakin’ arrow out of my hip?” Amy said, her voice constricted from the pain.

  Marshawn got up to his knees and made his way to us. “We need to get moving.” He looked down at the arrow jutting from Amy’s hip and winced. In a flash, he ripped off a piece of the already bloody shirt sleeve and then yanked the arrow from Amy’s hip. In a flash, he wadded up the slip of somewhat bloody material and pressed it hard against the now open wound. Amy made a hiss and yelp. Her left hand swung out and slapped Marshawn across the face…hard.

  “Ooops, sorry,” she said hurriedly, the offending hand hanging in the air like it was being held up by an invisible puppeteer.

  “Not the first time that’s happened,” Marshawn said after he open
ed and closed his mouth a few times as if he was making sure that his jaw still worked. “Now, hold that in place.” He gave a nod to the wad of cloth and ripped away almost the rest of his shirt sleeve to reveal a small, ugly, puckered hole in the bicep that leaked blood, his black skin now exhibiting a dark sheen.

  I watched as he tied the piece of cloth around the wad he’d practically stuffed into the hole on Amy’s hip. As I continued to observe, I couldn’t help but think of all the cross-contamination protocols that had just been violated. I started to chuckle as we helped Amy to her feet.

  “What the hell is so funny,” she hissed as she threw an arm around each of our shoulders.

  “I’m actually in the best shape out of all of us…it’s been a while since that was the case with anybody I travelled with.”

  “Now?” Marshawn, grunted as we made our way across the yard to the house. “You’re thinking that now? We have a band of raiders shooting everything that moves as well as burning down anything that doesn’t, and that is what you’re thinking?”

  “You asked,” I said with a shrug as we made our way up the steps of the back porch.

  I opened the sliding glass door and let Marshawn and Amy go inside first. I followed on their heels, shutting the door behind us more out of habit than anything else. We moved through the house and stopped in the ransacked living room.

  “Upstairs would give us the best vantage point to make a stand, or at least get an idea of what is going on behind us,” I suggested.

  “Or we could just keep moving and put as much distance between ourselves and these idiots as possible.” Marshawn adjusted his stance and I could see the tightness around his eyes that gave away the pain he was feeling despite trying to shrug it away and soldier through.

  “How about you two wait here just a sec and let me run up to get a look.” Before they could say anything in protest, I slipped out from under Amy’s arm and started up the stairs, taking them two at a time as I hurried to a bedroom that faced the backyard and would hopefully give me the best view.

  I heard Marshawn cursing behind me and almost pulled up and returned to them, but I felt like I had to at least know what was chasing us. It was probably me being stupid again, but I was committed as I hopped over the small bed that had been stripped bare—most likely by one of our supply scavenging teams.

  Peering out back, I was really glad that spring was still in its infancy. The trees had little buds forming, but they were lacking the foliage that would prevent me from seeing anything in probably as soon as the next couple of weeks.

  “Idiots,” I breathed.

  The raiders had the church surrounded and were lobbing makeshift Molotov cocktails through the open doors and gaping holes that used to hold ornate stained glass windows depicting the typical assortment of religious symbols and images.

  A few had moved the direction our group had fled, but they weren’t advancing. They were simply sweeping the area in search of any nearby targets. Fortunately, I could see figures that had cleared neighboring fences and were making their way across the yards. Some were doing like we had done and were ducking into the houses, but others were moving along the sides and continuing past.

  A few fallback locations had been selected while we held up in the church. The first was a nearby grocery store. It was far too close to all this madness to be a viable spot. The next location was a house set back from the road about eight blocks away. Funny, but eight blocks were nothing prior to the apocalypse; now, it held the possibility of being an epic journey with death and danger looming ahead of each step.

  I hurried down the stairs to find Amy and Marshawn at the front room window, peering out through the shades. Amy turned at my arrival and I saw a look on her face that I could not figure out. It was like a cross between fear and revulsion. I hurried over and peered out to see what waited for us out front. Honestly, I expected maybe something along the lines of a mob of the undead.

  The street was a wasteland of death and destruction. There were zombies and body parts strewn about in a putrefied slurry of bodily destruction. The first thought that hit me was that I hoped all the bits and pieces I was seeing had belonged to the undead. There was an upper torso that had been shattered—that is the best way I can describe it—and consisted of one arm that had been decimated at mid-forearm and the head. If I had to guess, I would say about a quarter of the rib cage remained. This remnant was on the sidewalk directly in front of this house. It was wriggling and the head was turning back and forth just enough to indicate that it was still animate.

  “This is what a .50 cal can do to the human body,” Marshawn whispered. “Pretty sure your boy came this way and mowed down everything that moved.”

  “I hope there were no survivors hiding out in this area,” Amy added. “Can you imagine thinking that help had arrived, rushing out only to be slaughtered by that bastard?”

  My mind flashed on a scene in Saving Private Ryan. It was towards the end during the big battle in the ruins of some town. A bunch of soldiers had climbed up on a tank and the Germans rolled out this brutal machine gun that just destroyed the bodies of the American soldiers. I remember cringing in my seat as the men were ripped to shreds. I also recall how that scene had made my grandfather start to tremble. I’d glanced over to see tears rolling down his cheeks. We never talked about it after we left the theater.

  My eyes followed the trail of destruction and I realized that I could actually tell which way Don and whomever was still with him had gone. In addition to the trail of bodies that created a path of sorts, there were still more corpses that had been run over and were now flattened like road kill.

  “Holy crap,” I breathed when my eyes spied a pair of very flattened corpses that had to have been run over by multiple vehicles. It was a landscape of gore and annihilation. The houses had actual chunks missing as well as being sprayed with blood and guts of anything that had been standing in front of them as the hail storm of high-velocity lead ripped through everything like a hot knife through butter.

  A flash of movement to the left got my attention and I saw two people hunched over and hurrying across the street. If the raiders were going to waste their time shooting up and torching a church, it was probably best that we leave them to it. Picking our battles would be important. Perhaps now was not the time to fight. There would be plenty of battels ahead. Besides, from what I had seen, these raiders were little more than chaotic morons. It was very likely that they wouldn’t last long.

  I moved over to the door and opened it and then returned to help Marshawn support Amy as we started across the street. As we headed to our right and followed the trail of destruction left behind, more and more of our little group fell in with us. I was surprised and thrilled to see that we’d come away without losing any of our people. The sounds of senseless destruction continued on behind us which had the negative effect of drawing the undead towards it. That put zombies directly ahead, but a few of our people hurried forward and began cutting them down before they could become a mob.

  We reached the intersection of 132nd and this street—which turned out to be Southeast Sagebrush Drive—and briefly debated taking a left to return us to Sunnyside Road. That was the main artery through this neighborhood and would take us on the most direct route to the interstate. It would also give us the most likely chance of running into more unsavory types.

  The problem with continuing to the right was that it would take us into more twisting and tightly packed neighborhoods where we were discovering the greatest concentration of zombies. It was quickly agreed that, unless they were in herds numbering over a hundred, they would be easier to circumnavigate and avoid compared to the living which were now a much bigger concern than the undead. In truth, I wasn’t sure that hadn’t been the case from almost the beginning of this whole mess.

  We headed into the guts of suburbia, our team spread out the length of almost a city block. I kept my eye on Marshawn and said nothing when Amy’s arm slid off him and allowed
him to just walk without supporting somebody else’s weight. As for Amy, she winced with almost every step, but never voiced a complaint or asked the group to stop for her.

  Twice I had to prop her against an abandoned vehicle to assist in taking down a zombie or three when their numbers became too much for the mobile picket guard of our group to handle.

  We’d gone about six or seven blocks when we rounded a corner and discovered a cul-de-sac. It had not registered in my mind until that moment that many of the street signs had been pulled down. I guess it had simply melted in with all the other destruction.

  There was this one moment where we were all just standing there looking stupid. We’d even gone about a quarter of the way up the dead-end street because it had a slight hook to it and we hadn’t been able to see that the road came to its end with a roundish bubble faced by five houses that were packed in so tight with each other that one of them sat back from the rest and had to be reached by a long driveway that ran directly between a pair of homes that looked almost identical to each other. We had bunched up into a neat little knot that probably made a very appealing target.

  The bottle smashed into the asphalt just a few feet in front of us. A whoosh followed by a ball of flame caused us to jump back collectively. In the confusion, Amy slipped away from me and toppled to the road with a yelp of pain.

  It was purely instinct that made me bolt away, leaving behind the woman I’d just been supporting. I dove behind a minivan that was resting on its side and shoved the blade I’d been carrying into its sheath, replacing it with my Glock. Being quiet was always trumped by the need to survive.

  As soon as I did, my brain started screaming about how I’d just left Amy in the middle of the street. I got to my feet and rushed out to her in a crouch. There was a single gunshot and I saw a spark and puff of smoke or dust erupt from the road just a few feet in front of me. Now my brain was screaming about how I needed to turn around and get my ass back behind the minivan.