Dawnland (Book 2): Hella Kills

by Karen Carr

  “Sure. Why?” I asked, locking his gaze. The light from the sky made his eyes brilliant blue.

  “In school, which classes did you take?” Zeke asked me. He turned his focus to the corpses on the road.

  “Lots of sociology for my major. Some biology and earth science for my general credits.” Population studies had been my concentration, and now the population was dead at my feet and I was no longer able to study them.

  “I took earth science too,” Zeke said, turning his scrutiny to my shoulders and down my arm, making my skin prickle in anticipation—for what? His touch? “And chemistry.”

  “Why are you asking me all of this now?” I asked. “Don’t we have better things to do than reminisce about the past?” I brushed my arms with my hands to remove the Goosebumps.

  “You smell sweet,” Zeke said. His smile turned briefly wicked before he looked out over the horizon. “I can’t quite place the smell, but it’s better than anything I’ve smelled before. At first I thought it was your soap.”

  I cut him off with laughter. “Soap?” I asked. “Recently?” I hadn’t had a proper bath in a while.

  “Exactly,” Zeke said, narrowing his eyes on me like I was some kind of criminal. “It’s not soap. It’s you. You smell sweet.”

  “Thanks,” I said. My hands went up to my cheeks to cover their blush. “You think the zeroes are attracted to my sweetness?”

  “Yes. I know I am,” Zeke said. This time he turned away when I focused my attention on him. “And you know, I’m immune to their bite. I wonder if I can smell what they can. Have you noticed it yourself? Did Huck say anything about your smell?”

  “I don’t think we should be analyzing the zeroes sense of smell right now,” I said. “Or how sugary I may or may not smell to them. It’s making me nervous.”

  “It’s like honey mixed with mint,” Zeke said. “That’s it.”

  “You ever been to Durham?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  Zeke shielded the sun from his eyes. “I have no idea what’s up ahead. I’m not like Huck, I don’t wander.”

  The Huck comment jarred me. Zeke was never one to take a jab at a friend and I didn’t know what he meant. I decided not to engage the conversation. Instead, I examined the surroundings, including the small shacks that were once homes to southern Durham residents. This part of Durham was speckled with wooden shacks about the size of my apartment. They were all run down and old, from the turn of the century.

  “We are going to see small shacks like these until we get to the 147 highway, which I think I can see in the distance.” I stood on my tiptoes to be sure. “Yup, we’re almost there. Roxboro goes under the highway and then under another road before it arrives downtown. We’ll still be south of the tobacco buildings by about six blocks. Hopefully that’s far enough away to enter the area without being spotted.”

  Zeke pulled out his binoculars and viewed the road ahead. “I can see the flesh dolls. They’re dropping like victims in a napalm attack. You are incredible.”

  “It’s not me,” I said. From our vantage point, on a small hill, I saw the zeroes as little specks reaching my virus’s barrier.

  I pulled out my binoculars from my pack and watched them closer. It sure looked like they were marching toward me in droves, like I was attracting them with my sweet scent. They weren’t just coming down the road, they were coming over the fields and through the houses all-the-while rambling and bumping into each other.

  “We’re going to need transportation.” Zeke put down his binoculars. “You stay here while I see if I can find us a ride. It won’t matter if we attract Enroy with the noise, that’s what we want, right?”

  “Right?” I wasn’t too sure we knew what we were doing.

  Zeke ran off into the hodgepodge of shacks, briefly appearing at times before he moved on and behind the next shack. I watched for openings in the ever-thickening zero crowd marching toward my virus. It would be possible to get through them on a motorcycle, or a vehicle with some crushing ability. We either had to maneuver around them, or drive over them. How I wished for the monster truck.

  When I heard an engine noise, I lowered my binoculars and turned around. Zeke had found a Toyota pickup truck. The vehicle was small, and already had numerous dents and broken headlights, but it did have the height of a 4X4 and would have to do. He pulled up next to me and opened the passenger side door.

  “Get in,” he said, extending his hand as far as possible.

  I took a step up into the cab and grabbed his hand, letting him pull me into the passenger seat.

  “Full tank,” he said as I sat down and buckled my seat. “Ready to go?”

  “No,” I said and then grinned. I felt like we were plunging off the highest high dive into a cement pool without any water. I took a deep breath. “Yea, I’m ready.”

  Zeke grabbed my knee and gave it a squeeze before he took the steering wheel and pressed on the gas, letting out a hooping holler at the same time. He tore off down the hill and in a split second we were out of my kill zone. The zeroes approaching us were alive and hungry and became even more frenzied with our arrival.

  I was physically prepared, having the Uzi on my lap, but I didn’t feel mentally prepared—my heart was still racing with Huck’s last words and my mind was going over every movement the zeroes made. The windows were rolled up so I had no reason to aim my Uzi, instead I concentrated on our new theory, that somehow I attracted these things with my sweet smelling virus.

  Zeke did his best to avoid the oncoming undead, but it was impossible. He swerved to miss one and hit two more. He hit several at once, dead on, and they rolled over the top of the truck and into the bed. They were still alive back there, but were unable to hang on because of Zeke’s erratic driving. All they wanted to do was eat us, so the concept of hanging on was lost to them.

  When we drove under the 147 highway, I inhaled and held my breath. Cars were crashed everywhere like a bomb had gone off. I envisioned the virus hitting and traffic going helter-skelter. Cars were crashed against guard rails, upside down on top of each other, haphazardly scattered in ditches, and against downed telephone poles. Several cars had even crashed onto the pavement from the bridge we were driving under. In between the cars were guts and body parts and animated heads and half-bodies, zeroes without legs or broken backs, or missing arms. It was truly the most morbid sight I had ever seen.

  “Crap,” Zeke said. He hit the steering wheel. “Look at all of them in front of us.”

  There were hundreds making their way under the bridge. By the way they were coming at us, it sure looked like they had responded to my undead mating call.

  “We’re stuck,” I said. “We can’t over that mass. There’s no room under here.”

  “Not on your life,” Zeke said. “Hang on.”

  He put the pickup in reverse and backed up until we were on the same side of the tunnel again. He then spun the car around and drove up the embankment, across the 147 and to the other side of the road and back onto Roxboro, missing most of the zero rush.

  “Which way?” Zeke asked.

  “Wow.” I looked at the wreckage behind us and wondered how Zeke managed to drive through it all.

  “Wow is not a direction,” Zeke said.

  “Across Main Street and then left on Seminary.” I wiped my brow with my hand and scratched my head. “We’re dangerously close to the tobacco buildings, they’re right down Main.”

  “Then, hang on,” Zeke said. He floored it and raced through downtown Durham, over sidewalks and through alleys, avoiding the crush of the dead whenever possible. I watched his arm muscles flex and relax with each turn. He was an amazing driver.

  “There’s the building.” I pointed to the fourteen story glass walled building with three levels of parking below the floors. “If we can get into the parking lot and drive to the top, we might be able to shake our zero trail, at least for long enough to enter the building.”

  It was the highest building downtown
, and I doubted myself for choosing it. I had known someone who worked in it and had been inside multiple times, I convinced myself that made it the best choice.

  Zeke broke through the gates at the entrance of the parking lot and tore inside. “How many floors of parking?” Zeke asked as he screeched to the ramp leading to the next level.

  “Three,” I said. “There are three floors of parking before you get to the plaza, then there’s fourteen floors above that. All above ground. It will take them time to reach us.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not crowded at the top.” Zeke screeched around the second floor of the parking garage.

  “It won’t be, the plague hit on a weekend, remember? This is an office building.” I hung onto my seat as Zeke continued to drive.

  The parking lot was mostly empty of cars. Zeke screeched around the second to the third and final level of the garage. So far, we were all alone.

  “Let’s get out and into the building, fast,” Zeke said. “I’ll take that.” He grabbed the Uzi from my lap. Instinctively I held on to it. “More experienced,” he said, prying it out of my fingers. I grabbed onto it again, not wanting to let it go. “I’ve fired these before have you?”

  “Sorry,” I said and then let it go, making sure to pull out my pink gun before I opened the door.

  “Follow me,” I said as we exited the pickup. I raced to the stairs and then up a flight to the mezzanine level. “Into the building.” I took Zeke over to the main building entrance, a double glass door. Of course it was locked.

  “Get out of the way,” Zeke said.

  Instead of breaking the glass or shooting it, which I expected him to do, he put down his gear bag and brought out a tool. Within a few seconds he had picked the lock and we were inside.

  “Let’s go up a few floors,” I said. “To one of the glass conference rooms or kitchens. We can watch everything from up there. We should be able to see the tobacco buildings from that height.”

  “You pick the floor,” he said.

  We walked into the quiet building. It took me a moment to find the stairs, which were next to the bathrooms and elevators. We found them with a garbage can propped in the door to keep it open.

  “You think someone else has been in here?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Zeke said. He slung the Uzi on his back and took out a smaller weapon.

  We climbed up each flight of stairs, and each doorway was held open by a garbage can. The building was silent, all except for our steps and our breaths. I picked the tenth floor to exit the stairwell. The air conditioners had long stopped working, so the floor felt hot and muggy. The stairs let us out by the kitchen, but instead of going in there, Zeke guided us through a maze of cubes to a safe location in the back where no one would find us if they entered the floor.

  We walked past cube after cube frozen in time, as if no one had entered this place after the apocalypse. Coffee cups and pillows brought in from home were still in place, pictures of loved ones were left on desks next to employee awards and stress balls. I stopped at the corner cube in front of the window and scanned the photos. They were of two boys, no more than ten years old, blond hair and blue eyed, wearing bright smiles and showing signs of a happy life. I was sure those two boys were alive somewhere. My gut told me they, along with their parents, were survivors. I touched each photo as I whispered respect to their families.

  Zeke and I settled in a cube with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the streets of downtown Durham. From here we saw everything we needed to, including the growing horde of zeroes in the streets below us.

  “There’s thousands of them,” I said. I sat on the floor and pressed my face against the glass.

  “They’re all coming this way,” Zeke said. He sat down next to me on the floor, making sure to give me my space. “We’re going to have to spend a couple of hours here to give those good old boys at the tobacco barn time to figure out something is up.”

  “What will we do when they come over here to investigate?” I asked.

  “Not get caught,” Zeke said.

  We both watched the zeroes below in silence. Not getting caught seemed like the most difficult option. “There are so many of them, Zeke. If we’re not caught by Enroy’s men, we’re still going to have to wade through all those corpses below.”

  “Speaking of corpses, how much time do we have before their heads blow?” Zeke asked.

  “Probably about three minutes,” I said. “We’re not that far up, we should get most of them down there.” I nodded to the immediate bottom of the building.

  “What are we going to do for two hours?” Zeke said. He brought out a bottle of water, opened it and offered it to me.

  I took it and drank. “We could play charades,” I said.

  “Seriously?” he said.

  “I wish this was wine,” I said. I passed the bottle to Zeke.

  “Or a good stout.” Zeke drank some water.

  I took out my binoculars and aimed them at the tobacco building. “I think I can see some life over there.”

  Zeke took out his binoculars. “Looks like quite a fortress. We’re going to have to get through those iron gates, or over those brick walls.”

  “If we ever get out of here, look at all of them. They’re coming from all over.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Zeke whispered.

  The zeroes were coming from every direction like they were gathering for a protest or a football game. Different shapes and sizes and ages and ethnicities were all bumping and grinding their way toward the Durham Center. I couldn’t tell them apart anymore, what one wore looked no different from the other.

  Ones features blended into the next. There were so many of them that they began to knock each other down and climb over the ones on the ground like an angry mob, but they weren’t angry. They were just moaning and groaning and trying to get into the Durham Center, all ten thousand of them.

  “You sure are popular,” Zeke said. His voice still reflected confidence, but I could see the weariness grow in his eyes.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You think they can smell me up here?”

  “I can,” Zeke said. Our eyes connected briefly and we both looked away again.

  I stretched my legs out on the carpet. “My legs are sore from riding.”

  “You are a great rider. You handled yourself so well when Sneaky bolted.”

  “I’m going to miss Sneaky.”

  “She’s going to miss you. Horses remember, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. You think we’ll ever see them again?” I leaned my back against the cube wall.

  “Who?” Zeke said. “The horses?”

  “Any of them. Huck, Broder, Stan—all of them.”

  “They’re not gone. They’re just over there somewhere,” Zeke gestured to the tobacco building. “Holy shit. Look at them go.”

  Holy shit was right. My virus had kicked in and brains were splattering everywhere. A giant wave of death passed over the crowd below us. If it wasn’t such a disgusting sight, it would have been beautiful, all those heads exploding like a ripple in a pond.

  From our vantage point, we could hear them splattering and exploding like thousands of dull firecrackers. The crowd was so thick and the zeroes were piled so high that some of the guts sprayed twenty feet in the air and rained down on the corpses below. Once their brains were gone, they were dead—no squirming or squiggling, no movements at all. It wasn’t like running over a deer in the road, which squirmed and shook until it died.

  “I’m glad we aren’t down there,” I said.

  Zeke took the binoculars and surveyed the scene. He focused on the tobacco building. “That didn’t take long,” he said.

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  I didn’t need my binoculars to see what he saw. The helicopter had taken off from the middle of the tobacco fortress and was heading our way.

  CHAPTER 23

  The helicopter flew over downtown and hovered over the edge of the bodies. It then proceeded
to travel the circular path of my virus’s border. They were curious and soon would figure out that the middle of the circle was the Durham Center. We were sitting ducks.

  “We better get out of sight,” Zeke said.

  “You think they can see through the windows?” I asked.

  “Why risk it? Come here.”

  The helicopter arrived next to the building just as Zeke pulled me under the nearest desk. We were in close quarters, with me sitting in the space between his legs. His arms rested on his knees on either side of my body.

  I leaned back into his chest as the helicopter passed uncomfortably close. He ducked his head, making our cheeks unintentionally touch. I felt the soft stubble of his recently shaved face and smelled his freshness. He sucked in a breath. I knew he was trying to avoid smelling me, which made me giggle.

  “What are you laughing at?” he asked.

  “I was just thinking about honey and mint,” I said.

  “It sure smells good,” he said. “Irresistible.” He moved his hands from his knees and wrapped them around my legs, giving them a quick hug before releasing them again.

  The helicopter was hovering a few floors below us, obviously the men inside were trying to figure out what just happened. It then began to fly around in circles, inching higher and coming dangerously close to the windows. The people inside it were looking for the thing that triggered the deaths of the dead.

  “Damn asshole,” Zeke said wish such venom it startled me. He had been watching the helicopter with his binoculars.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Your boy Trevan is in the ‘copter and he looks like he’s having the time of his life.”

  Hearing Trevan’s name sent a shiver through my body. “Why on earth is he with them?” I didn’t need Zeke to tell me the answer. “He’s told them about me.”

  “I can’t think of another reason why he would be with them over here. I think they’re looking for you.” Zeke packed the binoculars. “Which means we have to get out of here, fast.”

  “But the others, Huck and Ana. Broder. They haven’t had enough time. We told them two hours.”