Dead Life (Book 4)

by Schleicher, D Harrison

  I crouched down in case there was someone else out there and waited. I heard two successive shots from upstairs and started my two minute countdown. From outside I could hear lots of screaming and hollering, guns going off, and glass breaking upstairs. When I got to ninety seconds I fired out the window again and ran back to the steps. I wasn't sure which way Lily would be coming but I hoped it was down the back stairs. I fired off a few rounds at the back door when I hit the two minute mark in my countdown and decided to wait a few more seconds for Lily to come down the steps. Just as I heard the sound of her coming down the steps I heard Sarge open up on the front door.

  The sound of footsteps stopped about halfway down the steps.“Lily it's me down here,” I said.

  “Thank God. With all the shooting you were doing down here I wasn't too sure.”

  I sprayed the door again. “Just letting them know I'm here.”

  We ran into the den at the same time as Sarge. “You guys ready for this?” he asked.

  “Let's do it,” I said, then turned to Lily with my hand out. “I'm driving. Just so we're clear. That's an order.”

  She handed the keys over. “I thought we were done with that shit.”

  “Maybe later,” I said. “I want you two in the back, heads down. That's an order too.”

  “Stay down until we're clear. Once I give the word be ready to come up shooting.”

  I started the Escalade, ducked down, and stomped on the gas. We plowed through the garage door and were immediately hit with a barrage of bullets. I was sitting too low in my seat to see much of anything but I could tell for sure there were at least three people firing at us. The windshield spider webbed as soon as we cleared the debris from the garage door. The shooter in front of us wielded a shotgun which did little other than cosmetic damage to the Cadillac. He was the shooter that took out the windshield. It sounded like small arms fire coming from each side. Rounds slammed into the sides of our vehicle but were unable to pass through to the interior. I did the best I could to follow the driveway, which made a sharp turn to the right, from crouched behind the steering wheel.

  The sounds of semi-automatic gunfire filled the interior of the Cadillac. John and Lily were both up and firing out the side windows. As soon as they started shooting all return gunfire ceased. I was able to raise my head enough to where I could see where I was going. I made the turn off of the driveway that headed off into the woods when the drivers side window exploded. My face was bleeding from the glass that now covered me but I was otherwise uninjured. Then I felt our front driver's side tire explode. The same shooter that had shot out my window had just blown out our front tire. We veered to the left but I was able to correct direction enough to keep us on the road.

  “Slow down a little,” Lily said.

  I tapped the brakes and we almost came to a stop. Lily hung out her window and aimed her rifle back down the road. In my rear view mirror I saw a figure step out of the woods. Lily fired once and I saw him drop to the ground.

  Lily leaned back in. “You can go now.”

  We drove about a quarter mile down the gravel road, limping along on the rim of our flat front tire, when we came to two cars that were blocking the road. The puke green Oldsmobile that we had seen at Edgar's farm house and another car sat nose to nose directly in front of us. I slowed to a stop and our rear window exploded in at us. Someone was in the road behind us pointing a rifle in our direction. I watched him in the mirror and saw someone run out of the woods and tackle him. His rifle flew from his hands and the two struggled on the ground. Whoever it was that attacked the man with the rifle ended up on top. He then raised a knife over his head and plunged it into the other man's chest. Then our savior jumped up and ran off into the woods.

  A shotgun slide ratcheted back outside of my window. “I guess that was Edgar,” the man holding a shotgun to my head said.

  “I don't know who it was,” I said. “Edgar wasn't with us.”

  “Well, I'm pretty sure that was him,” he said. “Lady if you move I'm gonna blow his head all over you.”

  The movement I previously heard coming from the seat behind me stopped.

  “I want you two to throw them rifles out your windows, butt first.” He then peered off into the woods and hollered. “Edgar, I'm gonna shoot your friends if you don't come out.”

  “I don't know those people. Go ahead.”

  “That ain't true Edgar. I saw them with you at the house,” he shouted back.

  “We just gave him a ride,” I said.

  “Shut up,” he said under his breath. He then turned the shotgun around; hitting me with the butt in the side of the head.

  I heard a gunshot from behind me and Lily say, “I had a pistol too, you dumb son-of-a-bitch.”

  He dropped the shotgun and both his hands went to his belly. I lifted the handle of my door and laid back on the seat kicking it open. It hit him right in the hands that he held to his stomach wound, knocking him to the ground. I got out of the Escalade and stood over his body. Edgar came out of the woods and crouched down over him.

  “I don't have any more drugs,” he said, spitting in the man's face. “I killed your sister and her girlfriend. The rest of the meth is with them.” Edgar looked over his shoulder at me, “Did you kill all of them back there?”

  “I don't think so. I think there was one or two left.”

  “I'm going back there Roy. Hopefully your brother is still alive. After I'm done with you I'm gonna kill him.”

  The man's eyes got really big when Edgar said this. Then Edgar slit the man's throat.

  Edgar picked up the shotgun and stood up. “I'm really sorry I brought all this down on all of you. I didn't mean for any of this to happen.” He turned and walked away.

  “Come with us,” I said.

  Edgar turned back and pointed at the Cadillac, “You've got a flat tire.”

  He headed down the road, never to be seen again. John came over and patted down the dead man. He found the keys to the Oldsmobile and moved it out of our way. We drove out to the main road, got on level ground, and changed the tire. While we were letting the car down off the jack the gunfire started. I heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun fire off twice followed by some small arms fire.

  “I hope Edgar's okay,” Lily said. “He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “I don't know about that,” I said.

  “You want to go back there and see if he needs some help?” John said.

  “I think it was too late to help him long before we met him. Let's just go.”

  We got in the Cadillac and drove off. Nobody said anything for a few miles.

  “Next town we come to we need to find a new ride,” Lily said. “I can't see shit out of this window.”

  Chapter 14

  On the drive back to the Hummer I caught Gina up on everything that had happened back in the woods with the zombie raping family; this was now and would always be my official name for them. She didn't seem too surprised to find that the same family responsible for the death of her dad had also been the ones to kidnap Cindy. It was a short drive back to the Hummer and we didn't get the chance to talk about much else. Rick had come to for a short while. He seemed to be doing better and was now resting comfortably in the back of the truck. We only ran across a few zombies on the way back. Gina had been able to dispatch most of them by running them over with the truck. Uncharacteristically, Al tried to avoid running over the crumpled bodies of the zombies Gina had just run down. Cindy must have been in worse shape than I had originally thought. Otherwise he would have made sure to at the very least finish off the ones that were still moving.

  There were only a few zombies gathered around the crash scene. Gina and I took care of them with our swords. Then the three of us went about transferring everything from the Hummer to the trucks. Rick and Cindy wanted to help us but they were both still pretty much out of it. Al told us that Cindy told him that Cletus, one of the zombie rapers, had forced her to swallow some pills when he got he
r back to the house. She had fought him the entire time and Momma had threatened to kill Cletus's new toy if he couldn't shut her up. She also told Al that he hadn't been able to assault her due to the fact that she had kicked him in the balls twice before we'd gotten there and the pills he forced her to take hadn't fully taken effect yet.

  There was a lot of shit in the back of the Hummer and we decided to eliminate most of what we could. Food, water, ammunition, and fuel were on the top of the list. The gas generator we had been hauling around since all of this started would have to be left behind. If and when we ever found a place to call home for a while we would have to make due with the propane generator we had in the truck. Eventually gasoline powered motors would be a thing of the past. Gasoline went bad in time but propane would keep indefinitely. Besides if we decided we had to have a gas powered generator we could find one at any hardware store. I still had my credit cards and from what I had come to learn all my spending limits had been suspended. The world was my oyster. All it took was the deaths of a few billion people. Thinking of this made me long for the days of going to a job I hated.

  Two of the spare gas tanks on top of the Hummer had ruptured during the crash but the others went into the Ford's gas tank. This still only gave it about half a tank and the U-Haul was getting low on gas too. We'd have to find a place to fill both tanks soon. The last thing we did was take the wooden bumper off of the Hummer. We'd have to drill holes in the front bumper of the new truck so we decided to do it later. There was no reason to push our luck any further; it was time to get back on the road.

  “We stayed too long,” Al said, pointing in the direction of the motel. Dozens of zombies were making their way toward us.

  Cindy and Rick were still sleeping in the back of the truck but it looked like they were in for a rude awakening. Four of the undead broke off from the main group and were running in our direction. There wouldn't be time to make it to the truck before they were on us. To make matters worse our rifles were in the vehicles. It wasn't possible to carry them while unloading everything from the Hummer. Gina started at them with her sword drawn but Al called her back. We were being surrounded. Zombies were coming out of the woods and from the other direction down the street. We all still carried our hand guns and Al opened up on the sprinters taking them out with four well placed shots.

  “Get the U-Haul,” Al shouted as he fired. “I'll cover you.”

  Gina and I ran to the truck, firing at the zombies coming from the woods. We were both able to hit our targets but didn't go for kill shots. The best we could hope for was to slow them down by going for chest shots. This was good enough to knock them to the ground momentarily but wasn't doing anything to lessen their numbers. It did give us enough time to get to the truck before we were surrounded. I could see Al walking to the Ford and firing in the direction of the back of U-Haul. That's when I heard someone shooting from inside the box. Either Cindy or Rick was awake.

  Shelving runs the entire length of both sides of the back of the U-Haul leaving just enough room for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder down the center. With everything we had moved into the box of the truck from the Hummer things were pretty crowded back there. I looked into the back and could see Rick crouched over Cindy firing a rifle out the back of the truck. Past him all I could see was zombies. I was afraid to try and shoot over his head into their growing numbers. With my luck he would try to get to his feet the first time I shot and I'd just end up killing him.

  “Stay down Rick! I'm going to shoot over you,” I called out.

  He moved past Cindy and laid back, continuing to fire into the horde and leaving me plenty of room to open fire. Between the two of us and Al, who was now working has way over to the U-Haul, we were able to keep them from over running the back of the truck. Gina was in the driver's seat yelling to me asking what she should do. We had left ourselves blocked from the front and would need to back the U-Haul up into the mob of undead to get out of here. I could hear Al yelling at Gina to “back over the son-of-a-bitches” when I felt us lurch back into the horde. The timing couldn't have been any worse. The slide locked back on my gun and seconds later Rick's rifle jammed. I ejected my magazine, slapped a new one home, pulled back the slide to chamber a round, and looked up. Two zombies were in the back of the truck, nearly on top of Rick who was struggling with his jammed rifle. He dropped the useless rifle and put his arms out to try and stop them as they threw themselves at him. I shot the two of them in the tops of their heads. They were already on top of Rick and they stopped moving.

  As I crawled through the opening, in an attempt to get to Rick, Gina pulled the truck forward and cut hard to the right. This sent me sprawling into the back. I got to my feet and could see Al fighting his way through the horde making his way to the Ford. I climbed over Cindy, who had somehow slept through this whole ordeal, and used the shelving to vault over Rick. By now we were out in the street and the ride had gotten much smoother. I grabbed the feet of one of the zombies, pulled it off of Rick, and pushed it out of the back of the truck. Rick rolled out from underneath the other. His head and chest were covered in black zombie blood. I shouted to him asking if he had been bitten but he didn't answer. His eyes and mouth were closed in an attempt to keep the blood out of them.

  I drug the zombie to the back and kicked it out. By now Al was behind us and he ran the body over as it rolled down the road. I found a towel and wiped as much of the gunk from Rick's face as I could. That's when I realized the dressing on his head was saturated with the blood. I got a bottle of alcohol from the first aid kit, removed the dressing, and poured the entire bottle on what was left of Rick's ear. His response was immediate and severe.

  “Fuck! What the hell did you do that for?” he screamed as he pushed me off of him.

  “That shit was all over your bandages. You could get infected if that gets in an open wound.”

  “I'm sorry. I know. It just hurt like hell. Did any of it soak through?”

  I looked at the gauze. It was lying in a puddle of the zombie's blood and I couldn't be sure. “I don't know. There's a lot of blood back here.”

  The U-Haul came to a stop and Al pulled up behind us and got out of the truck. He walked to the back of the truck and looked in. “Was anybody bit?”

  “No, but Rick's head was covered with zombie blood.”

  “Did you get any in your mouth or eyes?”

  He shook his head. “Steve got most of it off of me right away.”

  “What's that?” Al asked, pointing at the bandages lying on the floor of the truck.

  “My dressings were soaked in the shit.”

  “Did any get in the wound?”

  “I don't know. I got it off of him as fast as I could.”

  Al gazed at the pile of bandages laying in the blood then looked at me.“What about Cindy?”

  “She's fine. Rick kept them off of her. He took the worst of it.”

  “We need to get a few miles between us and what's left of that horde. Then we'll get his ear wrapped back up. I'll follow you guys.”

  I stayed in the back with Rick and Cindy while Gina drove us further down the road with Al following us. He had me leave the back of the U-Haul open when we left. I knew he was doing the same thing I was. We were keeping an eye on Rick. After about ten minutes Gina pulled back to the side of the road. We'd been up and down this stretch of road too many times today. I couldn't wait to be rid of this little piece of hell. Al came to the back of the truck and stood looking at me, silently asking a question I didn't want to answer.

  “Let's get that ear taken care of. Gina, can you do that for me? Steve, help me get Cindy to the truck. I want to lay her in the back. Then we'll get this mess cleaned up.”

  We were able to wake Cindy up enough to get her to the back of the Ford truck. After we got her settled in Al and I had a talk. The entire time we watched Gina and Rick as she re-wrapped his bandage.

  “Steve I need your honest opinion.”

  “My opinion is,
honestly I don't know. There was blood all over his head. His face was covered in black shit. The bandages were soaked through. Did it get to his ear? I think there's a good chance it did.”

  Al walked away from me. He went straight to where Gina and Rick were at the back of the truck. “Rick, I need to be straight with you.”

  “You think I may be infected.”

  “There's a good possibility you are, yes.”

  “So what do you want to do, leave me here?” Rick asked., anger flashing across his face.

  “No, but I think we should handcuff you to the shelving in the back of the truck.”

  “And if something happens I'm trapped in the back of the truck handcuffed to a shelf.”

  “You'll have one key and Steve will have the other. If nothing happens by morning I think you'll be fine.”

  “Are we going to spend the night here?” I asked.

  “No, we've still got a few hours of daylight left and we're still too close to the motel. Let's head south; get a little closer to Fort Leonard Wood. Have you tried radioing your son lately.”

  “Every time I think about trying to reach him I think about how bad it would be if our radio went off when we were trying to avoid a bunch of zombies so I don't try him.”

  “I can understand that. Just wait a few days and see if he calls us,” Gina said. She handed me a bottle of bleach then threw some rags to Al. “That shit's not going to clean itself up. Rick and I will pull watch.”

  To say she threw the rags to Al wasn't exactly the truth. He was able to catch a few but most were draped over his head and shoulders. He tried his best to look angry but his smile betrayed his true feelings. We climbed into the box and set about scraping up as much of the mess as possible before dousing the entire area with bleach. I slopped up what remained and threw the rags out the back. When we finished the four of us looked over a road map, finding the best way to proceed. Everyone stalled as much as possible. No one was in a hurry to handcuff Rick to the back of the truck. Finally Al started rooting around in back and came out with a set of handcuffs. He tossed them to me and I handed them to Gina. She threw them back to Al. Rick took them from him, climbed into the truck, and handcuffed himself to the shelf in the very back of the truck. The two by four framing for the shelving was too wide to close one of the cuffs around so Rick was forced to put one around each of his wrists with the chain going around the frame.