DEAD: Snapshot (Book 3): Liberty, South Carolina

by TW Brown

  “Like it or not, there are those who believe this to be some sort of biblical event, and that it is up to them to prove they are worthy of God or life in Heaven. This is not the time to try and reason with people like this. They pose a threat to our survival and I see no other way to deal with this than to eliminate them.” The chief looked around the room and his eyes briefly paused when they met Sophie’s.

  “Are you saying that we are going to have to kill our own?” a voice shouted above the din of worried conversation.

  Another volley of weapons being fired came from outside. The chief did not say a word; he simply drew his pistol and climbed down. Sophie watched him head for the door. She pushed through to catch him and grabbed his arm just as he was opening the door that led outside.

  “Did you see Lawrence when you were out there?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Why would I have seen Lawrence?” the chief replied to her question with one of his own.

  “He and Chastity Simms have been sort of seeing each other on the side,” Sophie said, glancing around like she might be afraid of others overhearing. “That was part of the reason that I was so thorough with her check-up. I’m just worried that…” Her voice choked off as she attempted to swallow the lump in her throat.

  Ivan Potter understood instantly why she might be concerned for the well-being of her son. Joshua Simms made no secret of his dislike for anybody who was not Caucasian. It wasn’t like he walked around spouting racist drivel, but anybody who listened to him talk either in his tiny pulpit or in one of the local taverns was aware of his separatist ideology.

  One of his common retorts when he was accused of being a racist was, “I ain’t sayin’ the coloreds need to be shipped back to their country of origin…I’m simply statin’ that the mixin’ of their type with ours goes against God. Ever hear of the tower of Babel?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Sophie stated, patting the pistol on her own hip for emphasis.

  “I can’t let you do that.” Ivan shook his head.

  “You can’t let me?” Sophie barked.

  “You are too important…too valuable to this community.” Ivan placed a hand on her shoulder, keeping her from stepping through the door. “I will look for Lawrence. I promise.”

  Sophie tried to protest as several other people began to flow past, heading out to confront people who had been neighbors…maybe even friends. Now they were the enemy.

  “Please bring him home,” Sophie said as she stepped back to allow still more of Liberty’s citizens to rush out into the night.

  When the door shut, she looked around and was surprised to see less than half the people living in the gymnasium had actually joined in the defense. More had stayed behind and were making a point of not holding eye contact with her or any of their fellow citizens.

  As she returned to her cubicle to wait for the chief to bring back her son, she wondered if she would have been as anxious to rush out and commit murder in the name of self-defense. Could she actually take the life of a living person who was looking her in the eyes?

  As she sat down in the chair beside Megan’s bed, her lips began to move as she bowed her head and recited the only prayer she could remember.

  “Our Father who art in Heaven…”

  ***

  Ivan stood in the parking lot. By his best guess, less than a quarter of those being housed inside the school gymnasium had come out to help. That still gave him a huge numbers advantage, but this was troubling. Too many people were shrinking back and hoping that others would pick up their slack.

  Turning to the first person he saw, he called out, “Take three people with you and get over to the door and window factory. Gather as many people as will come. Time is of the essence.”

  The woman gave a curt nod and slung her rifle over her shoulder. She seemed to have no problem finding three people to join her and they quickly hurried off into the darkness towards the other main housing area. He swiftly repeated the process and sent another team to the residential neighborhood. Most of the houses had at least four families living under the roof.

  Moving to take the lead, he held up his hands to try and get everybody’s attention. “They are up the road here. I am guessing they blew a hole in the barricade by Farmers Hill Road. That is right by where I saw them gathered. None of our patrols is up that direction, so if you encounter anything coming this way, shoot it on sight.”

  He quickly dispatched four people with hunting rifles to the roof of the house across the street and outside the barricade. Everybody else was sent to positions up and down the barrier. Most climbed up onto some of the big trucks or busses that helped make up the wall of automobiles.

  It did not take long for shadows to start appearing from the north. From his perch atop a trailer of a big rig, he saw that they were moving down both sides of the blockade. That part had him confused until he watched a pair scurry over to a car and open the hatch where the gas nozzle would go. A flash and then a flame could be seen. They were using the cars as bombs. The shadows rushed forward and prepared to repeat the process when one of the snipers on the roof apparently had a good shot. The single report of a rifle was followed by three more in quick succession.

  Two bodies fell to the ground, but the people moving down the inside of the barricade took off in a run. They were just about to the road that turned into the school when something flammable arced into the air and landed in the midst of the largest portion of the group. There was a concussive ‘WHUMP’ and a bright flash that made Ivan cover his eyes. That had not been one of the cars blowing up; that was a bomb. And it had come from his people. He could only think of one person in all of Liberty who might have already made an improvised explosive device and he was suddenly glad that the man was on his side.

  Sections of grass were now ablaze, and in the flickering light of those fires, Ivan spied three individuals walking through the downed bodies, many writhing on the ground in agony as flames devoured them. Single shots were being fired at pointblank range, ending the thrashing about with a final sharp report.

  He rushed up to find Stephen Deese, his wife, and another man doing the grisly job of executioner. All three had bandanas around their faces, adding a spookily anonymous quality to their appearances as they killed.

  “Any sign of Jonah or his brother?” Ivan asked over the sound of the siren wailing to the north.

  Stephen fired a single shot into the head of a woman who was looking up at him with a snarl of rage on her face and blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. He looked up at Ivan and gave a curt shake of his head.

  “Well, they are the ones behind this,” Ivan said. “And if we don’t take them down tonight, we will likely have to deal with them again in the future.”

  Stephen turned to his wife. “You two got this?”

  “Yep,” Terri Deese looked around and gave a nod. “I think we only have a dozen or so left.”

  The man leaned in and kissed his wife on the cheek and then turned back to Ivan. “You got any idea where they might be?”

  “I know where I saw them last.”

  “Best get moving then,” Stephen growled. “I think the sooner we pluck this nasty weed, the less likely we have more sproutin’ up in the future.”

  “You sound like you knew about this,” Ivan panted as the two jogged up Ruhamah Road towards the continuous and annoying wail of a siren.

  “I didn’t know who it would be, but I can’t say I’m surprised.” Stephen paused and grabbed Ivan by the shoulder.

  Coming their way were a dozen or so of the undead. They were just within the glow of Stephen’s head-mounted spotlight.

  “Yeah, the Simms brothers blew a hole in our perimeter up ahead…almost forgot about that part,” Ivan muttered with a scowl.

  The two men put a bit of space between each other and approached the zombies. With well-placed swings of their machetes, the undead were taken down with minimal effort.

  “We need to find that siren and shut
it off first,” Stephen now had to really shout to be heard above the din.

  They veered towards the sound and discovered what was basically a red child’s toy bullhorn with a fire truck sticker on it. That toy was switched on and sitting beside an actual bullhorn that was acting as the amplifier and broadcaster. Stephen raised a booted foot and stomped on the toy before reaching down and switching off the actual bullhorn.

  “Points for creativity.” Stephen was looking down on the busted plastic toy when Ivan stepped up beside him.

  “Whatever,” Ivan said with a shrug. “They were up Farmers Hill.”

  Stephen pulled the small knapsack from his back and produced four cylinders. He handed a pair of them to Ivan.

  “What are these?” Ivan turned the cylinders over in his hands.

  “Be careful,” Stephen gripped the chief by the wrist.

  He moved one of the devices so that it could be easily seen using his headlamp. There was a small covered recess and what looked like a tiny toggle switch set in it was revealed when Stephen thumbed the cover aside.

  “Flick this switch and you have ten seconds to get rid of the device,” Stephen explained.

  “Those were your explosives,” Ivan said with appreciation.

  “Funny, I was just headed over to the school when the siren started. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out once you and a bunch of people came bursting out of the gym with weapons drawn. It made it easier when one of the lunatics fired at you guys.”

  “Wow, we actually caught a stroke of luck on the right side,” Ivan laughed as the pair walked through the smoldering ruins of where a section of the parked cars had been blown. “We should set a detail to emptying these babies of all their fluids. Otherwise we are open to somebody else doing the exact same thing. Don’t know why that thought never occurred to me before.”

  “I think we are all on a steep learning curve,” Stephen whispered, his pace slowing.

  Ivan slowed to match the man and began searching for whatever had caused him to suddenly change his pace. Just ahead he thought that he saw something move across the road.

  Stephen pointed and then signaled with one finger to each side. He pointed to himself and the right, then to Ivan and indicated left. Ivan nodded, tucked the two devices into the pouch at his hip, and headed into the tall grass.

  He had only gone a short distance when he heard the sounds of heavy breathing just ahead and to the left of his position. Creeping forward even slower, he considered pulling out one of Stephen’s explosives, but thought better of it. They were already outside the barricade and who knew how many zombies that siren had brought their direction before it had been stomped into bits and silenced?

  “…have you turned your back on your servant?” a voice whimpered. “Has Satan truly won? Has he taken this world for his own to do as he pleases like he did with Job?” There was a wet cough and then a soft groan of pain.

  Ivan hurried forward with his pistol at the ready. He smelled him before he saw him. Chuck Simms was on his back looking straight up. His hands were clutching his belly. The man seemed to sense his presence, but he did not move.

  “Go ahead, finish me and send me to my Father. You all deserve this hell,” Chuck Simms spat through teeth clenched in pain.

  “You people give Christians a bad name,” Ivan retorted.

  “You can call yourself a Christian all you like, but the Great Deceiver will be coming for you as he begins his thousand year reign. And then our Heavenly Father will emerge from the heavens and reclaim this world in the name of His Holy Father.”

  “What book did you read?’ Ivan scoffed.

  “Just you wait and see,” Chuck Simms cautioned. “Satan and his minions are here, and they are coming for you. Why else would none of our faithful have yet to fall to them? I’ve been bitten, but I still live. I am saved, chosen by God.”

  A low moan came from the darkness further up Farmers Hill Road. Ivan grabbed the flashlight hanging from his belt and clicked it on. He scanned up ahead and saw several figures stumbling towards where he stood over Chuck Simms.

  “I’ll leave you here then to take it up with them.” Ivan nodded to the approaching zombies.

  He flashed his light down on the man’s sweaty face and saw absolute fanatical conviction. A yelp and a meaty thud to the right told him that Stephen had probably found Jonah. He swung his flashlight over and Stephen Deese gave him a wave as he began to head over, wiping off the blade of his machete as he did so.

  “Satan’s minions will have nothing to do with me, but you…you will all perish in agony.”

  Ivan turned and met Stephen part way. The two men started up the road in silence. They were just cutting through the jagged hole in the barricade when a scream shattered the relative quiet of the night. It started like any regular scream, but it morphed into a maniacal laughter that made the hairs on both men’s necks stand on end until it came to a sudden and merciful end.

  “You left him alive for the zombies?” Stephen asked, sounding incredulous.

  “He said they couldn’t hurt him…something about how he had been bitten but that God saved him.”

  Stephen stopped suddenly. “The chief was bit.”

  “Umm…no. The chief was shot.”

  “Before that,” Stephen corrected. “When we went out to the highway. One of those things got him on the hand, but he never showed any signs…until he finally died from being shot.”

  “That seems like something we should tell Sophie. I bet it will make more sense to her. Especially with people dying who haven’t been bitten and all that. Seems to me that this is like the AIDS or Hep C,” Ivan speculated.

  “You go on ahead, I will stay here and keep watch on this breech. Send me some support as soon as possible. We need to seal this spot as quick as we can.”

  “Will do.” Ivan started away and then paused. He turned to Stephen, a sheepish expression on his face. “You think I shoulda put Chuck down instead of leaving him for them things?”

  “I don’t know what to think about much of anything anymore,” Stephen replied, not bothering to look back at the chief.

  ***

  Jamie peered out the window. She could see several of the walking dead roaming the streets outside. From the second floor of the townhouse, they could actually see the hospital. Just looking at it gave her shivers.

  It was the stuff of nightmares. So many bodies littered the ground, and the stench of death was so thick in the air that it coated your mouth and nose no matter if you were wearing a mask or respirator. Even with the gauze pads coated in Vick’s VapoRub stuffed up your nose, you could still smell the rotten sickly sweetness.

  She moved away from the window and went to the stairs. Her eyes fell on Bo Summers. The man was still sitting on the floor beside the front door. He’d been silent to the point of brooding ever since they’d busted in to this place, taken down that one zombie, and then dragged it outside.

  To compound the odd feeling she was getting, Sarah Gilstrap was seated right beside the big man and absently stroking his arm. Every so often she would pat him and lean in to whisper something. She certainly hoped these two hadn’t suddenly snapped. This was not the time or the place.

  The rest of the team was scattered around the townhouse. Some were sprawled on the floor, others the couch. Two people had flopped down on the bed and were snoring softly. She slid down and took a seat at the top of the stairs, her mind drifting like the dust motes flitting past her eyes in the sliver of moonlight that shone through the window.

  Was this how things were going to be from now on? Was life going to be reduced to these moments venturing into a dead world for supplies? Would all of them make it back?

  This was so much scarier than any movie. To see people walking around with massive wounds, parts missing, or bits of them hanging out from gaping holes in their bodies was truly awful.

  The drive up to Pickens had been close to disastrous as well as heart wrenching. They had been t
ravelling up Highway 178 and happened upon a multiple car accident. It looked like the people inside had suffered terrible fates as most were still strapped into their cars but had endured attacks that left many with chunks of their faces, shoulders, throats, and upper body torn away.

  Then they had encountered a lone military truck sitting on the road just a few miles outside of Pickens. They were not intending on stopping. After all, it was just a single truck with what looked like just the driver-turned-zombie in the cab. As they were edging around the vehicle, Jamie could not help but stop when she glanced over and recognized the man. It was Clifton Martin staring back at her with dead eyes. She saw his hands come up and paw impotently at the smeared driver’s side window. He tried to gnaw at the glass as well, and his efforts only increased when she got out of her truck and walked over to the military transport.

  “Oh, Cliff,” she had gasped.

  In the end, she put him down. She knew that was what Sophie would have wanted. Of all the zombies she had killed so far, this had been the most difficult. There was something to be said about staring into the face of somebody that you once knew just before driving a short, metal-tipped spear into their eye socket. She just wished that she’d had time to do more for the body than simply have it lifted back into the cab of the truck.

  The next bit of horror had come when they passed the burnt ruins of the Pickens County Sheriff’s office. Apparently some of the bad guys that Kevin Staley mentioned had come here in large numbers. It looked like heavy explosives had been used as bits of the main building were littering the highway. Several of the cars in the lot had been blown up and bodies were strung up from anything high enough to keep their feet from touching the ground. Many were in sheriff’s uniforms and had obviously been strung up alive and left to squirm so that the undead could get to them. Some were missing legs and other had been ripped in half. There were even a few strands of rope swinging in the breeze that had been snapped. A variety of profane graffiti had been spray painted on the signage leading to the area as well as gigantic letters on the actual asphalt of the parking lot that read: “Fuck the Police!”