The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 1): Wicked Dead

by Odentz, Howard

  “Poxer,” quipped Andrew.

  “Damn, really?” snapped Trina. “Can’t we have just one day of peace?”

  “What would a poxer be doing out here?” whispered Prianka, her hand slipping into mine.

  “Dunno,” I said. “Fast food?”

  “Hey,” Jimmy said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not interested in being on the dollar menu.”

  The movement in the trees stopped. By now, we could clearly make out a figure standing there. It was eerie, like it had just run out of juice and was waiting for a fill-up. Then it abruptly turned and faced us, and we all saw for sure that whoever was in the woods was now on the extra crispy side of poxified.

  She was a woman—about the same age as my mom, with a red bandana on her forehead, wearing hiking shorts and boots. She also had a purple backpack with the straps looped under her arms and around her waist.

  She was dressed in plaid—all plaid—this year’s L.L. Bean zombie-catalog fall collection.

  Jimmy pulled out his paper bag of supplies.

  “Can’t do that, bro.” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “It’s been way too dry, lately. The last thing we need is a forest fire.”

  “Because only you can prevent forest fires,” added Trina and giggled. We high-fived each other.

  “Do you want me to shoot her?” asked Bullseye.

  “No,” we all snapped in unison.

  “But what do you . . .” he began, but I cut him off.

  “Helicopter people,” I said and pointed up into the sky. “They’ll hear.”

  How sucky can sucky be? I couldn’t help thinking the same thing as Trina. Geez. Can’t we get cut a break for one lousy day—just one lousy morning?

  Sanjay hid himself behind Prianka and buried his face in Poopy Puppy’s new patch-worked body.

  Jimmy started pumping the wheels of his chair toward where the arrow on the birch was pointing. “Let’s just lead it to the water,” he said. “We can deal with it there.”

  He was right. In the fire and water version of rock, paper, scissors, water beat out fire every time.

  “Fine. Can we just hurry then?” grumbled Trina and started after him.

  I looked at Prianka and gave her a sad, little smile. ‘Sorry,” I said and sort of shrugged.

  “What are you sorry about? It’s not your fault.”

  “I don’t know,” I said as we started following after Jimmy and Trina with the dead backpacker now trailing behind us on the swath of path.

  “Then don’t apologize.”

  Prianka was right. None of this was my fault, but somehow I couldn’t shake the idea that it was. “It’s my fault the helicopter people are after us,” I said as I stared at pebbles running away from my sneakers each time I kicked at the ground.

  “Or your sister’s,” she reminded me as she put her arm around my waist and kissed my ear. “Both of you are immune. If push comes to shove, they can have her. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said. I turned to keep an eye on the poxer slowly staggering after us. She was just one more thing to worry about in a sea full of worry.

  41

  NEWFIE’S A BIG DOG, like probably the biggest I’ve ever seen. He kept growling and showing his teeth at the poxer, but I held on to his collar so he wouldn’t bolt after her. I was lucky. I think he would have taken my arm along with him if he had bothered to wrench free.

  By the time we had halved the distance to Black Point Fort from the birch tree, I realized that something was a little off. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. I think it was the smell that finally gave it away.

  “Does anyone smell that?” I said.

  “Smell what?” asked Bullseye.

  Trina snorted. “The one who smelt it, dealt it.” And they call me immature.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I smell something funny.”

  “Like chemicals,” said Prianka. She stopped and was looking at one of the trees on the side of the dirt road.

  “Pri? What’s up?”

  “This,” she said as she tentatively poked at the bark. “What is this?” There was sticky stuff on the tree, like someone had plastered the lower part of the trunk with something dark and gooey. She pulled her hand away, smelled it, and wrinkled her nose. “It sort of smells like gasoline.” Prianka moved to another tree, and then another. “You know what, guys. There’s this sticky stuff on all the trees. Can’t you smell it?”

  She was right. The air smelled off, like we were in a mechanic’s garage. So much for the sweet aroma of fall in New England—the whole forest reeked.

  “Maybe it’s part of a study from the University,” pondered Jimmy. “Sometimes they come out . . . I mean came out here to study the trees and how they grow. Maybe that stuff is part of a project or something, you know? Like a special kind of fertilizer.”

  “A stinky fertilizer,” said Bullseye and turned to keep watch on our trailing poxer.

  “All fertilizer is stinky,” said Trina.

  “No stinkier than poxer-lady,” I said. “Let’s get to the beach and torch her, please.”

  Prianka still sniffed at her hand. Something was bothering her. I could see her trying to work it out in her head like she was trying to remember something important. Usually Sanjay was our answer man, but he only dawdled along with us, staring at the trees and looking up at the sun as it warmed his copper skin. Andrew sat dutifully on his shoulder. Poopy Puppy hung at his side.

  God, my life was weird, but I couldn’t quite figure out what I thought was the weirdest part. Was it the poxers? Maybe it was Sanjay and his mega-brain. Could it be Diana and her mad scientist version of ruling the world?

  I decided it was the fact that I was sort of going steady with Prianka Patel. If anyone from high school was still alive and found out, I think they’d die laughing.

  The two of us dating was just so wrong, but somehow, so right, too. I smiled to myself. Life’s weird—really, really weird

  A few minutes more and we could see the woods opening up in the distance. Newfie kept turning his head and eyeing the backpack lady while making this deep, throaty growl. We weren’t in any danger yet—none that I could see, anyway. We were walking faster than her.

  The path ended at the water.

  “Wow,” whispered Bullseye when he saw the Quabbin Reservoir for the first time. Jimmy whistled. Wow was right.

  The reservoir was amazing. It was huge, with islands blooming out of the still, dark, blue depths. As far as you could see, in both directions, water reflected the blue sky and the brilliantly colored trees along the shore.

  “I told you,” exclaimed Jimmy. “Awesome, right?”

  It was awesome. How could I have lived my whole life within an hour’s drive from this place and never come here?

  It made me think how much we all used to stumble through our own little existences, playing video games and surfing the Net. There was so much in the world to see. Looking at the Quabbin made me want to see it all.

  Over to our left, about a half mile away, was Black Point Fort. It hung out over the water on a spit of land that reached into the reservoir like a bony finger. The building was made of stone, which is kind of rare for New England. I have, or used to have, family in Philadelphia. Every time we went down for a visit, it was weird to see all the houses made out of stone. My dad’s cousin Harris told us it was because Philadelphia was built on granite. When they started building the city, stone was the easiest stuff to find.

  In New England, however, stone buildings are rare. I didn’t expect Black Point Fort to look so medieval. There were dark windows that marred its rough surface and several jeeps in the parking lot that looked like they were parked a little too orderly—a little too militarily. At the edge of the parking lot was a paved road that
went off into the woods.

  “I wonder where that road leads,” I said.

  “Not here,” said Trina. “Look.” There was a little foot bridge that crossed over a marshy area between us and the fort, but it dipped into the water halfway through the marsh and disappeared. It looked as though someone had cut the rope railing and let the bridge slip into the muck.

  I got the willies. There was something off about Black Point Fort. The place seemed like it was alive, you know? Like it was breathing.

  Like it was a site.

  Jimmy spun his wheel chair around to face the poxer that had been trailing us. She was still about a hundred feet away. “Do you think if we all went into the water she would follow us?” he said. “We could torch her there, away from the woods.”

  I still eyed Black Point Fort. In that little part of my stomach called the pit, something roiled.

  “This isn’t right,” I said.

  “What’s not right?” snipped Trina. Then she saw my eyes. We did that unspoken thing again where she practically plucked the thoughts right out of my head.

  “Are you serious?” she whispered.

  “Serious about what?” asked Prianka.

  Trina chewed at the skin on the inside of her cheek. “He thinks that Black Point Fort is one of the sites like Site 37.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a little too convenient?” asked Jimmy as he readied himself to torch the poxer.

  “Look at it,” I said. “It’s remote, it’s, um, a fort, and there are helicopter people around. They were after us last night, and they were just over the woods. Hello. Yes, I think it’s a site. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Damn. I jinxed myself. The words were barely out of my mouth when a helicopter came out of nowhere. It had been lying in wait, just outside our range of vision behind the stone building. One minute we were talking and the next it was just there.

  This one wasn’t the same helicopter that hovered over the woods while we hid in the cellar hole. That one was loud and obvious. This one was almost silent, and it was small, like the one that carried Cheryl The It when she first caught sight of Trudy Aiken and left her in the middle of the road without her pizza.

  “I hate being right,” I said.

  That’s when all hell broke loose.

  42

  THE SPEAR CAUGHT the poxer from behind, right through the purple backpack, and exploded out her chest like an alien parasite being born. Black stuff splattered on the ground.

  Four little metal arms with hooks on them snapped out of the weapon’s pointy end. Then the spear was rudely yanked back and the hooks dug into the poxer’s gray flesh.

  It was gross—cool, too, but gross won out over cool.

  The spear was attached to a long chain and the chain came from the opening in the side of the helicopter.

  I looked up as the whirlybird buzzed over our heads. Whoever shot the poxer was wearing all black like a sniper in a James Bond movie.

  Bullseye automatically pulled out his gun and raised his shooting arm.

  “No,” I shouted and grabbed him from behind, throwing him to the sandy ground. The gun flung out of his hand and shot off in the air. For a sickening moment that seemed to last forever, I imagined the bullet finding its mark in one of us. I spun my head around. Thankfully no one was hit, but everyone was in shock and Sanjay was screaming. The poxer writhed and moaned, blackness seeping out of it like mud.

  “What did you do that for?” Bullseye cried as he brushed his dirty hand across his face.

  “We don’t shoot people,” I screamed at him. “We never shoot living people.”

  He pulled himself to his feet, his brown hair flapping around his head in the wake of the helicopter blades. “You mean, you don’t shoot people,” he screamed at me. “You’re not me.”

  I could see the rage boiling up inside of him. This was so not the time for a meltdown, but instead of Bullseye flying off the handle, my sister came unhinged.

  “What’s happening?” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. “What is happening?”

  The helicopter spun in a circle over our heads and lifted up a few feet. The spitting, snarling poxer lifted up as well, impaled by the spear and hopelessly dangling by the chain. When the poxer was about five feet off the ground, the copter swung it around and faced the undead woman right in our direction.

  Then it started coming for us.

  What was this, a colossal game of zombie fishing with us as the fish? We turned back the way we came and all started running down the sunny path in the middle of the woods. I let go of Newfie’s collar and scooped up Sanjay as I ran. He screamed, loud and long, and struggled to get free, but I held him tight.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” I huffed as I ran.

  “Buddy’s a nickname,” he wailed. “Buddy’s a nickname. Buddy’s a nickname.”

  I made the mistake of turning around and what I saw made me absolutely sick.

  The poxer was hanging by the chain. Blackened goo seeped from the hooks that dug into her flesh. She kept snapping her jaws together and curving her fingers into claws. She looked like a flying demon coming after us.

  This was the stuff of nightmares—dead people sailing through the air, all black goo and gnashing teeth. This was a horrific campfire story.

  I ducked as I ran, and the poxer flew past me, kicking me hard in my back with her hiking boots. I went sprawling and so did Sanjay. He hit his head on a small rock when we fell and a dark gash opened up on his forehead. He touched the wound with his hand and pulled back red.

  His face, however, turned white.

  Thankfully Prianka was there. She lifted him up into her arms and ducked as the helicopter turned to try and knock her down with the impaled poxer. Andrew flew at the flailing hiker and actually collided with her instead of darting out of reach. He was thrown to the ground, too.

  “No,” screamed Jimmy and madly wheeled over to him. By the time he got there, Andrew was already up, his wings held over his head, shaking his little beaked head like he had just flown into a glass window. “Andrew,” Jimmy cried and reached down for the bird, pulling him up into his lap.

  “This is crazy,” screamed Trina. “We can’t keep running.”

  “We have to keep running,” I bellowed.

  “Screw that,” she wailed and grabbed the paper bag from Jimmy. She reached inside and pulled out a book of matches and some paper towels. I watched her bend down, bunch up a wad, and strike a match. The paper burst into life in her hands.

  Immediately Prianka froze. It was like something went off in her head—something important. She looked around, the acrid air from the woods still assaulting her nostrils.

  That’s when she freaked.

  “NO,” she screamed at Trina, who completely wasn’t listening to anything that anybody was saying. “NO,” she wailed again. “The trees. NO.”

  Oh no. The trees—they smelled liked gasoline. They were covered with something sticky. Sticky plus gas equals something that burned. Prianka was right. Whatever was on the trees wasn’t any sort of University science experiment. It was a defensive strategy against a horde of poxers roaming too close to Black Point Fort. After all, we all knew the easiest way to get rid of poxers.

  Fire.

  Crap.

  We were running through the middle of a fire bomb and Trina was about to light the fuse.

  “Leave us alone,” Trina screamed. “Leave us the hell alone.” The paper towels were like a flaming bouquet in her hands. I didn’t know how she was holding on to them.

  “Drop it,” I screamed. “Drop it, Trina. The trees . . .” but she wouldn’t listen.

  The helicopter rotated in the sky again and the chained poxer smacked into a tree. That’s when Trina dashed forward and pushed the fire at it. The poxer immediately burs
t into flames. It started screeching the way that poxers do, but I wasn’t even listening. I was staring at Trina’s hands. She held them out in front of her—all angry and red. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to see she was burned—maybe even badly. I couldn’t tell.

  Then two things happened at once—one I half expected and one I didn’t. The poxer exploded, sending burning chunks of gooey poxer tar everywhere. One hit Newfie and he yelped. I ran to him, scooping up a bunch of dirt as I went, and planted a handful right on his back. I could smell singed fur, but I think he had so much of it that he was no worse for wear.

  The second was what happened to the forest. Wherever the poxer goo hit the sticky covered trees, they burst into flames, fast, one after the other after the other.

  What was worse was what happened to the helicopter. When the poxer exploded, the spear and the chain got caught in the branches of a tree and the sticky bark sang into life, sending a plume of flame up as high as the helicopter. Whoever was flying it lost control, and the copter spun around and around in the air.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” yelled Jimmy as he watched it spin out of control.

  Then it dive-bombed into the woods like a giant moth that had the powder on its wings rubbed off by an evil little kid. The crash was deafening. A great fire ball shot up into the sky like a mini nuclear explosion.

  Before we knew it, there was fire everywhere, and we were all running through the woods away from the reservoir. Prianka clutched Sanjay tightly to her chest. Bullseye ran with his pistol in his hand as though he was getting ready to shoot at the flames. Newfie and Andrew were ahead of us on the path. I remember seeing Newfie stop and turn back like he was Lassie, waiting for us to catch up with him so we could all go find Timmy in the well.

  Jimmy kept screaming, “No, no, no, no, no,” as he pushed hard on his wheels. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  As for me, I ran with Trina. There were no tears in her eyes—just pure hatred. Her hands were blistered and red. She held them out, her fingers splayed, and all I could think was that they hurt my sister, the bastards.