Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End

by Daniel Cotton

  The locks are cut with saws and the doors are opened. The soldiers advance into the dark letting the music draw the dead to them. The teams report their progress inside as they begin their search and destroy.

  The lights grow hot as they cast their glow into the shadows. Both teams face mild resistance from the classic zombies that have been trapped inside for over a year, the starved dead are positively ravenous as they limp and shuffle toward the first signs of food they’ve seen in a long time. Small caliber weapons are used for precision to cut them down, and to avoid deafening themselves.

  The units spread out into every nook and cranny. They cut away the shadows and look under furniture to make sure not an inch of space isn’t cleared. They make mental notes whenever they spot anything of use or interest, they can come back once the initial job is through. Floor by floor they explore the building to the funky beat until every last corpse is dropped.

  Once his building has been searched all the way up to the roof, Rough Rider calls out to his team through the radio in his helmet. “All right, top to bottom, I want a double check while y’all drag the bodies out for trash collection. And, for god’s sake, don’t forget to pick up the brass. Our fearless leader is all pent up, the last thing I want is for him to be up my ass.”

  “I’m feelin’ a might pent up myself,” Soul Train says across the distance. “Maybe I should have my team leave a few shells.”

  “Guys,” Abby’s voice silences their laughter, “you know I can hear you, right?”

  “Sorry, Abby,” Rough Rider apologizes sheepishly.

  “I’m not,” Soul Train admits. “That offer is on the table, baby.”

  8

  A bullet tears into the target’s head to the shooter’s delight. A black void is left in Chef Boyardee’s face.

  “I know cathartic shooting when I see it,” Carla says knowingly to Vida. “Anyone I know?”

  “My boyfriend… or, ex…or, soon-to-be,” she tries to explain while reloading the AR-15 she chose to practice with today. “It’s complicated.”

  “Isn’t it always?” Carla relates with a nod. “You mind?”

  Carla takes a spot on the beach next to the younger woman. Both had the same notion, since no body was taking advantage of the beautiful day, they could fire at some cans set up along the surf, at least until somebody does decide to go for a swim. Before speaking, she smiles as the sun warms her face. There’s a ship off in the distance, she shields her eyes to see if it’s the Coast Guard but it’s too far.

  “I couldn’t help but notice, you’re still not going out with your crew,” Carla leads.

  “No, and it’s bullshit,” Vida says curtly.

  “I’m guessing he knows that you’re pissed, and he’d still rather that than see you in harm’s way.”

  “Other guys let their girls go out,” Vida states while sighting in on another can. She’s tense and can’t get a good bead on it so she doesn’t fire just yet.

  “Let? If a girl wants to go out there no man can stop her, unless he is the leader. If a man is able to pull rank, he will.”

  “It’s still bullshit.” Though her arms thrum with anger, Vida pulls the trigger putting a real hole in the middle of a cartoon Spaghetti-O.

  “There was a time that I’d be on your side 100 percent,” Carla admits. “But, take it from me, losing someone out there in the way your man is afraid of, is devastating. I’d be out there myself if I didn’t have so many here that I care about.”

  9

  The buildings have been secured. As the teams commence a double check on their way to re-assemble on the ground floor Rough Rider notices something odd.

  “This is Grave Robber 1, I have daylight at the end of a hall, possible breach. I’m checking it out.”

  He heads down the hall to where he sees a sliver of light. He can’t believe no one caught this on the initial entry. An emergency exit is open just a crack, just enough to let a shaft of light in through the darkness. He pauses to listen but all is quiet so he proceeds to seal the plain steel door meant to be used in the event of fires.

  Something is propping the door open. Rough Rider pushes the door a few more inches meaning to kick away whatever it is. Through the few inches he widens he can see the back is a parking lot where guests of the hotel would park. Just a few cars and sunlight to be seen.

  What a beautiful day, he thinks to himself. Shame to be on the clock.

  Looking down with his foot cocked back to punt the item away to allow the door to close fully, he has to take a second look at it and ponder what it really is. A ball of dark hair.

  “It’s a head,” he says to himself, crouching to pick it up. He leaves the door ajar to see it better in the light.

  Having been gone for a while, Peace Maker is on her way to him. “What did you say?”

  Rough Rider turns the patchy haired cranium around to look at the face out of curiosity. It’s a man’s head, its eyes stare back at him unblinking, they may not blink but they widen and start to dart around to see as if searching for a possible means of getting its mouth to him. The severed head’s jaws open and close like chattering teeth, starved though there would be nowhere for the flesh to go even if it did manage to get a bite.

  “Jesus!” Rough Rider exclaims. He turns putting his other shoulder against the door to show his wife the twitching thing. “Who the fuck put this here?”

  Coming in for a closer look, suddenly her husband is outside. “Wade?”

  Pulled outside by strong unseen hands, Rough Rider is caught off guard. A corpse stands between him and the door, the ghoul has both hands against the steel, grinning at him due to retracted, dried lips. Behind its soulless eyes is a slight glimmer, a basic intelligence that tells the human he is facing one of the New Breed.

  “It’s a trap!” he calls out through his headset.

  More zombies appear from behind the few parked cars in the lot and from the ends of the alleys. They have been watching their enemy, they have learned weaknesses that they can exploit; predictability, and over-confidence. Through example they have seen the humans trap the dead to make eradication easier, a ploy they now use.

  With a roar of rage Rough Rider hurls the head at the corpse that grabbed him, and unslings his assault rifle, taking aim on the rotting thing that dared lay a hand on him. He fires a few rounds into its head, knowing that this variety tends to take more than one headshot.

  More are coming to take the fallen ghoul’s place. They aren’t rushing in as Rough Rider would expect, but taking their time. As if they know they have him exactly where they want him. He has nowhere to go.

  Peace Maker is shoving her shoulder against the door that is being held closed by one of the New Breed. She slams against it with such force she jolts the corpse, staggering it on its decaying feet. More of the team arrives to help muscle the door open as more of the thinking dead fill the alley.

  Rough Rider finds himself surrounded, encircled by the corpses. He fires at them wondering where their sense of self-preservation has gone, and then he realizes he is looking at a great example of it. The New Breed are using regular zombies as inhuman shields, holding them out in front as the man fires his rifle.

  Once out of rounds, Rough Rider is down to his .45 revolver, enough stopping power to put a New Breed down in one shot, if he can get a shot. He knows he doesn’t have enough bullets for all of them, this will end in a physical brawl once he’s out.

  “Good thing I’m wearing armor,” he quips at the ever thickening mob of death. “Huh, fuckfaces?”

  As if on que, in the mentioning of his protective garb, the man hears a metallic scraping coming closer. The crowd parts to allow a grinning ghoul through as it drags a bright red axe.

  His revolver is spent. The dead know it. They cast the classic corpses aside and over power the man as he strikes. It’s no use, there’s just too many of them. Through the com-link he hears his wife yelling for help, yelling for him to answer her, and it breaks his heart.

>   “Jackie,” he says tenderly as he is manhandled and wrenched all around. The dead are trying to get him on the pavement as the axe wielder brings up the red blade. He is able to get one of his arms free of their clutches to pluck a grenade from his armor. “I love you girl. Never forget that.”

  Rough Rider is racked with pain before he can pull the pin, it is lost as he doubles up on the ground. The Corpse with the axe is already coming down on him with another chop. The armor takes the brunt of it, but his outer layer of cloth is split, the links of metal that have protected him through so much cut into his torso. The smell of blood in the air drives the New Breed into a frenzy, they scream their high pitched screams in anticipation as they yank and tear at the armor that keeps them from their meal. The axe comes down over and over, never in the same spot as the man is pulled this way and that.

  On the other side of the door, Jackie hears her husband’s anguished screams, powerless to help him.

  Rough Rider feels like a lobster getting its shell cracked open, like a walnut being battered by a squirrel, an oyster to some hungry otter. In his brief moments of freedom he tries to get away, only to be brutalized more. By chance, in one such instance of movement, he finds his grenade on the ground. He has it in his hands but can’t pull the pin until he gets another lucky break.

  It happens, there’s a lull in the beating and tearing, it only lasts a second but it’s enough for him to yank the pin from his explosive and lob it up over the heads of the dead. He can only hope their tightly packed bodies will spare him the blast.

  10

  Target practice has halted on the beach, just as Killian arrives with Dan Williamson’s M-16, Eli and his daughter have asked to use the beach for a bit.

  “This is it?” Brock Rottom asks of the unsatisfactory supplies of hotdogs he has just been delivered.

  “All I was given,” Gar responds. “Chef Pog wasn’t happy about making ‘em, since Rough Rider had called out from the kitchen to go out on a mission. Anyways, what do you think?”

  “It’s a wild story,” Brock admits to the man who fiddles with a green vile of ooze that hangs from his neck by a cord of hemp, the ooze is his evidence that his story is completely true. The stoner had come to deliver his goods and began telling Brock his tale of a ‘crazy chick’ in Georgia, how he was captured by her. His fellow captive was able to overpower the woman and get away. The man was near death when he freed Gar. The story was then back tracked all the way to the first day of the plague.

  “I know, right? You believe me? That I met the man responsible for it all and this is the stuff that caused the plague?” Gar asks, holding the substance out as far as the cord will allow. “Most people call it nonsense.”

  “Hmm,” Brock ponders that, being no stranger to the unusual. “To call your story nonsense is an affront to all things nonsense, things I hold sacred. You have no reason to lie, so, yeah, I believe you.”

  “Awesome!” Having the approval of the man that’s never seen out of his clown make-up makes Gar smile with vindication.

  “But, let me ask you something,” Brock leans in close, his elbows on the counter of his lunch truck. “This stuff you call God’s bugger, I’ve heard others call it God’s Booger. Which is it?”

  “Bugger, it’s British for mistake,” Gar explains. “I was hanging out with Randy Russel just before I met Freeman Wilkes.”

  “I thought bugger was Brit for ‘fuck’.”

  “I don’t think so. Randy said fuck an awful lot,” Gar says. “I could ask Kelly, but I think the subject is still kinda sore.”

  There is a hiatus in their conversation. Both men look out over the ocean on this glorious day. They watch Eli play with his little girl, running in and out of the surf. Gar doesn’t let it bother him that he’s been getting stuck with the lion’s share of the work. He understands Eli and his daughter want to do things and that Kelly has made some new friends. As long as he can grow his marijuana on his off time, he’s happy.

  Both men notice Carla is focused on something out to sea, a large ship. The woman doesn’t take her eyes from it. They watch it for a few seconds as well.

  “Is that the Navy?” Gar asks.

  “No,” Brock says shaking his head. “That’s not the Navy.”

  The hull of the ship is bright blue, and it’s heading straight for them. When trying to brainstorm possible security problems one impossible scenario was spit-balled by Dan Williamson that involved ships out at sea. When the plague hit, entire ships would probably be wiped out as far as passengers and crew. They’d be drifting aimlessly, full of zombies.

  “Ghost Ship!” Carla yells to Eli but the man and his little girl can’t hear over their splash fight. Whatever force put the ship into motion, on a collision course with land, it’s coming in fairly quick and the two have yet to notice it.

  “Killian, get everyone you can away from here and to the hotel! Vida, run and get as many armed men you can find!” Carla quickly commands before racing to the two in the water, hoping she has enough time. It doesn’t matter to her what got the large vessel coming aground here, she just knows that with its mass and at this speed it will be devastating. It will plow through the sand under its inertia, perhaps even through the wall of stone that surrounds the beach.

  She hits the water, the surf holds back her strides, slowing her. She pushes onward to the oblivious survivors, trying not to fathom just how many walking corpses may be onboard, they’ll be tumbling from the rails, raining down once their ship finally comes in. Without water to balance the ship’s weight it will likely capsize on dry land, casting the dead out like Yahtzee dice.

  “Eli!” she yells again, closer now and much louder. The man looks up from his frivolity, smiling. Carla is rushing toward them, pointing at something behind him. The smile fades quickly once he turns around and takes in the silent menace looming toward them.

  “Oh shit!” he exclaims. The ship is still a ways out, but he knows he has to move now. “C’mon, baby!” He takes his daughter’s hand and runs toward land in a hopping fashion, his knees high, to reduce the water’s resistance. He knew he shouldn’t have let her talk him into going out so deep, but she insisted that she needed to talk to him in private and she said it was the only way to truly be alone.

  The blonde girl stumbles, but Eli catches her. He hauls her up onto his hip. The added weight causes his feet to sink into the sand.

  “Oh no,” Brock and Gar both gasp as they rush to aid the struggling father.

  The ground is starting to tremble as the ship’s keel scrapes the sea floor. The loose sandy bottom begins to move like a fluid as it vibrates, like quicksand. Eli is being sucked under. He falters, cradling his daughter in one arm, catching himself with the other. His arm plunges deep into the mire, the water is less than waist deep but now his face is being submerged. He struggles to keep his daughter’s head out of the sea, thankfully Carla is there to lift her out of his arms. She drags him up, he hardly has time to gasp before he gets himself moving once more.

  All his little angel wanted was a private word with him. She wanted to ask if he and Kelly Peel were and item, he had found it adorable that she used the word ‘item’. Their playful splash fight began when she commented on how he looks at her when he thinks no one is watching.

  Brock and Gar splash onto the scene to help them to shore, Carla puts herself between them and the incoming ship. The dead high above have spotted potential food and are falling from the rails. For now they are simply dragged under the ship, but when it finally comes to a halt they will need to be ready. She follows the others onto dry land.

  Their legs feel like lead, but they can’t rest just yet. “Get them to higher ground!” Carla orders her helpers. “The hotel!”

  Her slung Ak-47 bounces against her back as she runs to her other weapons. She drags a wooden crate to where she believes the best place to make her stand will be. The ship will cut its way through the sand all the way to the stone wall, at its present course she predicts
it will end up between two sets of stairs leading to the beach on this end of the boardwalk.

  Carla notices Gar still with her, he has let Brock spirit the father and daughter to safety in order to help her lug her supplies to where she wants them. “Here,” she says handing him her assault rifle.

  The ship is like a glacier set on fast forward, changing the land it carves through. The ground trembles as the vessel’s inertia is spent grinding through the earth. It’s slowing, but not fast enough, she thinks as she removes Oz’s SAW from the crate. The heavy automatic weapon is set on the wall, aimed at the ship. She’s ready, but wonders where her back-up is.

  ####

  Vida is at the front gate where the military stores their weapons. “Help!” she calls out breathlessly. “I need men at the beach!”

  “Vida, what’s going on?” Kelly Peel asks as she rolls to the distressed guitarist. Her daily skating partner, Killer B, skids to a halt as well.

  “There’s a ship heading toward us,” she pants. “Ghostship. We need guns.”

  The front gate is oddly devoid of people in camo. Usually the Army is bustling around, now not a one is in sight and the gate is open. If she can’t find soldiers she’ll be Carla’s only back-up.

  “How can we help?” Killer B asks.

  “Get the word out,” Vida tells them. “Quickly tell everyone you see to stay clear of the boardwalk unless they’re armed, everyone else should get to the hotel.”

  The ladies speed away on the job. Vida starts raiding the armory, filling olive drab duffle bags like she’s on a shopping spree. She snatches up the few remaining assault rifles from the racks that typically house several along with corresponding ammo and magazines. The diminished stock tells her something is up elsewhere.

  About to embark on the journey back to the beach, this time weighted down by the two duffels, she hears the popping of gunfire beyond the open gate.