Dead South Rising (Book 2): Death Row

by Lang, Sean Robert

  He furrowed his brows, concern lighting his own eyes. “What’s it about?”

  “Just come with me.”

  Chapter 9

  Jessica spotted it on the floor, beneath the box that had contained Natalee’s dismembered hand. The initial shock of that gruesome discovery had distracted her, and she hadn’t noticed the slip of paper until now.

  One teasing corner poked out from under the cardboard.

  Look at me. Come get me. Pick me up. You know you want to. You can’t resist. You need to know.

  She swallowed hard, anxious about what she’d find scrawled on it. The last time she stumbled across a blood-stained note, she learned a sad secret. She just wasn’t sure she could handle another so soon.

  But curiosity’s an irresistible temptress, and Jessica succumbed to the siren’s song. There was no point in fighting the urge, because she could easily justify reading it. The note could be a clue to Doc’s whereabouts. It could explain the sick rationale behind his mentally disturbed actions. Or perhaps provide some other insight she had yet to think of. Whatever that sheet contained, she would know about it first.

  Before picking it up, she glanced into the hall, noticed a few people milling about, like anxious family members awaiting a difficult diagnosis of a loved one. They were undoubtedly waiting on a verdict from the Janitor, who had slipped into Roy’s room to speak with David privately. A closed door meant serious discussion. She prayed the conversation was going well, that Gabriel was the reasonable and insightful man she felt certain he was.

  David, her cousin and only blood relative left, meant everything to her. She believed him, in him, despite his less-than-honest dealings with her as of late. She blamed the current state of the world and what he experienced before society’s collapse, but she knew better. He’d battled with trust and anger issues for most of his life, well before Karla’s death and Natalee’s heartless abandonment afterward.

  He wasn’t a bad guy, just a flawed one. Surely the old man would see that. A flawed man could still function, contribute, be a part of something bigger and better, while bending and shaping himself into something less flawed. A bad man—a truly evil man—often bent himself until he snapped, broke, because he tried to move himself in a wrong, unnatural direction. Even if the damage could be repaired, a nasty, ugly scar remained to remind. And tempt. Always a sign of what was and could possibly be again.

  After pulling the door to, Jessica crossed the room, stooped over the box. Like a child hovering over an anthill with a magnifying glass, she crouched there, unmoving, staring at it. She considered leaving the note be, tried to talk herself into doing just that. Wait for David. It was his business to bear, not hers.

  It’s just a left-over invoice that was already in the box.

  Doc used it as packaging material.

  It was never in the box. The paper just happened to be on the floor when the box landed there.

  She didn’t lie well, especially to herself. Not like her cousin. Maybe he could teach her sometime.

  Before she realized it, she pinched the paper, snatching it from under the cardboard. She pressed to her feet, then walked to the window. The note was folded in half, decorated with blood—Natalee’s, most likely—and she could still smell death on it. Holding it to the window, she tried to get a sneak-peek.

  Definitely a handwritten note.

  Jess brought the note down to her hip.

  What the hell am I doing? This is his business, not mine. Just wait until he gets through with the Janitor, then we’ll see what this is all about.

  But it couldn’t wait. How the hell could it? A deranged individual, who thinks he’s a deceased gunslinger from the old west, lops off a woman’s hand, and stuffs it into a cardboard box? Then, he somehow finds the wife’s husband and delivers the dismembered hand via a sweet, innocent little boy, despite hungry shufflers roaming about?

  No, this could not and would not wait. Jessica easily justified her actions. Nosey or not, she had no choice but to get involved. This cruel and heartless act affected David, Bryan, her… the entire Alamo community. No more delaying. Still standing at the window, she read the note.

  * * *

  Swiping a tear from her cheek, Jessica said, “Please don’t do this. You need time to think this through, time to… to heal.” She motioned to his gauze-wrapped head and eye, and her voice started to tremble. “Doc’s dangerous. He’ll… he’ll kill you. Is that what you want?”

  David stopped stuffing the gym bag and gazed at his cousin. He caught her drift, her implications. He knew that she meant more than just his cracked head. And, as usual, she was right. Dead on. He did need time to heal—his body, his mind, his emotions… his heart.

  She wiped away another tear, then broke his stare by looking out the window. She crossed her arms hard over her chest and clutched a wadded note so tightly that fingernails pierced skin, bringing blood. More blood to mix and mingle with another’s on an already blood-stained note.

  Damn her. He had his own ebbing emotions to contend with and wasn’t adept at trying to soothe another’s hurt. The whole process was like Spanish to him. He knew enough to understand words here and there, sometimes even an entire sentence. Sure, he got the gist, but he wasn’t fluent enough to fully converse, only enough to get by. He could ask where the library was, but couldn’t ask about the books inside. Nowhere near enough to reciprocate the deeper meanings and nuances. A shame, since a full life wasn’t about just getting by.

  Jessica wasn’t his wife, of course, but a loved one nonetheless, with feelings, just like his wife. Like himself. Same principles applied. Still, this didn’t make it any easier. But he had to try. Couldn’t leave it like this.

  “Jess,” he said, crossing the room. He stopped behind her, hesitantly placing his hands on her arms. “I’ve got to do this.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Jessica turned to face him. “No, David, you don’t. Look at you. Look what happened the last time you thought you had to do something. You almost died, David. Died.” She brought her hands over her puffy eyes, and David pulled her into a hug.

  “Jess, sweetheart. This is different. Those other guys—Sam and his buddy, Gills—I provoked them. That mess… that was on me. All on me. I smacked the hornet’s nest, and I got stung.” He rubbed her back. “But this Doc guy. With this guy, it’s personal with him. He’s threatening me. You. Bryan. This place.”

  “Then let’s leave, go far away from here. Find another place.”

  “And leave the Janitor and his crew to fend for themselves? Doc will just keep hounding him, thinking he’s getting to me. And this ‘Infirmaries’ bunch is just as messed up as…”

  …as I am…

  She pulled away from him, leaving him alone by the window. “They got along just fine without us before. I’m sure they’d be just fine if we left.”

  “What about Randy? And Bryan? They both love it here. I thought you loved it here, too. And Randy and Lenny are like two peas in a pod. They’re inseparable.”

  “I just get the feeling things are going to get bad here. That Dr. Gonzalez, Luz, or whatever her name is? I don’t like her. I don’t trust her.”

  “I think she’s just confused.”

  “Confused?”

  David crossed the room, started packing more supplies into the bag. “Yes, confused.”

  “I think you just have a thing for her.”

  He stopped, straightened, arms akimbo. His gaze a near glare, he said, “Are you serious?”

  Jess twisted her lip, wiped her cheek. She’d found a button and punched it.

  “You’re really reaching with that one, Jess. Christ, I get my wife’s hand delivered to me in a cardboard box, and that’s the shit you come up with? That I have a ‘thing’ for her?” Anger didn’t knock, it kicked in the door. “What a shitty fucking thing to say, Jess. Really fucking classy of you.”

  He guessed she’d run out of straws to draw and was gra
sping at something, anything, to derail him from his intentions to leave. Maybe she was purposefully trying to piss him off, upset him, so that’d he stay and fight with her instead of running off on a suicide mission. But this realization didn’t stop him from launching his verbal lashing. Nor would it stop him from leaving.

  “David, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Goddamn right you shouldn’t have.” He brushed his hand across his forehead, his rage a fever from within. “For fuck’s sake, Jessica—”

  Jessica’s voice trembled again, her own temper tainting her words. “She left you, okay? Natalee? She left you. She didn’t love you anymore. She didn’t care about you anymore—”

  “Enough,” he said. “Enough, already. You weren’t there, you don’t know, okay? Get over yourself, and leave it alone.”

  “No,” she volleyed back, her tone growing strong. “I won’t leave it alone. You risked your life to be with a dead woman who didn’t love you.”

  He felt as though Sammy and Guillermo had kicked the wind out of him all over again. “And just what the hell do you mean by that?”

  “Lying to us about searching for Natalee? Going to your house? Everyday? So you could get shit-faced and spend time with your zombie wife? Was that the only way you could get her to be with you?”

  And there it was. Whether intentional or not, Jessica had found it. Stepped right in it. She was standing in the world’s largest pile of shit, kicking it into the world’s largest fan. And that fan blew straight at David. David hated—loathed—the ‘Z’ word. Would not use it, corrected others who did. And referring to Natalee as one? His wife? In the same sentence, the same breath? Then, to insinuate, the only way Natalee would be with him…

  How fucking dare you. Call me a drunk. Call me a liar. Tell me I’ve got problems, issues. Demons, even. But don’t you dare, don’t you ever fucking say—

  “Get out,” David said, his tone dull and flat. “Now.” He pointed to the door.

  “David, I didn’t mean—”

  “Out. Now.”

  “Please, I take it—”

  “Now!”

  She curled her lips over her teeth, bowed her head.

  David wouldn’t look at her.

  Jess stopped on the threshold, started to look back. David stood there, unmoving, head bowed, forefinger showing her the way.

  * * *

  David didn’t know where to start. Despite the bad filling his life— being brutally beaten, losing his wife twice, daily battles with shufflers, the new weirdness at the Alamo—he still believed room existed for happiness. Maybe not the same happiness that prevailed before, but an evolved happiness, a new and possibly improved kind.

  Before the dead walked, that round peg of happiness fit into the round hole of life. Granted, the hole had rough edges, and the peg was a bit warped, wasn’t always a perfect match. But one could eventually get the peg to fit with a little twisting and coaxing. Now, it was a rough round peg trying to find a new hole altogether. So far, he’d found ones that were squares, triangles, rectangles… Hell, he’d even found shapes of holes he didn’t know the names of. Perhaps paying attention in geometry class would have helped. Either way, things change, including perceptions that shifted with new realities, a world redefined. Maybe it wasn’t a new hole he should be looking for, but a new peg.

  As was usually the case, he found himself staring at a big fat question mark. Unsure and uncertain of anything. Or anyone. Truth be told, he was terrified, not sure what to do. Where to go. How to handle things.

  Going after this Doc Holliday wannabe wasn’t just a choice, but a requirement. He could not and would not sit idly by while some deranged fruitcake endangered him and his family. Doc was working David’s fried nerves and doing a fan-fucking-tastic job of it. If Doc had set out to scare him, to fuck with his emotions, he’d royally succeeded. Probably better than the lunatic would have imagined.

  Then there was Dr. Gonzalez. David dreaded leaving Bryan and Jessica at the Alamo with this woman—doctor—who couldn’t discern the dead from the sick. Then again, maybe she was more like David than he realized… or cared to admit.

  One thing was for sure, though. She had an agenda. David was sure of this. But what was it? What was her angle? Hell, maybe she was just a wannabe like ‘ole Doc, a pretender. Not to be trusted. Or perhaps she was just as off track as he himself had been—or still was.

  Later. Deal with her later.

  Holliday took precedence over all other threats because he wasn’t just a ghost lurking in the shadows anymore. He was a real man. A proven danger. An immediate and deadly threat.

  David read Doc’s note again, the wrinkled, scarlet-smeared paper shaking in his grip. He had memorized it on the first read, had no need to lay eyes on it again. But seeing it there, in his hand, made it real. Made it a part of him. He’d done the exact same thing with Natalee’s ‘Dear John’ letter.

  Dead John Letter.

  He consciously worked to calm his breathing, to steady the shaking. It pained him to look at it, knowing his wife’s blood adorned it. At least Doc had used a real pen for writing rather than blood.

  David’s insides churned, threatening to expel the small meal he’d forced himself to eat earlier. Closing his eyes, he chanted something calming. But he could still feel the paper and grime between his pinched fingers.

  The roses are dead,

  The violets are, too.

  Your wife’s on this list,

  And soon I’ll add you.

  —Doc H.

  P.S.—Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

  Games. That’s all this guy, this… Doc… was about. A goddamned game player. And a bully to boot. Someone with way too much time on his hands.

  You’d do the same goddamned thing, and you know it. Face it. You and Doc—you and Luz—are a lot more alike than—

  Shaking the last thought from his head, he folded the note neatly, smoothing out the wrinkles created when Jess crumpled it into a ball, then tucked it away into his chest pocket. The same pocket where Natalee’s ‘Dear John’ letter formerly resided. A new tenant, to be evicted once Doc was handled. He promised himself this.

  The ashes still glowed hot from the argument with his cousin. How could she say such hateful things? Especially given recent events? They’d fought before, sure. They were family, after all, and that’s what families did from time to time. But what she’d done was the equivalent of kicking him hard in the nuts. Not that he’d exactly held back himself…

  Before their spat, he’d actually considered asking her to go with him, to find Doc. To help him end it. Without her, he strongly believed things might have turned out differently with Sam and Gills that evening. Randy helped. He gave Randy his due credit. But it had been Jessica running the show and no one else, no matter who might have thought they were.

  She had distracted the banditos so Randy could get set. Took one hell of a risk doing so. It was Jess who stayed strong out there in the pasture when David crumpled to the ground, defeated, beaten in every sense of the word, ready—begging—to die. He recalled just how close he’d come to sitting up, putting himself in the line of fire, praying for an errant bullet to punch his skull…

  It was Jessica who turned to face the friendly fire, who grabbed Guillermo’s Colt 1911, turned the man’s own gun on him. Inspired David to action, to help—to not give up and die. They lived that night. And they couldn’t have done so without each other.

  He needed her. This wasn’t about shoring up their side unfairly, two against one. There was nothing fair about this game. David suspected Doc wasn’t acting alone. Highly doubted it. And that—the fact Doc was in cahoots with sinister unknowns—made him beyond dangerous.

  It was one thing knowing he needed her. It was another admitting it. Admission meant action, asking for her help. And his conceit ran deep these days.

  He finished packing the gym bag; the white silk-screened letters on the side proudly proclaimed: Alamo Assisted Living
and Retirement—We Remember You! Then he slung it over his shoulder, dug the Dodge keys out of his pocket, and strode into the hall.

  Chapter 10

  Mallory giggled almost uncontrollably as he, TJ, and Laura crossed the concrete loading area to the back gate. TJ walked with an embellished limp, foot dragging the ground as though one leg were casted or welded at the knee.

  Marching behind the group, Lenny said, “I still don’t see why you think it’s so funny your friend limping like that. What happened to him? Wasn’t like that before. Wasn’t bit, was he?”

  Mallory was now biting down on both lips to keep his hyena heckle in check. Finally, he managed to say, “He’s well-endowed, dragging the ground and shit. Porn star extraordinaire.” Another fit of laughter, boxes teetering in his arms.

  Clearing her throat, Laura said, “No, wasn’t bit. And he sure as hell ain’t well-endowed. I can tell you that from experience.”

  “Well what then?”

  Laura said, “It’s a, um… old uh, football injury. Yeah, dumbass got hurt playing football.” She slapped TJ’s arm. “Didn’t ya, dumbass?”

  With a critical eye, Lenny looked TJ up and down. “When? While’s I was inside those few minutes?”

  TJ huffed. “No. From… before.”

  “You barely a buck-fifty soaking wet. What’d you play? Towel boy?”

  “Hardy-fucking-har,” TJ said, throwing a glance behind him. “I was a catcher. And a fucking fast one.”

  “Catcher?”

  “Yeah, you know. The motherfucker that catches the damn ball. Man, they grow ‘em big and stupid around here.”

  Raising a brow, Lenny’s tone oozed skepticism and blatant doubt. “Uh-huh.”

  “What? You don’t believe me?”

  “Maybe if you’d’ve said pee-wee league.”

  Another crazed laugh from Mallory. He had to walk a tightrope to keep from dropping his boxes.

  Reaching the gate, TJ said, “Never mind. Just open the fucking thing and we’re gone.”