The sound of rifles nearby causes me to open my eyes to see Bishop scanning the trees nearby. A bright white beam of light washes over us and he reaches up a hand to shield his eyes. It's the helicopter. They must have taken off without me.
Bishop reaches for the rifle on the ground beside him and raises it up to take aim at the Osprey. For a second I can picture Stevie strapped into a seat on the helicopter as Bishop begins to fire. The vision gives me a surge of strength and I reach up and grab Bishop by the shoulder and lunge at him with the blade off knife. Even though I can barely see through the slits of my rapidly swelling eyes, I feel the blade dig into the skin and slide deep into the tissue. The man release a harsh hissing sound as he topples backwards, and beneath the bright beam of the search light he grabs at the crimson blood that pours out of his neck.
“You bitch,” he spits blood from his lips.
From the darkness the dead begin to emerge behind Bishop. Their morbid bodies step into the light and descend on the helpless man. Dozens of hands seize his body before he realizes what is happening. For a moment, he looks up at their faces as though asking for help, until he realizes it is only the dead that have come for him. A corpse grabs his face, leans in, and tears a chunk of his cheek away between his teeth. Bishop begins to wail. I know I need to run, but I am stuck watching the horror as the dead claw his stomach open and unspool his innards. The last thing I see before I turn and try to get to my feet is Bishop staring at me, his eyes already vacant and unblinking.
I manage to get my legs working but stumble after a few yards through the trees. I dig my fingernails into the bark of a tree and pull myself up again and stagger ahead. My balance is totally gone. I veer to the left, and then back to the right, before I lose my footing and crash to the ground again. It's just a matter of time before the dead catch up to me, and I have nothing left to use to defend myself. Still, I crawl through the dirt. I have been through too much to give up now.
As my eyes swell shut, the world seems to fill with sound. I hear the blades of the helicopter overhead and the moans of the dead in the woods behind me. Their noises get louder and louder until it seems like they are right at my back.
I scream when the first pair of hands seize me and pull me back. With my last bit of strength I break free and crash to the ground again. The force of the fall seems to ignite a fresh sensation of pain all over my body. I know I am hitting the wall and my body has just given up. I feel the cool mud between my fingers, smell the earthy bark of oaks. Something wet caresses my cheek. Then I feel the sensation again. I hear a soft whimper in my ear.
“Get her up,” someone whispers.
I feel my body being lifted off the ground and carried away before everything goes black. The last thought I can remember is wishing this would just be over, but knowing somehow that this is not the end.
Epilogue
There are loud thumping sounds all around me.
“Easy,” I hear a woman yell over the noise. “Careful with her.”
I feel my body being lowered until I’m resting on a hard metal surface.
“Get us the fuck out of here, Chuck,” says a man with a gruff voice.
The thumping picks up speed and then the air gets still all around my body. The deafening noise fades to a roaring patter.
“Damn it,” says the woman. “She’s not breathing.”
I feel rough fingertips on my neck. Warm lips press against mine. I hear the sound of air moving inside my body as a force pulls my body upward again.
“Jesus,” I hear Steven say. “He beat the hell out of her.”
A pulsing pressure pushes down on my chest.
“Come on, Scout,” says the gruff voice. “Hang in there.”
My mouth is opened again and air fills my lungs once more. Hands press down on my chest again and again.
“Wake up mommy!” I hear the voice of a young boy and my eyes snap open as I suck in a painful breath of air. Danielle and Fawn are leaning over me. They turn me onto my side as I cough out a few breaths.
“Holy shit,” Blake gasps.
I try to move, but Fawn keeps me still with her firm grip.
“Just take it easy,” she urges me.
“Thought she was a goner for sure,” Natalie says as she lowers the handgun she had pointed at my face. She tucks the firearm back into the holster and gives me a smile.
Stevie pushes passed Danielle and wraps his arm around me and squeezes my aching body. The pain is excruciating, but the sight of the kid make the pain seem irrelevant for the moment.
“She needs to rest awhile, Stevie,” Danielle tries to pull him away.
“I want mommy,” Stevie cries as he pulls away from her grip.
“It’s okay,” I say, and hold up a hand to stop her from pulling Stevie away.
“I thought you were gone,” Stevie sniffles.
“I’d never leave you, kiddo,” I assure him. He presses his face into my neck and even though my arms don’t have their usual strength, I close my swollen eyes and hold him tightly until he stops being afraid. I grimace in pain from the effort and allow Danielle to pull Stevie away from me again.
“You should probably stay in your seat while we’re flying,” Danielle says to the kid.
Stevie looks back at me but goes back to the seat between his father and Dr. Schoenheim when I nod in agreement. I feel a prick in the back of my leg and it makes me wince.
“Sorry,” Danielle says. “It’s just a little morphine for the pain.”
I nod in appreciation. The aches in my bones and the throbbing in my head is unbearable. The drugs can’t kick in fast enough for me right now.
“Did Quentin get out?” I crane my neck around to see Blake crouched down at my back.
“Sorry,” I tell him. I cringe when my weight shifts on to the bullet wound in my ass.
Blake looks at Danielle, and then he lowers his eyes to the floor. His hands knot into fists and he turns and slams one against the seat behind him. He turns back around and lets out a deep breath.
“What happened?” Blake asks. The words slip through his clenched teeth.
“Not now, Blake,” Danielle says. “Let me look at that wound. Were you shot?”
“Yeah,” I groan as I roll on to my stomach.
“You got shot in the ass?” Steven asks.
“It’s fine,” I assure him. “Don’t worry. You’re still the biggest pain in the ass ever.”
The doctor cackles loudly in the seat beside Steven.
“At least your sarcasm still works,” Steven smirks.
“This still works, too,” I say and give him the finger.
Steven smiles and shakes his head.
“Really it doesn’t hurt that bad,” I tell Danielle.
“That’s because I didn’t start taking the bullet out yet,” she says. “We need to get your pants off.”
“I’m fine,” I insist. The drugs work fast. I already start to feel a little numb all over.
Danielle ignores me as Fawn hands her a pair of scissors from the medical bag beside her. Danielle slices open my jeans from the bottom. Seems like a waste of a good pair of pants, but suddenly the only thing that is bothering me is how tired I am now.
“I just need to sleep it off,” I mumble as I let my eyes close.
“If you’re lucky, you’ll pass out,” Danielle says.
My lower body feels cool as my pants are removed. I feel a vague sense of embarrassment and open my eyes again, but can’t keep them open for very long.
“Don’t let Steven look at my ass,” I complain, but the words are so slurred that it probably sounds like nonsense to everyone else. I feel a brief stab of pain in my ass, and then everything goes dark again.
I awake to a sound like an alarm clock going off, but when I open my eyes again, I’m staring at a long line of cables along the ceiling. Steven and Hoff lift me off the floor and strap me into a seat beside Stevie. Some kind of emergency alert is going off in the cockpit.
“Are we going crash?” I ask Hoff.
“Just a precaution,” Hoff says as he fits a helmet on top of my head. “Don’t worry. Fletcher has it under control.”
I give him a nod as he returns to his own seat and blink my eyes a couple times to fight off the grogginess from the medication. Through the small window, the pink light of daybreak fills the cabin. The Osprey dips for a moment and my stomach twists. Across from me, Blake looks pale. He turns and vomits on the floor.
“Nasty,” Natalie cringes.
Hoff was mistaken. Fletcher doesn’t have anything under control. No one does. There is no such thing as control anymore. There is just living again, which only feels like a curse if you let it.
“No one is fucking answering the radio,” Fletcher complains over the intercom. The concern in his voice is apparent over the headset.
“How far out are we?” Hoff asks.
“Bout ten miles,” Fletcher says.
I feel Stevie’s fingers wrapping around my hand.
“We’ll be fine,” I assure the boy.
“How do you know?” he says.
“Where there is love, there is life,” I tell him. “And I am always going to love you, Stevie.”
The Osprey rumbles over some rough air again, so I let go of his hand and try to tighten up the straps of his seat a little more. Like the rest of this world, the seat isn’t meant for a child.
“I see it,” Fletcher says over the radio. “Goddamn things are everywhere down there.”
“Fucking hell,” Hoff curses.
“I knew this whole thing was a bad idea,” Fletcher says. “We’re almost out of fuel.”
“Get us the hell out of here,” Hoff barks.
“No can do, big fella,” Fletcher says. “This is the end of the line. We’re going down.”
But somewhere inside I know that this isn’t the end of the line. This is just the moment I start fighting again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Dyson is a fiction author, and Return of the Dead is his second novel. He attended the University of Iowa. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with his two adorable daughters and his loving, supportive wife. His family is what inspires him to write and motivate him to work harder each day.
Rise of the Dead was an Amazon Bestseller and named one of the best new zombie books of 2016 by Ranking Squad. He is currently at work the final book in the Rise of the Dead series, as well as two other new series about the undead.
If you enjoyed this book and would like to see the next installment in this series, please consider leaving a review to support the author.
For more information on upcoming releases visit:
www.jeremydyson.com
Rise of the Dead (Book 2): Return of the Dead Page 27