This Dying World (Book 2): Abandon All Hope

by James D. Dean

  She looked around the room before casting her gaze down to the floor. Her tiny hand appeared from behind her back, holding out the things she held most dear for me to see.

  She destroyed me.

  Abby’s face smiled back at me from the wedding picture she held in one hand. Sunlight streaming through the window glinted against Abby’s engagement and wedding rings sitting in her other tiny palm, next to the spent shell I’d fired off and sealed Adam’s fate with.

  “Katie,” I started, swallowing hard against the cold steel lump in my throat. “It was dangerous to come back for this. I know you want to remember mommy, but you could have been hurt.”

  “I wanted to give it to you.”

  “Didn’t you want to keep these things?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why did you want to get this for me?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “I didn’t want you to forget mommy. And I didn’t want you to be mad at me anymore.”

  “Why do you think I’m mad at you?” I asked, the old familiar sting of tears burning the corners of my eyes.

  “Because when mommy went to Heaven, you didn’t talk to me anymore.”

  “Is that why you ran away from me?” I swallowed hard.

  She nodded. “Do you still hate me, Daddy?”

  No punch I had ever taken, no fall I had ever suffered could ever hit me harder than the blow my daughter’s words had delivered. I pulled her close and hugged her tight with no intention of ever letting her go. I cried like a baby, stoking her hair and kissing her on the side of her head.

  “Daddy doesn’t hate you,” I cried. “Daddy never hated you! Daddy was selfish and wrong, and I promise I will never do that to you again!”

  She wrapped her little arms around me, burying her face into my shoulder. “I miss mommy!” she sobbed.

  “I know, baby,” I sobbed. “I miss mommy, too.”

  The scrape of bone ground against the floor, scratching against the hardwood as something closed on the room where we hid. If there had been a time we could have escaped, it was long gone. My hands had taken me out of the fight, and there was nowhere to run except out the window that would only end up in a two story fall into the waiting mouths of the dead.

  We were trapped.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I stayed where I was, ignoring all my aches and pains and held my sobbing baby girl. My knee throbbed, my shoulder burned, and my palms felt like I had grabbed big handfuls of pissed off hornets. But my daughter was more important than anything that was ailing me.

  Katie jumped when the first cold fist slammed the door, rattling it in its frame as the thin wood cracked. I slid across the floor, putting my back against the bed to hold them off as long as the door would hold. Another joined in, then another. Soon it was impossible to tell how many of the things were trying to tear their way inside.

  Katie curled deeper into my arms, shivering and sobbing as the snarling monsters attacked the door. Despite the looming death awaiting us on the other side of the door, I felt at peace with my daughter in my lap.

  I thought back to what Abby would do to calm Katie when she was scared.

  “Hush little baby don’t say a word,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.

  If that stupid bird won’t sing,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a shiny thing.”

  “Daddy,” Katie interrupted my poor attempt at a lullaby.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Can you stop singing. You’re really bad at it.”

  “Sure.” I smiled as Katie lay her head against my chest. I rocked her again, trying my best to drown out the undead. I ran my hand down to my Glock on my side, and the single magazine in my pocket. I could not fight my way out, not with my hands sliced open. If I needed to use it that day, I would only need to fire it once.

  Please don’t let it come to this, I prayed.

  A thunderous crash shook the entire house, knocking framed pictures off the wall. The floor bucked underneath me as the screeching sound of stressed wood ripped through the halls. Glass that had not fallen victim to my brother’s mad bomber attack crashed to the floor from every direction. I started to wonder if the undead monsters were tearing the building apart from the foundation up.

  Sporadic gunfire erupted down on the first floor, followed by the dull thuds of bodies crumbling to the floor. Heavy boots clomped up the steps as a cacophony of shouting voices filled the house.

  “Dan! Get ready to move!” Chris shouted. His rifle barked again as four deafening shots roared through the hallway, followed by more dull thuds. I jumped to my feet, hefting Katie into my arms.

  “Now!” Chris screamed.

  “Close your eyes,” I whispered as I pulled the bed away from the door and rushed into the hall. At my feet sat the mound of unmoving corpses that Chris had reintroduced to their deaths. My heel came down into a pool of congealing brain goo, sending me sliding across the floor. Fortunately the hallway was on the narrow side, so I hit the wall before I could do a backward summersault onto my noggin.

  “Clear!” Joe shouted from below. “Thirty seconds, tops! Get moving!”

  Chris was at the end of the hall, taking a knee and sighting his rifle down the stairs. The heavy rumble of the bus engine and the sharp cracks of small arms fire filled the near empty house.

  I started toward him when a picture on the wall caught my eye. It was old, taken when I was around ten years old. My brothers and I were sitting on my aunt’s porch, eating ice cream and enjoying the swing. My parents stood off to the side, glasses of iced tea in hand and pointing at a chicken running along the mountainside.

  A sudden idea struck me. I took the picture from the wall, removing it from its frame, careful not to get blood all over it. Chris shot me an annoyed glance before returning his attention down the stairs. His annoyance did not sit well with me.

  “How the hell did she get past everyone!” I demanded. “How did Rosa not see her leave the bus and go back in the house?!”

  “We’ll settle that later! We need to move!”

  He stood and slowly made his way down the stairs, sweeping his rifle left and right before waving us down. Katie gripped me tighter as I walked down the steps. The stairway was clear of bodies, but as we neared the bottom step I saw the carnage that had been unleashed in the farmhouse.

  The front of the house was in ruins. The bus sat less than a foot from the front door, it’s bi-fold doors wide open and waiting for us to jump in. Streaks of dead blood marred the once clean floors, the pungent bodies of the dead strewn all over the living room and into the kitchen.

  The crescendo of heavy gunfire could not drown out the growing intensity of the ravenous dead. Meaty fists drummed on the bus’s metal skin, rocking the vehicle despite its weight. Chris was already halfway to the door before I spoke up.

  “I need a knife,” I said bluntly, catching Chris’ arm before he could hop across the remaining boards of his porch and into the bus.

  Chris turned, mouthing an expletive I will refrain from repeating in case one day someone reads this and finds the foul language more offensive than the blood, guts and gore in the rest of my tome. Needless to say, he was a tiny bit upset with me. He reached to his belt, drawing his hunting knife from its sheath.

  “A knife you don’t need anymore.”

  Now he was really pissed. He raised his arms to his side, shaking his head in frustration. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and slapped it down hard into my palm, completely ignoring the blood seeping from my hands. I think the jerk was trying to make a point.

  I quick stepped into the living room, shifting Katie in my arms to open the blade. I took the old picture from the hallway over to the fireplace, and plunged the knife through the image and into the wall over the mantle. I pushed the blade into the plaster as far as it would go before heading out to the bus.

  As I passed Chris on the way outside, he shot me a look th
at told me he was trying to decide whether or not he was going to punch me. So I held Katie even tighter and kept walking. Not saying she was a human shield, but I knew Chris wouldn’t punch his niece to get to me so I felt a bit safer with her wrapped around my neck. Even if she did feel like she was trying to choke the life out of me.

  Once at the front door, it was only two steps to the bus. Zombies filled the narrow space between the vehicle and the house, the shark fin blades cutting deep into their decaying flesh and scraping loudly against the bone beneath. The front plow hung at an odd angle, pieces of shattered wood hanging from the serrations at the plow’s base.

  With a couple of light steps across the shattered deck, Katie and I were inside the bus. Smoke filled the aisles, the odor of spent powder so heavy in the air it masked the foulness of the creatures beating away at the walls.

  As Chris leapt in behind me, skinless fingers grabbed his ankles, sending him tumbling as more hands wrapped around his legs. He kicked against their claws trying to dislodge their death grip, screaming angrily as teeth clamped down on his thick leather boots.

  Joe hopped up from his seat, grabbing Chris by his arms. He tried to pull him back up and inside, but the zombies refused to give up their prey.

  “Go to the back with Faith!” I commanded as I set Katie down. She ran back toward the kids, diving into the imagined safety of the pillow fort with the other girls.

  I leapt down to the bottom step, stomping and kicking at the things trying to pull my brother away. Arms snapped as I brought my full weight down on them. Teeth cracked as my heel slammed into the face of a teenager who looked like he had spent way too much time at Hot Topic. His fake white contact lens knocked away and revealed his real ghostly white eyes.

  With a grunt, Joe pulled at Chris’ arms again, intent on winning this human tug of war. Chris shouted in pain as his legs came free, finally sliding inside and away from immediate danger. Joe reached for the door lever as I turned to escape the clawed fingers raking at my own legs. I suddenly felt a tug as Joe closed the door. I fell forward, my face barely clearing the edge of the top step. I flipped over to see an ashen blue arm poking in between the bi-fold doors, a gnarled bony hand grasping the cuff of my pants.

  The engine groaned, the bus lurching forward as it pulled away from the house. Metal scraped against wood, boards cracking as the vehicle freed itself from the twisted remains of the porch. Bodies bounced off the metal skin, bone grinding against the shark fins as the blades cut deeply into the creatures.

  I felt a strong tug on my pants, and suddenly the pull on my leg had vanished. When I took a breath, I noticed the arm was no longer attached to anything. The creature who had owned it seconds before had been scraped away between the house and the side of the bus. The arm was no more than a simple piece of meat hanging from the door.

  A very smelly piece of meat.

  My legs felt like rubber, fear and exertion each took their toll on my energy levels. Joe helped to steady me until I could regain my footing and move without crumpling back down to the floor.

  Chris was behind the wheel, eyes locked onto the monitor in front of him. I immediately noticed he was driving with his left foot. His face was twisted in pain, his right hand cupping his leg above his boot.

  I was about to ask if he was okay when I saw the blossom of red growing on his pant leg. It wasn’t the dead blackened blood of the walking corpses. It was the bright red blood of the living. It was Chris’ blood.

  He was bitten.

  My mind reeled. We would have already been on the road if Katie had not left the bus. Katie would have been safe, Chris would have been safe, we would all have been safe and racing away from this rotting army.

  If it wasn’t for Rosa.

  Abandon all hope.

  The words rang in my ears as my mind immediately placed blame without judge or jury. She was the one that allowed Katie to leave. She failed me, she failed my family. She put everyone in danger.

  I stared at her with intense anger. She busied herself reloading the Saiga before returning to her shooting port and blasting the creatures pushing against the side of the bus. My heart raced, the rush of blood pounding through my ears as I felt my face flush with rage.

  I would not let anyone hurt my family again.

  I started walking toward her. My hand fell to my Glock, gripping the handle tightly through the searing pain. She was unaware I was closing on her, slowly drawing my weapon. Slowly casting my judgment.

  A meat hammer of a hand grabbed my left shoulder. At the same time Joe’s other hand wrapped around my own, squeezing hard as he pushed my pistol back down into its holster.

  “Now son,” Joe whispered into my ear. “I know what you’re thinking. And friend, it ain’t gonna happen. Now you’re going to keep walkin’ all the way to that back seat and take a load off. You’re gonna watch your little girl and let us handle things from here on out.”

  I tried in vain to shrug him off. I would have had an easier time freeing myself from heavy chains then trying to break loose from Joe’s gorilla arms.

  “If you don’t want to do that,” he continued, completely ignoring my feeble attempt to get away from him. Instead, he squeezed harder on my hand until it felt as if my fingers would break. “Then you will have a real hard time explaining to everyone why I had to knock you flat on your ass.”

  Joe walked me back to where the kids were. Only Lexi looked up with a hint of confusion on her face before returning to the firefight outside. We walked to the last seat in the aisle, sitting directly in front of the several banks of batteries we had connected to the solar panels on the bus roof. He pushed me down into my seat, pulling my gun from its holster.

  “Good,” he smiled at me. “You’ll get it back when you get your head wired together and realize no one here is your enemy. Rosa may even fix your hands for you. But until you calm down, you stay away from her.” Joe leaned in close, until we were inches from each other. His smile disappeared, replaced with an anger so cold that I believed he could have killed me right then and there. “You’re my friend, but I love that woman. If you do anything to her, I will hurt you.” He stared at me for a moment, letting his words sink in before standing up and walking away.

  I deflated into my seat, hanging my head in shame. As I felt the bus shift gears, I raised my head enough to look out the rectangular opening. We passed the silo where Adam still hung, twisting his head and moving his shoulders in a comically feeble attempt to break free of his restraints.

  I caught a glimpse of the pickup truck just as Mark’s head popped up from under the dashboard. The truck’s engine kicked over and he was on the move, falling in just behind us. The trailer bounced, looking as if the bikes would fly off before the whole thing settled down.

  “Mark’s joined up!” Joe shouted. “Everyone hold tight, we need to cut him a path!”

  “Stop shooting!” Chris ordered. “Save ammo!”

  The bus went silent, save for the groan of the engine and an odd metallic scraping sound from the front end. Outside, the late morning buzzed with the excited growls of the undead. Bodies slammed into the bus’ skin, cut down as they neared the side blades.

  We started listing downward, and I knew we were close to the main road. It had only been a few weeks, and we were already fleeing another home. Katie must have felt the same way I did. She suddenly appeared next to me, still clutching the picture of her mother in her tiny hands. She squirmed her way into my lap, curling up into a fetal position. With her thumb in her mouth, her shoulders twitched as she sobbed.

  The smell hit us again. As unbelievable as it was, the stench from the dead lumberjack continued to overpower the foulness of the massive horde. Katie buried her face as I tried my best to block out the intense desire to gag.

  “Buddy, you seein’ this?” I heard Joe ask Chris as I felt the bus begin to slow. He was leaning close, his nose nearly touching the second monitor.

  “I’m seeing it,” Chris answered. “But I don
’t believe it!”

  “Hey Lexi,” Joe called back. “Is this the one Dan had you shoot?”

  She pulled her eyes away from her small viewing hole long enough to look at the monitor. She cocked her head slightly before standing and moving closer to Joe.

  “Yeah,” she gasped. “That was the one. Are those things–”

  “They are,” Joe nodded. “They’re eating him!”

  “Dude,” Matt piped up. “Zombies don’t eat other zombies!”

  “Apparently these do!” Chris said.

  “Chris,” Mark’s voice crackled over the CB radio. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing up there, but I’m not sitting in a rolling fortress like you. We need to go! Like now!”

  “Shit,” Chris gasped when he flipped on the rear camera. The truck was under assault. Creatures piled against the driver’s side. The pickup rocked as the things tried to beat their way through the glass to get at Mark. Three of the things had climbed onto the trailer, moving their way past the bikes and closing on the pickup’s bed.

  “Jesus Christ, will you guys fucking move!” Mark shouted through the CB.

  Chris planted his foot on the accelerator, sending Joe toppling backward into Lexi. Joe was on his feet again in seconds, picking the teen girl up from the floor and practically tossing her into a seat before finding one of his own.

  We were jostled in our seats once again as Chris drove through the remaining creatures blocking our way. I heard a loud crunch outside, and the special funk of the lumberjack amplified. My eyes instantly watered while Katie tried to climb into my jacket to get away from the horrifying smell.

  “Dammit!” Chris shouted. “They’re stuck on the plow!”

  “How the hell did that happen?” Joe asked.

  “The damn thing’s broken,” Chris answered. “It wasn’t meant to plow into my porch!”

  Chris slowed again suddenly, cranking the wheel hard to the right. Everyone held on to whatever they could to avoid getting thrown from their seats. The bus slid as it left the driveway and hit the snow covered asphalt of the main road. The back end fishtailed sharply for a few tense moments before Chris brought the vehicle back under control.