Stay Dead: A Novel

by Steve Wands

  "Others will come this way," Alexis spoke softly. "You'll see. The ones who stayed to fight. The ones who have a real plan, not the ones who were quick to leave."

  "This is bullshit!" Carrie yelled, crossing her arms.

  "Bullshit or not. We're waiting," Abdul-Ba'ith glared at her, his patience almost at an end.

  ***

  Davis saw a car approaching in the distance. It was a police cruiser and it was speeding forward. Davis slowed down and the other car did the same as they neared each other.

  "Bruce!" Keith yelled, as he got out of the cruiser.

  "Holy shit am I glad to see you," Davis replied.

  Topher got out as well but stayed behind the door, his head spinning around to keep an eye out for any zombies.

  "Talk to me," Davis said.

  "These fucks are all over town, man. It's like they just appeared out of nowhere. We were digging near the roadblock, right, and then they were on the road, coming out of the hills. Then I heard Jones on the radio. He had them everywhere as well. So we tried to kill some of them off and, before we knew it, they were getting close and we were running out of ammo. My radio's all fucked up, the cruiser's just about shot to shit and now we're here."

  "That was a mouthful. So you weren't with Jones?"

  "No. Haven't heard from him either, have you?"

  "Yeah...he's at the station. He's...been bitten, and everyone he was with is dead."

  "No...oh, fuck, man. What the fuck..." Keith rubbed his neck.

  "I know, I know. I'm heading over there now, you two want to hop in and join me?"

  "What else would we do?"

  "Good, get whatever you have and jump in."

  ***

  "Look, there's a truck pulled over. Slow down," Judy pointed out.

  "I am, I am," Scott hushed her, pulling over.

  Jon-Jon and the others watched as Scott and Judy pulled up alongside the truck. Eddie and the others tried to look from the back seat. No one recognized the truck. Jon-Jon slowly approached the truck, and before he could figure out who it was Abdul-Ba'ith hopped out of the drivers seat and raised a friendly hand in the air. Carrie followed him, and so did Alexis after she told the kids to stay put.

  Dawn got out of the van and ran over to her. They hugged tightly and began to cry.

  "Oh, God, you're okay. We were so worried," Dawn said.

  "Me too, did you happen to see where--"

  "We got Yussef," she cut her off before she could finish.

  "Oh, Thank God! I couldn't find him and they were going to leave...I had to get the others out of there," Alexis started.

  "Shh. Come on," Dawn said.

  Joseph opened the side of the van and got out. He smiled at her and she smiled back. "I thought I'd never see you again," he said.

  "You're not getting away that easy," she said, hugging him closely. Then making her way into the van to hug Yussef. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry I lost you! Are you okay?"

  He nodded shyly, as if he'd done something wrong. Alexis lifted his head up with her hands, forcing him to make eye contact with her red, crying eyes. "I'm so sorry."

  He couldn't look away and mumbled, "it's okay."

  She hugged him again, tight enough to hurt, but he smiled at the squeeze.

  "What's the plan?" Abdul-Ba'ith asked.

  "Not really sure, man," Scott said, "I guess it's just us that's left. You know where the others went?"

  "No, they just kept going," Abdul-Ba'ith replied.

  "Well, fuck them then." Scott was surprised by his own harshness. "Don't have a plan--they seem to be useless anyway."

  "True," he nodded in agreement.

  Jon-Jon and Eddie joined them in the middle of the road. "What are we doing?"

  "That's what we were just trying to figure out. Any ideas?" Scott asked.

  "Yeah I got a few... I think we should head north. Get as far as we can. I think if we can make it to colder climates we can let the weather take care of the dead and we just worry about staying alive. My other idea is just to keep moving." He pointed at a group of lurkers that were staggering through the brush just past the side of the road. "It looks like we got company."

  "That sounds good, but how the hell are we supposed to get north?" Scott said. "The roads are shit, you know that."

  "I know, but that doesn't mean we can't try. What are our other options? We can't go back. We sure as hell can't kill them all, they've already overrun the town," Jon-Jon said, trying to make his point.

  "I say we start heading northeast," Eddie added. "Much of the shore towns should be pretty empty now. We can just follow the coast up and hope for a blizzard."

  "A bit too early for a blizzard," Abdul-Ba'ith said.

  The dead had found their way to the road. A woman in a night gown staggered into view. Her left breast was dangling out of her gown and looked like shredded beef. The entire left side of her body looked like it had been bitten and scratched repeatedly by a large beast. Her mouth mashed the air and a gurgling noise crawled out of her throat.

  "Time to go. Are we agreed?" Jon-Jon asked.

  "Sure."

  "Why Not?"

  "Let's go."

  ***

  Walter returned to the window. He stared out at the dead. The bodies of the ones he and Jeff just dispatched remained motionless. They beat them down with shovels and ran back inside. Walter was still high on adrenaline but he had to remain calm. He took several deep breaths and tried to relax but he was too wired now. He felt like he'd drank an entire pot of coffee. His hands shook and he couldn't make them stop. His hands had a mind of their own now.

  "So we're staying?" Barbara asked, Maria standing at her side.

  "Yep. I think its best. We don't know what the rest of the town is like. We could be running from the heat and into the fire," he told them.

  "Okay," she said.

  "That okay with you?" Jeff asked Maria as he returned from the bathroom, rubbing his stomach.

  "Whatever you think is safest. I don't want to take the kids out there unless we have to," she said as she rubbed Jeff's arm.

  "Me too."

  Laura sat with the kids and watched them play, oblivious to the dead outside. She could almost overhear the conversation in the other room. She knew the kids weren't paying attention otherwise she would have gone in there and shushed them.

  "There's more coming," Walter said. "Look, over there," he pointed out.

  "Damn," Jeff said. "I wonder how many are out there?"

  "Probably a lot more than we think," Walter replied, "so long as we stay on top of them we'll be all right," he hoped.

  CHAPTER 28: Sinking ship

  As Davis approached the station he had to weave in and out of the dead that wandered the streets of his once quiet little town. He turned down the street and saw the station with a group of maybe seven or so of the deaders trying to get in the front door.

  "Bastards," he grumbled.

  "You want to pull up and I'll shoot them?" Keith asked.

  "Yeah, guess so."

  Davis pulled up, trying to avoid the shambling dead that walked toward them. His truck had taken a bad enough beating as it was and he'd like it to remain drivable. Once they were close enough Keith began to pick them off. They never turned to see why their brethren were falling down dead. All they seemed to care about was getting inside the doors. Keith took out the last one and they headed for the doors.

  The doors were locked, but looking out at them was a younger woman with haunted eyes. When she realized that Davis, Keith, and Topher were not flesh-eating zombies she unlocked the door and let them in.

  "Where's Jones?" Davis barked.

  "He's in there," Danni said as pointed to the room where she'd left him.

  They rushed past her and moved toward Jones. She locked the door again, staring out through the blood streaked glass. Clem greeted them with a grim expression that said hello and sorry at the same time. He moved out of the way and joined Danni by the door.

&
nbsp; "Jones," Davis mumbled.

  "Hey...guys," he coughed, revealing a smile full of bloody teeth.

  "Shit, man... I can't believe this is happening," Keith said as he looked at his friend, already mourning him.

  "Me neither...we still going...fishing this weekend right?" Jones asked.

  "Yeah, man, definitely..." Keith began to sob.

  "You better be able to get your ass up early, though," Davis joined in. "None of that nine o'clock bullshit."

  "You got it..." Jones eyes rolled up into the back his head.

  "Oh, no..." Keith whimpered, "is he...?"

  "I think so." Davis's eyes welled up.

  Jones didn't move. His chest didn't rise and fall, and when he opened his eyes again their friend was nowhere to be found in them. The dead Jones moved fast, lurching toward them. He grabbed Keith's arm but he was able to pull it away before Jones could bite it. Davis put two in his head. Blood spattered all over the HAM radio behind him. Topher walked away, heading toward Danni and Clem. He introduced himself as Keith and Davis let their emotions get the better of them.

  "I think we got trouble," Danni said. "There's a lot of them coming up."

  "Yeah, shit. More and more keep coming into the street," Clem noted.

  "I should've never left," Topher mumbled.

  "What's that?" Clem asked.

  "Nothing."

  Clem continued to stare out the window. The dead, in all their sickening varieties, stumbled forward. Some walked on broken legs, others crawled on the pavement pulling behind a trail of intestines, some walked with a hitch or a twitch and others seemed to walk as well as the living.

  "Hey, Sheriff, I hate to bother you right now, but we got plenty of company coming up the street."

  "Let me see," he said as he made his way to the door.

  He looked, and he didn't like what he had seen. His expression grew grim and his eyes narrowed. "Keith," he said as he turned toward the man, "let's get to the armory."

  Keith nodded, wiping away a trail of tears from his cheek.

  "You two stay here and make sure they don't get inside. We'll be back in a minute. I hope you two can shoot."

  By the time they returned from the armory the dead had swarmed the front doors. They clawed and bit and struck the glass. Danni and Clem had retreated to the second set of double-doors and locked it as well, peering through the much smaller windows in the centers of the doors.

  "Fuck, they got here quick." Davis dumped his armful of weapons on the nearest desk. The others did the same.

  They all took up arms. Davis quickly showed Clem and Danni what to do with what they had picked up. They opened the set of double-doors and began firing through glass entry doors. The sounds of the multiple weapons firing was intense. Glass shattered to the floor as the bullets pierced through finding their intended targets. Their ears rang from the firing and quickly felt cotton-filled.

  Despite the proximity to the dead, the number of headshots were small. Most of the bullets hit dead flesh, but not hard enough to push them back. The few that were shot in the head dropped to the ground, but the others moved forward without the obstacle of the glass doors.

  Davis quickly took aim and dispatched as many as he could while Keith reloaded and helped the others do the same. The dead were able to close the distance from the entryway doors to the doors the living fought to protect. The plan was to kill them all and flee in his truck. The plan failed...miserably.

  Behind the dead were more dead, and behind those were even more. Though they had the weapons for the job, they didn't have the personnel.

  "Get inside," Davis yelled.

  "Shit. They're getting through!" Keith yelled.

  They continued firin. More dropped, but plenty more were there to fill the void. They couldn't keep them. They were pushing through the door as Davis and the others fought to close them.

  "God damn it! Fall back!" Davis screamed.

  They fell back to the first row of desks, and continued to shoot the oncoming dead. They flooded in. The dead that led the way acted as shields for the numbers behind them and before long they were in the station and forcing the living to continue moving back. They grabbed what extra guns they could, but it quickly ceased to matter.

  "Get to the back!" Davis yelled, as he ran to lead the way.

  Once at the rear of the station the front filled in quickly. Davis looked out the window in the back and saw that the building was surrounded. There was no way out. They sacrificed their chance of getting downstairs, as well as the roof, by running to the back of the building. Now they had only three choices: suicide, do nothing and let the dead feast on them, or lock themselves into one of the holding cells.

  They ran inside the cell, barely having time to do anything else. Davis slammed the door shut and heard the clink of the lock. They sat against the wall as the dead hands reached in between the cold cell bars. They grasped at the air. Their retched lifeless growls and grunts bounced off the cool brick wall and nested inside the cotton-filled ears of the prisoners.

  Danni stood up, lining the barrel of her gun up with one of the deader's heads. His nose looked like small lumpy potato and his face like burnt cheese. She pulled the trigger. Her ears filled with still more cotton. The dead man fell slumped to the ground, the contents of his head spilling onto the floor.

  "Save your bullets," Davis suggested, "we might just need them for ourselves."

  They watched the blood slowly pool around the dead man's body, amazed at how much blood was left.

  CHAPTER 29: And Hell followed with

  Jon-Jon led the way out of New Haven, with Scott and Judy in tow, and Abdul behind them. The convoy was smaller now, all the hangers-on had left in a hurry. They weren't missed and considering their new plan of action it may have ultimately been for the better. The trek north would certainly be a challenge, but if Jon-Jon was right with his assumptions the dead wouldn't be able to fair the weather as well as the living. He just hoped he was right and not risking everyone's lives for a pipe dream.

  On their way out of town they past the 'You are now leaving New Haven, Come again soon!' sign and the half-dug ditches by the side of the road. The bodies of the dead had become nothing more than part of the worlds new nightmarish landscape, and as commonplace as road signs.

  Alexis told the kids not to look at the bodies, but they didn't seem to be bothered by them anymore. In the short time since the world came to an end they had all grown desensitized and callous, perhaps a necessity to survive. Alexis wondered what the coming days would bring and shuddered at the possibilities. They were all bleak, but she had hope and she had a purpose; she had the kids, and they were all reunited again. And she and her friends had each other. She supposed she'd get to know Abdul and Carrie, though she seemed more trouble than she was worth. But maybe she would snap out of it?

  Maybe...

  "Next stop--Disney Land!" Jon-Jon kidded.

  Dawn looked at him in that what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you kind of way, which immediately obliterated the goofy smirk he had on his face. He looked embarrassed and decided to keep his eyes on the road and his mind on driving.

  Chung-Hee closed his eyes and hoped to find sleep. But all he saw was the red face of Yama, the god of the dead. Chung-Hee grew up listening to his family speak of the God Generals, ancient deities, and the all the different hells he could go to if he ever misbehaved. His youthful arrogance and dismissal of his family's beliefs now had him questioning his own and wondering if this was his punishment for his ignoble actions in life. And he wondered if this was in fact one of the hells his parents cautioned him of.

  He couldn't think of anything he had ever done that could bring about such wrath but maybe his place in a world that held commerce and science above faith and devotion was enough. Maybe Yama saw fit to purge the Earth with a plague of the dead and transform it into Naraka. He had no reason to believe that was a possibility, but in light of recent times anything had become possible.

  Eve
ntually he found sleep.

  Eddie and Joseph looked at each other. They didn't need words anymore to communicate, it was like they could read each other's minds now.

  "You want to do this?" Eddie asked anyway.

  "I don't know what I want to do, it all seems hopeless, man."

  Dawn turned toward the back and listened. She didn't want everyone to start getting down, knowing all too well what that would do to their momentum.

  "Sometimes, yeah, but all the hope I need is you and ma and everyone else in this van. All we have to do is outlast those things and we'll be fine. They're dead and decaying, and all we have to do is stay alive long enough for them to fall apart, right?"

  "I guess...if we don't get killed before then."

  "We won't. Not if we stick together like we've been doing."

  "He's right, dude," Chuck chimed in. "When I was at the airport it was chaos. Everyone was out for themselves and I barely got out of there because of it. If we all stick together we can make it up north and just ride it out."

  "I hope so, I really do," Joseph said.

  Eddie was pained by his brother's continually declining shift in mood. They had been through a lot and he didn't know what to say anymore. He was never much for brotherly advice, and rarely had any to give. But he had to say something.

  "We just have to keep going. No matter what, we can't give up. If we give up now it's like everyone we loved died for nothing. We have to honor their memories by staying alive."

  Janice sat quietly, tears running down her face. She was proud of her boys--proud of her men. As much as she wanted to give up and go out with the tide they kept her anchored at shore.

  "How much gas do we have?" Frankie asked.

  "Not enough," Jon-Jon replied. "About half a tank."

  "Great. Wake me up when we have to start walking," Frankie said and closed his eyes.