Year of the Dead (Book 2)

by Ray Wallace

  Again, he had waited, knowing there would be more.

  “That first time, when I followed you into the woods, when I saw what you did. It terrified me. Sickened me. I nearly told them, the townspeople, let them know what you were. But I didn’t. I realized that I needed you. If anyone was going to survive all of this, it would be someone like you. Heartless. Ruthless. A monster in a world full of monsters. I still believe that. I really do.”

  A shake of the head.

  “We’re not the same. We'll never be the same. You’re something else entirely. It’s why I needed you then. And, God help me, it's why I still need you now.”

  It was true. They were not the same. But what she had done, the part she had played in bringing about the destruction of New Hope, how much joy she had taken from it…

  He remembered what she had told him, that night in the woods:

  You might not think so now, but at some point, you’re going to need me.

  Another scream issued from the townhouse.

  Simon pulled the hunting knife free of the scabbard strapped to his leg. With the blade in one hand, the pistol in the other, he circled around from behind the car and made his way toward the glowing doorway.

  They were in the living room, three men standing in a loose semicircle, their backs to him, Jocelyn on her knees in front of them. One of the men was jabbing at her with a fireplace poker, its tip red from where it had been heated in the flames crackling in the hearth. Simon used the handgun to put two of the men down in quick succession: Pop! Pop! The third, the one with the poker, he got the hunting knife in the side of the neck because…

  It’s so much better this way, hissed the voice of his hunger.

  Crouching over the fallen man, Simon pulled the knife free, ready to use it again.

  “Wait.”

  He looked at Jocelyn.

  She lifted her hand, held it out to him.

  “Let me.”

  With an effort, he ignored the voice in his head, all the fun and nasty things it was telling him to do. Then, with a nod of understanding, he gave Jocelyn the knife.

  Monday, December 20th

  Dear Diary,

  Weird weather! For over a week, all we had was snow, snow, snow… Then today I wake up to discover it’s warm out, even warmer than yesterday. Not break-out-the-bathing-suit-and-get-a-tan kind of warm. But warm enough to melt the snow a little. Some of the locals are saying the weather’s been kinda strange for more than a few years now. That it used to be, once the snow settled in, it was there to stay until spring. Not so during recent winters. Maybe weird is the new normal. I mean, how much weirder does it get than a big rock from outer space raising the dead? Speaking of…

  With the melting snow, it looks like the zombies are on the move again. This morning, Vicky’s group had to take out a bunch of them. According to her, they seemed more aggressive than before the cold weather shut them down. If that’s even possible.

  “Like they were able to recharge their batteries or something.”

  Vicky had other news, too. When they were out, her group encountered a man, a woman, and a young boy riding in a car together. The man said they had been part of a larger group that was caught off guard when the zombies came back to life. (Or un-life, I guess. Oh, you know what I mean.)

  “A bunch of them attacked us,” the man told Vicky. “Not far from here. We only just managed to get away.”

  Vicky offered to let them stay at the school if they wanted.

  “Thanks, but no,” said the man. “We’re heading south.”

  “South? Where?”

  “Texas. We’ve heard rumors about a town. A refuge. Someone's been broadcasting from there. Shortwave.” (Roger says it's a type of signal you can hear from really far away.) “They say it’s safe there. If you get close enough, within a few hundred miles, supposedly you can pick it up on AM. Not sure which station. We’re gonna go and find out.”

  “Where in Texas?” Vicky had asked.

  “Northern part. Just outside of Amarillo.”

  “Does this town… this refuge… have a name?”

  “They’re calling it Deadhaven.”

  “Deadhaven? A haven for the dead?”

  “A haven from the dead.”

  Now it’s pretty much all anyone around here can talk about.

  “Deadhaven.”

  I’d say it’s pretty evenly split between those who want to go and see it for themselves and those who want to stay. After what Terrence did, burning the treehouses, there’s not a lot keeping us here. So I can understand why people would want to leave. But after going to Michigan, being in the Zone, seeing what happened there… The idea of somewhere claiming to be a “haven” from the zombies leaves me feeling a little cold in a way that has nothing to do with the weather.

  “The Zone was an entire state,” I heard somebody arguing earlier. “It was too big. Doomed to fail. A town or a small city would be much easier to defend.”

  It makes sense, I suppose. But do I want to bet my life on it? The life of my unborn child? I don’t know. If it really is a haven… Of course, I would want to go live there, have mine and Luke’s child there. And the thing is, if we don’t go, if we don’t see this Deadhaven for ourselves, we’ll never know if it really is a refuge or not. The journey there would be dangerous, though. Might end up being completely pointless, too. So…

  To go or not to go? That is the question. Whatever the answer, Diary, I’ll be sure to let you know.

  Tuesday, December 21st

  While Charlie drove, Sheila tried to grab some shuteye. She had found sleep increasingly elusive in the weeks since Joey’s death. It seemed that every time she would start to fade away, she would hear the shotgun blast, see all too vividly what it had done to Joey’s body. Neither she nor Charlie had a whole lot to say these days. They just kept on moving, one direction seemingly as good as any other, could have been going in circles for all Sheila knew or cared.

  “We’ll see where the road takes us,” Charlie had suggested at some point which had been fine with her. It fell in line with their philosophy since the early days of the outbreak. She could think of no reason to change it now. As for those early days… Sheila found herself looking back on them with longing. In some perverse sense, it had all seemed like some sort of game back then, one that had been, if not fun, pretty damned exciting to play for a while. Of course, she had gotten tired of the mindless risks her fellow players had insisted on taking. And any remaining joy she may have felt had been destroyed when Joey died.

  Oh, Joey…

  Undoubtedly, he had managed to be a real pain in the ass when he wanted to be. But Sheila knew that, when it came down to it, he would have done anything for either her or Charlie. That she really had loved him in her own way, evident in the pain she felt every time she remembered him.

  The funeral had taken place the morning after Joey’s death. They had driven through a small stretch of forest, stopping at the end of a bridge that spanned some minor river, its waters languid and clear. Maybe a hundred feet from the bridge stood a small, wooden pier behind a cozy looking cottage, a rowboat tied to it with a length of rope.

  “It’s perfect,” said Charlie.

  They had collected fallen branches from beneath the trees populating the area, packed them into the rowboat. When they had finished, Charlie retrieved Joey’s body from the back of the SUV. He placed it in the rowboat, on top of the branches, sobbing all the while. Then, as he had done the night before, Charlie went in search of gasoline, found a can on the cottage's porch, used it to drench the contents of the boat.

  “Rest in peace, brother,” he had said, untying the rope holding the boat to the pier.

  “Rest in peace, Joey,” whispered Sheila.

  Producing a pack of matches from the pocket of his coat, Charlie had lit one and flicked it toward the rowboat in one fluid motion. With an audible whump! flames had leaped into the air, forcing Sheila to back away, all the while staring into the glory
that was Joey’s funeral pyre.

  They had stood there for a while, watching the river carry the boat and the burning body away and out of sight…

  “What the hell?”

  Sheila opened her eyes. Through the windshield, she saw a snow-covered, featureless road stretching away before her. Then, off to the side, she noticed the sign, the one proclaiming, “Welcome to Barrytown!” The last word of the message had been written in spray paint, rendering the town’s actual name illegible.

  “Someone’s idea of a joke?” Sheila suggested.

  “If so, I don’t get it,” said Charlie.

  A minute later, they found themselves in the heart of Barrytown which looked pretty much like any other Smalltown, USA they had visited during their travels. The buildings lining the road, for the most part, looked to have housed small businesses. Among them, Sheila saw a bar, a bookstore, and a pawnshop. She also saw what appeared to be a gas-powered generator on the sidewalk in front of the pawnshop. They stopped at an intersection with a medical center on the corner, the tallest structure around.

  “Anything catch your eye?” asked Charlie.

  “The bar.”

  “Yeah, I guess we could—”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Lumbering figures poured out of the nearby buildings, crowding the street around them. All too quickly, the way ahead was mostly blocked. Sheila could not make sense of it. From what she and Charlie had learned about the undead, how they were affected by the cold, this sort of ambush should have been the least of their concerns.

  “Damn it,” said Charlie, brandishing his gun.

  “Can’t we ram our way through?” Sheila asked, opening the glove compartment and grabbing the twenty-two.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Shouldn't we—”

  Tap-tap-tap.

  Startled, Sheila looked out the passenger side window, saw a young man through the glass, acne scars dotting his cheeks. He made a “roll down the window” motion with his hand. Sheila did so, raising the twenty-two and pointing it at him.

  “Whoa,” said the stranger, waving his hands in surrender. “No need for that. I come in peace. We come in peace.”

  The zombies closed in around the vehicle. They left the young guy alone, though, seemed to be giving him some space.

  “I’m Barry, by the way.” A smile. “I wanted to personally welcome you to Barrytown.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Sheila heard Charlie say.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “I think that goes for both of us.”

  THE END

  Read on for a free sample of The Longest Midnight: A zombie Novel.

  Chapter One

  It was early afternoon when the sun reaches its zenith, covering the land with its vast blanket of warmth and light, but in a world of darkness, only a dull gray filled the sky above Captain Joshua Drake as he placed the beast’s head in his riflescope. He ignored the biting cold, the moaning wind, and the deathly sky to concentrate on his target. The beast, its face trapped into a perpetual bony smile from the flesh rotting off its cheeks, locked eyes with Drake’s scope. It wore an archaic metal helmet with a pointed top from a war long over and was largely naked except for a few strands of fatigues covering its bony and decaying frame. It opened its mouth to hiss and roar as it raised its own primitive rifle towards Drake.

  Then the beast’s head split in half from a high-powered bullet that blasted through it. Purple blood and brain matter flew everywhere, landing on the ground, the bodies of the dead, and Drake’s uniform like a bucket of watery shit thrown against a concrete wall. The zombie’s body went limp and fell onto the dirt with a light thud. Green and yellow body fluids flowed freely from the wound like small rivers and mixed with the parched dirt.

  Drake had seen it all before, countless times. The gruesome scene left him feeling nothing. He’d killed thousands of the things since being drafted into the Army at sixteen. There was something odd about this one, however, because he swore he heard it communicating in his tongue to one of the other zombies moments before he shot it.

  “Captain Drake! Captain Drake!” a voice yelled frantically behind him.

  Drake didn’t respond as he stared at the rotting flesh and blown-out brains of the terminated zombie.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and instantly spun around.

  “What, Murph?” he said angrily.

  “You okay?”

  “Do I look like I’m not, private?”

  “No, sir, but you ran off on your own.”

  Murphy looked around and saw a dozen extinguished deaders surrounding them. He was amazed.

  “Did you kill them all on your own?”

  Drake didn’t respond. The answer was obvious.

  “Wow!” Murphy said after understanding the stupidity of his question.

  Murphy was an eighteen-year-old kid on his first tour. He had never shot at a zombie until his deployment to Forward Operating Base Alpha a month ago.

  “How’s Trev?” said Drake.

  “The sarge? Well, sir, I’m afraid he’s really bad.”

  “Fuck. Take me to him.”

  * * *

  Trevor Esoog was on his back being attended to by Sergeant Mifune. Things appeared hopeless. There was a bullet wound in Trevor’s chest and his breathing was rapid and hoarse. Blood dribbled out of his mouth.

  Drake knelt next to him and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. They were the same age and had been fighting together for the past twenty years. They’d seen a lot of their friends die, yet somehow they always survived. Trevor was Drake’s best man in the platoon, the only man whom he knew he could trust to accomplish anything. Now a zombie sniper had ended all that.

  “How are you, bud?” Drake said quietly.

  Trevor smiled and his round, deathly pale face struggled to hold the grin. He hoped to reassure his longtime friend Drake that all was well, but they both knew it wasn’t. He was dying.

  “You’re a trooper,” said Drake. “You can hack it. We’ll get you back.”

  Trevor’s grin was replaced by a frown. Tears appeared around his eyes just as they went blank.

  He was gone.

  Mifune was still working at stemming the bleeding when Drake grabbed his arm and gently pushed him back.

  Mifune sat on his legs and softly wept. The remaining men from the platoon gathered around to look at their fallen comrade one last time.

  Drake closed Trevor’s dead eyes.

  “Get outta here, all of you,” said Drake. “Set up a perimeter so we don’t get fucking ambushed again.”

  Mifune refused to move. Trevor and Mifune were good friends, the two sergeants in the platoon. Trevor was the more aggressive and risky one, Mifune the deliberate and cautious sergeant. Trevor was suave and funny, Mifune serious and emotional. Their personalities were even reflected in their physical appearances: Trevor’s stubbled face and beer gut, Mifune’s neatly shaved face and trim, muscular build. Together, their yin-yang of the platoon was an effective balancing force under Drake’s confident leadership. It was no surprise they were considered the best platoon at Forward Operating Base Alpha.

  Now that, too, was over. The platoon would never fully recover with the demise of Sergeant Trevor, Mifune believed.

  “Mifune, make sure everyone else is good.”

  “All eight of ‘em?” Mifune replied quietly.

  “Yes. Go!”

  Mifune slowly got up to his feet and walked away.

  Drake stood up, pulled out his nine-millimeter pistol, and aimed it at his dead friend’s head as he lit a cigarette placidly. The bright red and orange cherry of his smoke illuminated the creases around his face. His weathered and tired visage was once strikingly handsome before he was drafted twenty years ago into the Army and deployed to the front. Constant war ruins a man’s good looks.

  Drake waited. He wanted to make sure Trevor was truly gone. If he was going to reanimate, it should only take a few minutes. Then Trevor’s mouth twitched s
everal times. It was beginning.

  Drake moved closer, making sure he had a good shot at his forehead.

  Trevor’s eyes opened, the whites horribly bloodshot, and the blue irises now a piercing red. His mouth opened and he let out a snakelike hiss as his eyes fixed on Drake.

  Drake spit out his cigarette and fired two rounds into his friend’s head. Then he looked up at the darkness above him. It was the Longest Midnight as his parents called it, a midnight without end. He wondered if anyone would ever see the dawn.

  The Longest Midnight is available from Amazon here.