DEAD (Book 12): End

by TW Brown

  Juan prioritized his targets and then limped in to take them down. He had managed to eliminate all but two when he felt a pinch on the back of his right leg. He jerked away and immediately lost his balance, falling hard on his side. His eyes quickly discovered the source of the pain that had shot up his leg. He had somehow backed into a jagged piece of timber that had stabbed into his flesh.

  He only had a second to enjoy the relief as the last zombie wolf and the frighteningly recently turned young man who could barely be in his teens converged. Any other time, Juan would have been able to kick out and sweep the human off its feet and then dispatch the wolf and finish the young man before he regained his feet.

  This was not one of those times.

  The wolf was on him, its jaws snapping shut just a hair’s breadth from the tip of his nose. Juan grabbed it by the throat at the last moment and pushed its head back so that it missed his face. He used his free hand to jerk the knife free from his belt and shove it up under the jaw of the wolf.

  Shoving the carcass aside as it went limp, he was only a shade more agile than the zombie as it fell on him. Using the same knife, Juan twisted his head to the side just in time to avoid a strand of dark drool that slipped from the boy’s mouth before jamming the point of the blade into its temple.

  Pushing the last body away, Juan struggled to roll over and get back to his feet. He was having such a rough time of it, but he was finally on his feet and making certain that nothing else was moving when he spied the woman standing just inside the cabin’s clearing where the herd had mowed down everything when it passed.

  “Impressive,” the woman said with a slow clap of her hands.

  “Who the hell are you?” Juan was right back to being on guard. The problem was that he actually doubted his ability to take this woman if it came to a fight.

  Equally as tall as Juan at over six feet, the woman looked like a female version of Gerald minus the beard. Her arms were bulging against the leather top she had squeezed into and her legs were tree trunks jutting down from her barrel-shaped torso. She had dark brown hair kept up in a wild topknot and her eyes looked almost black they were so dark.

  “My name is Dee. Short for Doreen, but I hate that name, so I go by Dee.”

  Juan was not about to argue with her. He would call her whatever she asked at the moment.

  “Juan Hoya.”

  “Wow…been a while since I heard somebody use a last name. Hell, most folks don’t bother even using real or normal names anymore. Everybody is Hawk, or Tiny…the fat guys always get called Tiny for some reason.”

  “Dee?” Juan interrupted. The woman stopped her ramblings and fixed on Juan again.

  “That was either gutsy or desperate…or just plain stupid, by the way.” Doreen walked over to Juan, her eyes taking in all the destruction. “Sending them two little girls? What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking that Gerald is going to die, and we sort of owe him our lives. You wouldn’t happen to be the source of that plume of smoke, would you?”

  “Just getting the debris cleared around from the home. Heard rumor that there were some roamers in the area.” She did a full turn around as she examined the carnage and damage that the herd had left in its wake. “Looks like they undersold this one.”

  “Can you help?” Juan gestured to the man on the ground.

  “I got a sled coming. The team was just waiting for my signal. Them little ones coulda been just part of an elaborate trap to lure us in.”

  Juan tilted his head in confusion. “A trap, using my daughters as bait.”

  “Strange world we live in,” Dee said as she sidled up beside Juan and looked down at Gerald. “Seen this fella around before at the outposts. Good guy. Helluva a hunter, but a lousy fisherman. And didn’t he have a bear or something?”

  Juan did not feel like explaining or trying to catch this woman up on current events. “I just want to know if you can help him. Any sorts of supplies that he had, anything I might have been able to use to clean him up is obviously gone.”

  “Like I said,” Dee removed a slingshot from her vest and produced a round ball with a fuse, “I had to be sure this was on the up and up.”

  She lit the ball and shot it skywards where it erupted in a bright flash and a puff of green smoke. A moment later, there was a rustling in the trees and a shriek that chilled Juan to the core. A large sled emerged being drawn by six massive dogs. Seated on the sled were Della and Denita.

  “Papi! Look, we brought help and got to go on a ride!” Denita threw her arms up in the air and laughed like Juan had not heard perhaps ever in her young life.

  There were three others trotting along with the sled and one person guiding the team. The sled was on some sort of frame with large, knobby tires that reminded Juan of a dune buggy. The driver called for the dogs to halt and the team obeyed. As soon as the sled came to a complete stop, the man barked something in a language Juan did not understand, and the entire team lay down on the spot.

  Both girls scrambled off the sled and rushed to their dad, each trying to tell her version of the story. Juan tried to listen and watch everything that was going on around him. A man rummaged through some bundles and produced an array of bandages and bottles of liquids that ranged from clear to amber in hue.

  An hour later, Gerald was bundled up, loaded onto the sled, and taken away. Juan was about to follow when Dee held up her hand. “I know this is gonna sound bad, but we don’t know you or your kids. Gerald is a familiar face. We take care of our own here, but you three are strangers. You gotta find your own way.”

  Juan nodded. Actually, he understood completely. He had made the observation on more than one instance about how this was not the world he grew up in. And with the people he had met in his travels, this sort of reaction was not unreasonable.

  “Your daughters said something about how you were headed for Anchorage. We got a caravan leaving tomorrow. It is our last run for supplies and to trade before the winter season starts to set in. You and your daughters can barter your way.”

  “Barter? I hate to point out the blatantly obvious, but we ain’t got anything worth trading.”

  The woman’s eyes flicked to the girls who were both poking at an area of the wreckage with sticks. Every so often one of them would stab at the ground and both girls would squeal in delight.

  Juan looked back to the woman who had no expression on her face as she waited Juan’s reply. The realization of what she had just suggested hit him in the gut and he clamped his teeth together to keep from lashing out in rage.

  Once he took a deep breath and was certain that he had himself under control, Juan spoke. “I got no idea if I am misunderstanding you, so I am gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend that maybe we just got our wires crossed. But if you suggest anything like that again, I may be beat up and ragged, but I will do my best to mop you all over this clearing…and that goes for any of your pals. I see one of you even glance at my girls…I’ll kill you.” That last part was whispered so low that it was barely audible.

  The woman beamed at Juan, her face erupting into a smile as if she had just been handed a diamond ring with a rock the size of that smoke bomb that she had launched earlier. Juan’s hand drifted to his hip. At the moment, the clearing was empty with the exception of him, his daughters, and Dee. Even if she had people in the weeds waiting to spring, he was betting he could take her head clean off before anybody arrived.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Dee crowed.

  Juan steeled himself for what was to come. All he knew for certain was that he would not go down without a fight and allow anybody to harm his little girls.

  ***

  “I bet this place didn’t look this bad during the Blitz,” Vix whispered.

  The group stood in the middle of the precarious looking Tower Bridge approach having just crossed the Thames and now looking at the ruins of the Tower of London. From where they stood, they could see the jagged remnants of The Gherk
in. It no longer resembled its namesake and stood as an accusation to humanity and how it had failed.

  “Maybe the palace is in no better shape,” Seamus grumbled.

  The trailing edge of their band was now catching up. The numbers had swollen to over two hundred as they had managed to pick up a few of the smaller groups and add them to the numbers. Of course, that had put a strain on everything from supplies to the everyday order of things.

  Some of the new additions had leaders that felt they should now be part of the inner circle and make decisions for the group. It had been Paddy that silenced such talk. He’d climbed up on a stump one evening and had the camp assemble. He laid it out very clearly that none of them were being forced to join the group. They could just as easily return to their former residences and await Dolph’s arrival. Then, he called up Bradford Chance.

  Bradford was a survivor from a settlement near what had once been Vanbrugh Park. He told of the waves of undead and the awful whirring sound that had preceded them. He told in great detail about how armored rolling spheres had come up and then another zombie wearing a pack would be shoved out and then a person would actually walk in front of the zombie to get it to follow. Whatever pack-wearing zombie that had once been leading the approaching herd would then have its pack shut off somehow (everybody simply assumed via some sort of remote trigger) and then the herd would re-center its course on the new sound stimulus until it was coming right for the walls of their community.

  They came like the tide, and as the bodies built up, those following would simply tromp over the fallen bodies of their brethren. Eventually, they were too much for the walls. And where the walls did not fail, the bodies simply piled up high enough to ultimately flow over the top. It was a nightmare that Bradford swore he would never forget. He’d seen women and children fall to the zombies and be torn apart so completely that there was nothing left to come back and join the ranks of the living dead.

  One scene in particular was shared relating how a mother became involved in a gruesome tug-of-war with a handful of the undead over her three-year-old daughter. Bradford insisted that he could still hear the screams in his head.

  It was likely that the man’s recital of events had swayed the group. However, for those still on the fence, discovering the man hanging from his neck with a note pinned to his shirt saying that he simply could take no more had forced the rest to face this new reality of living hell.

  “Tell everybody to keep in line,” Mike called to those who were in the front of the caravan of survivors as he climbed up on the safety barrier. “Vix, Paddy, Seamus, come look at this.”

  Vix reached the edge and looked over. She hadn’t really paid it much mind as they’d crossed the river, but the grounds in front of the Tower had become a jungle of sorts. Only, there was obviously something moving down there. The stalks of tall grass could be seen swishing and swaying; also, the occasional low moan drifted up.

  “There!” Paddy said, pointing.

  All eyes followed his finger and spotted the little clearing where a few chunks of part of the collapsed east wall of the famed Tower of London had come to rest. The upper half of a person pulled itself over a rock and then tumbled back down into the tall grass, disappearing from sight.

  “Seems odd,” Vix muttered. “But I doubt we will ever put together what happened. Best we be on our way. I’d like to make the objective before dark so that we know what we are dealing with.”

  “Looks like the fires burned out right around here,” Seamus observed.

  Everybody nodded in agreement. The landscape of London had been ravaged by massive fires. Rumor had reached New England years back that some sort of war between various factions vying for control of the dead city had erupted. The cloud of smoke that rose had been visible for miles in every direction. Vix had not really given it a second thought back then. Only, now that she saw it firsthand, it made her sad. So much had been lost, but to see all traces of a famed empire reduced to ash was enough to make her eyes brim with tears.

  The group pushed on and it became almost impossible to tell where they were. Signage had long since been destroyed, and with none of the buildings still standing, it was simply a matter of following the banks of the Thames. There was an ominous surrealness as the south side was mostly just suffering the ravages of time. The fire had obviously been contained to the north of the river and so it looked like two different worlds. One all skeletal remains of buildings, and the other, vine and moss covered as Mother Nature reclaimed what was once hers.

  “It’s gone!” Vix said, the excitement coming clearly in her voice.

  Paddy turned, his eyebrow raised in question. “Correct me if I am wrong,” he turned back towards the direction they were headed and pointed at the looming structure that actually looked surprisingly intact, “but it is right there.”

  “No, you booze-addled imp,” Vix said with a dismissive laugh and wave of her hand. “The Eye. That horrid amusement ride that marred London.” Vix pointed across the river at a lump of twisted metal and debris. She actually clapped her hands. “I hated that bloody thing.”

  At last, they reached what had once been St. James’s Park. What had once been the park’s lake now looked more like a swamp. The fire had practically destroyed all the greenery, but the new growth was beginning to push through.

  “Everybody halt,” Gable whispered. Mike was standing beside him, one hand on his shoulder, the other pointing to something out in the bog.

  The order rippled through the group and Algernon, Paddy, Seamus, Randi, and Vix came in close when Gable motioned them over.

  “Somebody is in there,” Gable whispered, pointing to the low but very thick tangle of dead wood and new growth.

  Almost on cue, several figures emerged, all of them dressed in animal skins, holding primitive looking weapons. Most had their faces painted in outlandish and even frightening designs. They fanned out, but it was obvious that there could not be more than fifty of them unless they had some still hidden and in reserve.

  “Victoria?” One of the savage looking men stepped forward, lowering his weapon and signaling for the others to do so as well before he took a few more steps closer.

  “Do I know you?” Vix asked, shooting daggers from her eyes as Paddy began to chuckle and sing-song the name Victoria. He quickly made a zipping gesture on his lips and assumed a more serious expression.

  “I thought you were dead,” the man said with obvious disbelief in his voice.

  “I’m sorry, I still do not have any idea who you are,” Vix replied.

  “Gary. Gary Mumford?” The man made a showing of putting the wicked but crude looking axe he’d been holding on the ground in front of him and then stepped over it to close the distance a few more steps closer to where Vix had come forward from her group. “We were all at the Audleys Wood Hotel with that git Nigel and his trollop…Claudia.”

  Vix cocked her head to regard the man before her. The name had rung a bell, but that had been so many lifetimes ago that it was too fuzzy to be certain. Plus, the man she recalled was more of a bookish sort; certainly not the barbaric visage standing before her now.

  “I must look like the worst sort of heathen,” Gary suddenly blurted with a laugh. “You like the get-up? He did a full circle to show off his apparel. “I went for sort of a cross between Mongolian warrior and Viking. You would be surprised at how easy some folks scare off when they think this place is the home to savages.”

  “I take it you know this person?” Mike had stepped up beside Vix; he waved his hooked hand in Gary’s direction.

  “We survived the early days together,” Vix said wistfully, surprised when what had once been a sharp pain when she recalled her late husband was no more than a distant ache.

  “You seem to have arrived with a bit of an army,” Gary said, closing the rest of the distance.

  Three of his people came forward as well, but stood just a few feet behind him. Unlike Gary, they still held their weapons, and they eyed t
he newcomers with open suspicion.

  “We are determined to make a stand against—” Vix began, but Gary cut her off.

  “Dolph.” A ripple of angry curses could be heard from many of the people lurking close enough to hear the name spoken aloud.

  “He is a lunatic,” Vix agreed, hearing the sentiment not only in Gary’s words, but also in the reaction from his people.

  “And you would do that here?” one of the women stepped up beside Gary.

  Vix gave her a quick once over. The woman had dark hair and under that red and white war paint or whatever it was they had all over their faces and bodies, Vix could detect a hint of perhaps something similar to Chaaya; perhaps Indian or Middle Eastern. She wore a sort of skirt made from animal skins, and her upper body was wrapped in leather strips that left nothing to the imagination. For just a moment, Vix had to wonder how the woman put it on. Did she have somebody hold the end and then she would twirl in circles in order to wrap the leather around her?

  Shaking away the distraction, Vix pressed on. “We intend on securing Buckingham Palace.” Another ripple made its way through Gary’s group, and Vix saw something on their faces that made her pause.

  “You will be lucky if half of you survive.” Gary’s words were spoken in a whisper.

  “Why is that?” Gable asked, taking a spot beside Vix.

  “That was Dolph’s parting gift. It seems that he had a massive cart loaded with a bunch of the zoms that were exposed to high amounts of radiation over in France at one of their power plants. Word is that he actually forced a hundred of his captives in there as well. A few months ago, one of the local clans made a try for the place. We never heard or saw them again.”

  “And even if you could kill the zeds inside, it is likely that the place is contaminated,” the woman beside Gary said with grave finality.