Generation Dead Book 2: What You Fear

by Joseph Talluto

  “Daddy!” Julia burst out, grabbing her father around the waist and burying her face deeply in his chest.

  Uncle Charlie just held his daughter for a long moment, breathing her in, wrapping his huge arms around her, protecting her. I felt a little awkward so I concerned myself with pulling the axes out of the head of the man we had killed.

  Julia smiled up at her father and asked very seriously, “Where the fuck have you been?”

  I nearly laughed at the look on Uncle Charlie’s face, but then I realized I kind of wanted to know that as well. Julia stepped back, wrapped her arms around my waist, and looked up at me, not waiting for her father to reply.

  “Did you find Jake?” She asked. “He was being held in a cell down the hall.”

  Oh, shit. Jake. “Come on!” I said, giving the second tomahawk back to its owner as I raced past the secured zombies. There was nothing we could do for these women, but knowing what we knew now, we’d definitely be back to send them over the divide for the final time.

  Chapter 49

  We rounded the corner to see my father hovering over Jake. He had taken Jake’s shirt off and was cleaning his wounds, using my first aid kit. Jake was wincing and breathing heavily, his head cradled again in Kayla’s lap.

  Uncle Charlie went over to my dad and tapped him on the shoulder. Dad looked up and got out of Charlie’s way. Julia ran to Kayla and put her hand on her shoulder, her other hand covering her mouth.

  Kayla looked up and smiled briefly at Julia. “He was fighting to get to you. He took out a dozen men to try to get to you.”

  Julia knelt by Kayla and put her hand on Jake’s forehead. I felt like a fifth wheel with nothing to do. Charlie worked over Jake, patching his wounds and probing for anything that might be life threatening. After about ten minutes, there was a noise at the top of the stairs, and then two sets of feet came lumbering down the stairs.

  I nudged my Dad, who looked up quickly, then kept his gaze on his son.

  Dad said softly, “Wait for it.”

  In the dark, I heard two sets of, “Holy shit.”

  My dad smiled to himself briefly, and then his face turned serious again. Charlie checked Jake up and down, and then looked up.

  “If we can get him to the capital, then he has a pretty good chance. We can move him, but nothing too crazy. Who’s going?”

  Kayla spoke up first. “I am.” Her father looked at her curiously, but wisely said nothing.

  Jake suddenly opened his eyes and looked up at Kayla. “Love you, too,” he said softly before closing his eyes again.

  Kayla started to cry and rocked Jake’s head softly, kissing him gently on his bruised forehead.

  Julia spoke up. “I’ll see him there. We should be okay.” She looked over at me expectantly, and I didn’t disappoint.

  “That goes for me, too, by the way,” I said, causing Julia to blush and her father to scowl.

  “Talon’s are all the damn same,” Charlie growled. “You and I have a few things to discuss.” He directed that at me and strangely, I didn’t feel any fear.

  “When you’re ready,” I said, mentally cataloguing where my weapons were.

  Uncle Tommy spoke up. “Knock it the hell off. We’re only patching up one of us today. Ben’s escaped, and we need to figure out what to do.”

  My dad looked up from his son. “What did you find?”

  Uncle Duncan found his voice. “You’re going to have to see it to believe it.”

  My dad nodded. “Let’s get Jake out of here first. Kayla and Julia will take the boat back; get Jake to the medical center. Then we’ll see what there is to see when it comes to Ben.”

  We gathered our gear, and my dad and Charlie gently picked Jake up off the floor. They carefully brought him up the stairs, and then my dad took Jake and carried him all the way back down to the canal. I have to say I was impressed. Mid-fifties and still strong as an ox. My good humor was tempered by the fact that my father’s best friend, and person who my father had always described as being stronger than he was, the father of the woman I was sleeping with. If we finished this, I figured I was dead.

  At the boat, my dad gave Kayla and Julia instructions and sent them on their way. Julia gave me lingering kiss and mouthed, ‘Love you’ at me. I swear I could feel my Uncle Charlie’s stare on my back.

  “Let’s get this done,” my dad said as he watched the boat move away. Part of me wondered why he wasn’t going with, but I realized there was nothing he could do. He knew Jake was going to be in as good of hands as he could find, and if he had lived this long, he was going to make it.

  Chapter 50

  We went back to the fortress, and in the early light of the morning, I could make out the dozens of corpses liberally sprinkled all over the front lawn. Most of them died with headshots, but there were a few with some serious head trauma. A few were close to the front door, and I realized how near we had been to a nasty situation in the school.

  Uncle Tommy led the way. “We went up top, figuring on killing Ben and his men. We got the last few of his men, but you have to hand it to the bastard.” Tommy made his way to a side stairwell, and passed through the double doors. He flicked on a light and showed us the body lying there. It was a living man, or was, and he had been stabbed with something long and pointy. I suspected said something was resting on my Uncle Duncan’s back.

  Passing through the doors on the top floor, I was surprised at how clean and neat everything was. There wasn’t a scrap of paper, a rag or anything out of place. Looking into the rooms, they were empty of absolutely everything. In a way, it was kind of creepy and weird.

  “Down here,” Tommy said. At the back of the building was Ben’s apartment, apparently. It was a large converted classroom with a bathroom, a kitchen, and a huge living area. On one wall was an enormous television, and on the other was a collection of DVD’s from before the Upheaval. I had seen a few when I was a kid, but it had been a long time.

  My dad looked around briefly, before turning to Tommy and Duncan.

  “Empty. What did we need to see?” He sounded slightly agitated as if he was worried about the time we were losing by coming up here.

  “Up those stairs,” Duncan said.

  Behind my dad was a spiral staircase, and this one led upwards. Duncan led the way, and one by one, we joined him on the roof.

  Duncan faced us. “We thought we had him when we saw he had run into his apartment, since Tommy could see the whole hallway, and there was no way he was getting out there. When I came in here after him, it was empty, and I couldn’t figure out where he went. Then I heard a noise on the roof and found those stairs.

  “Up here, I thought I was going to have a showdown, but when I got out in the open, I saw Ben in a small cart flying away to the east.” Duncan shook his head. “Wish I had your skill with a rifle, John. I missed the one shot I had at him.”

  My dad looked off into the distance. “No problem, brother. In this light, I doubt even Logan could make the shot.” He walked around the roof for a second. “Off to the east? In a flying cart? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yes, it does,” I said. I pointed to a small metal tower bolted to the back end of a brick wall. “There’s a cable up there. Who wants to bet our friend Ben went down a zip line?”

  “Son of a bitch,” Charlie said. “Where does it go?”

  “One way to find out,” Duncan said. He grabbed a metal bar from a pile of debris, put it on the wire, and held on with both hands. Without another word, he started sliding away.

  “Duncan! You idiot!” Uncle Tommy yelled. “You don’t know where he went!”

  In the darkness, a voice drifted back. “Knowing Ben, it wasn’t dangerous!”

  We all nodded at the truth of that statement and we went looking for our own zip line bars. My dad and Charlie found a length of rebar that would work, while Tommy happened on a piece of wood. I wasn’t having any luck until my foot hit a length of cable obviously left over from the line’s constructio
n. That should do.

  Tommy went after Duncan, and I followed a little bit later. I have to admit I was sweating about stepping off a roof into the darkness, but nothing bad seemed to happen to the two guys ahead of me, so off I went.

  The descent was fast but not crazy, and I had to hold down the urge to shout out. It was actually a lot of fun, sailing over the trees and homes, then sliding between the trees and homes, until I finally reached the end of the line. There wasn’t any sudden stop. It was just a descent until I could touch the ground. I almost tripped when I landed, but caught myself just in time.

  My uncles were waiting for me and one held up seven fingers and the other eight.

  I looked at them curiously and Uncle Duncan said I needed to stick the landing, whatever the hell that meant.

  A noise behind me meant my father and Charlie were on their way, and a few seconds later, they joined us at the base of the zip line.

  “Where are we?” Tommy asked, looking around for signs.

  “Train station,” my dad said. “This is the Metra line for Blue Island.”

  “Where does it go?” Charlie wanted to know.

  “South it goes to University Park. North, it goes to the city,” Dad said.

  “Which way did Ben go?” I asked.

  “Let’s find out.”

  We ran up the stairs and out onto the platform. We were just in time to see a small electric rail car disappearing into the horizon. There wasn’t any doubt as to who might be in it.

  Charlie swore. “Why the fuck would he go north?”

  My Dad shook his head. “It figures with what Jackson talked about. He was afraid something like this might have happened.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Ben has set up his real shop in the city. It’s perfect, in a way. Surrounded by millions of zombies, he’s left virtually alone to live, kill, and create as he pleases. If he’s found a safe place, he might never come out,” my dad said.

  Uncle Tommy groaned. “I guess I know what this means.”

  My dad nodded. “Yep. We’re going to Chicago.”

  Chapter 51

  “He knows we’re following.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe. There’s going to be traps and shit if he thinks we’re behind him.”

  “Yep.”

  “He’s not going to just lie down and die.”

  “Nope.”

  There was a brief pause. “Good.”

  I listened to this exchange between my father and my Uncle Charlie as we rolled down the railway line. Ben had made his escape on a strange little contraption that allowed him to ride a small scooter on a single rail. That much we had seen. We spent the next twenty minutes figuring a way to follow. What we had come up with was crude, but simple. We had commandeered one of the small repair vehicles that once upon a time had worked in the rail yards. However, this one was long since dead. So we made do by taking turns, pushing the thing while the others rode.

  At first, it was difficult to push, but once we got it rolling, it wasn’t hard at all to keep it going. Currently, I was awaiting my turn, when my dad swung around the small tower in my direction. I waited for him to sit down and to get settled before I let loose what had been on my mind for a long time.

  “Why’d you leave us?” I said, looking him in the eye.

  My dad’s eyes narrowed, and for a second I thought he wasn’t going to answer. But his eyes cleared and he looked away before answering.

  “After your mother died I was just lost. We’d been through so much together, surviving the Upheaval, fighting the Zombie War, rebuilding the country. At least, most of it, anyway. I never thought after all that she’d go out from a disease that wasn’t the Enillo Virus.” Dad cleared his throat. “When she and Rebecca were buried, Charlie and I just couldn’t face that lodge. You, Jake and Julia were off doing your own thing, so you clearly didn’t need us for anything. So one day, we just put our gear on and wandered off.”

  Dad smiled. “Funny thing is, we thought you’d come after us and we’d have gone home with you. But you never did, so we just kept moving.”

  I frowned in protest. “Your note said not to follow! What did you expect?”

  “I actually figured you’d have listened as well as you had before, which was not at all. But maybe it all worked out for the best.” Dad gave me a wry smile. “You seemed to know what to do when the events required it.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m proud of the way you and Jake handled yourselves. You’re as good as Charlie and I ever were, maybe even better.”

  “I don’t know about that. And these days, Uncle Charlie seems like he wants to rip my heart out,” I said.

  Dad grinned. “Don’t be foolish. You can deal with him. Besides, he knows if he hurts you, his daughter will probably kill him. Speaking of that, by the way, what’s the nature of this new territory between you and Julia?”

  Right away, I felt uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure what I should say to my dad, and whether or not he really wanted to hear it. In the end, I just decided on the truth.

  “I love her, Dad. When I’m not with her, I worry about what she’s doing and whether or not she’s safe. I want to hide her away, but at the same time, I want to show her off and let the world know she’s mine.” I looked down. “I know it sounds stupid, but…”

  Dad laughed out loud. “Well done, boy. Sounds like the real thing. Just do one thing and you’ll be all right.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Make her the center of your life. Always think of her, and always keep her close. Sometimes, that will make you miserable, but most of the time, it’s the best way to get the most out of life as we have it,” Dad said.

  “Is that how you felt about Mom?” I asked.

  My father looked down. “I’ve had the good fortune to have been loved completely by two good women. Most men have trouble finding one.” He looked up again at me. “You’d better keep yours, and don’t do anything foolish.”

  I looked at the rails. “Like chasing a ghost into the middle of a city infested with decades-old zombies?”

  Dad grunted in laughter. “Yeah, that.”

  I smiled and realized it was going to be my turn at the rails soon. I worked my way to the back and watched briefly as my Uncle Charlie lay at the rear and pushed with his powerful legs. The rear of the vehicle had a platform which allowed us to lie down, dangle our legs over the side, and then push at the contraption. It seemed too good to be workable, but surprise of surprises, we were actually moving along at a good clip.

  I thought about what we were going to do and what needed to be done afterwards. I never considered that we might fail, that we might die. That never entered my thinking. Right at the moment, I gave some considerable thought to the situation and about where we might be going.

  “Hey, Dad?” I started. I had an idea, but I wanted to see whether it was sound.

  “What’s up, Aaron?” My father put down his sharpening stone and his tomahawk.

  “Where would Ben go, in the city?”

  My father shrugged. “Could be anywhere, I guess. Any building, any place.”

  “Where does this line go?”

  My dad thought about that one. “I think, if memory serves me correctly, that this line goes all the way to LaSalle Street.”

  I thought for a minute. “Is that the one that runs about the middle of Grant Park?”

  My dad was taken slightly aback. “How the hell do you know about Grant Park?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “I’ve made about fifteen runs into the city as a Collector. I’ve studied more maps on the damn place than I can count.”

  “No shit. Well, you might be of use after all. Any ideas where Ben is, smarty-pants?” My dad looked at me with what might have been new respect.

  I grinned. “Just one, but he’ll have to make the right moves to prove it.”

  Chapter 52

  I left my perch and went to the back to relieve Uncle Charlie. He looked at m
e, but didn’t say anything. I figured my dad would set him straight soon enough, if anyone would. I lay down on the platform and got the swing of things with my legs. I just pushed along, keeping the pace. It wasn’t so hard when the tracks stayed level and smooth. It took us a bit to get it going, but after that, it was pretty simple. Stopping it was going to be interesting, since it was about three tons of steel rolling along, but we’d probably be off it by then, anyway.

  An hour later, we were rolling through the outskirts of the city. Thanks to the efforts of the Metra system in times past, the railway was protected by chain-link fences on both sides, which in turn protected us. There were gaps and occasionally we passed a surprised zombie, but none of my uncles shot them as a matter of habit.

  After a few minutes, I began to feel a shift in the landscape. It was getting a little easier to push the cart, and we seemed to be going faster. That was when I realized we were going downhill, preparing to go underground to where the station was.

  I stopped pushing for a second and saw we were still moving, and even going a little faster. I climbed up to join the others and saw that we were indeed about to go underground.

  “Any sign of Ben?” I asked.

  Uncle Tommy shook his head. “Haven’t seen anything new, so he has to still be ahead of us.”

  “Think he’ll try an ambush?” Uncle Duncan asked.

  “No,” I said. “He’s alone and in a hurry. He’ll get to his safe place and wait for us to try to get him. That is, if he thinks we’re following him.”

  Four surprised faces looked at me in the early morning light. My father spoke first.

  “Explain your thought, son,” he said kindly.

  “Ben left the building before Uncle Tommy and Uncle Duncan was even close. He bailed on his men long before the fight was over. He took a standard route out of the suburbs and straight to his fortress in the city. He has to figure we’ll just take our wounded and go, and he can decide on his next move,” I said.