“That’s it!” Lucas yelled. “We got ‘em all.”
“Unless they send more,” Nick said.
I hoped not. I looked at the crowd of zombies I’d just euthanized, and something caught my eye. A leg twitched, and an arm moved, and then there was a hiss. One stood, and my jaw dropped. Others soon started to follow.
I shot Nick and Lucas a look. “It didn’t kill them! It just put them out for a few minutes,” I said as I backed away from the rising dead.
Nick let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t believe it!”
“No way!” Lucas yelled in anger and disbelief. “No freaking way, man!”
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like their little plan backfired,” said the announcer. “I have to admit, this show gets better by the minute.”
If Nick hadn’t run out of bullets, I’d have grabbed the gun and shot that idiot right between the eyes.
“I really hate that guy,” Kate said.
Slowly, the zombies shuffled toward us, and I knew we’d have to take them down again. Though we were beyond exhaustion, we weren’t going to give the sick crowd the satisfaction of watching us surrender. I grabbed the long bone from the ground and swung it in the air. I wasn’t going to go down without one last fight. As the growing horde shuffled closer, I felt terror like I’d never felt before. We’d never fought so many coming at us at the same exact time. For every one we took down, ten others seemed to come behind it. There was no winning the fight. It was the Alamo, and I was its Davy Crockett.
As they shuffled closer, I suddenly felt my brother’s hand take my own. Nick sucked in a deep breath, then slowly let it out as he turned to me and spoke softly, “Dean…” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Fight ‘em off the best you can and know that I’m always proud of you, no matter what. I love you, man.”
“Right back at ya,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering.
“You’re a great friend,” Lucas said, “and you’re also one heck of a fighter. I’m not givin’ up or nothin’. I just wanted to tell you that.”
I glanced back at him. “I’m your brother now, and you’re mine. And you know what? Brothers never give up on each other. I’ll see you on the other side, Lucas.”
Kate grabbed my other hand and held it tightly. She didn’t say a word. Droplets of sweat rolled down her ghost-white face. I knew she was in complete shock, and I couldn’t blame her. We were living the stuff of nightmares, right there in living color, the very real stench of very real death seeping up our nostrils.
The crowd roared as the announcer’s voice crackled across the speakers again. “Well, folks, it looks like they’re cornered. This is how we dole out justice in Kingsville! Now these murderers will get just what they deserve.”
The closest one drew near, and Kate kicked its stomach as she pulled the zombie’s legs out from under it. It fell back into the field with a thud.
The zombies inched closer, hissing and moaning. I lifted the femur above my head and prepared myself for what was to come. I could feel my body shaking, especially as I met Jackie’s gaze. I stared into her white, cold, lifeless eyes. Her arms were outstretched, long, dead fingernails coming to slice me open. I shuddered at the thought. But then, it seemed as though the white in her eyes began to darken. What…wait! Are her eyes turning back to brown? I blinked at the sight before me, and tried to understand what I was seeing.
“Nick! Lucas!” I shouted. “Look at Jackie’s eyes.”
“They’re turning back into people!” Kate shouted. “What was that stuff you gave them?”
I threw down the bone, awe-stricken.
Kate turned to hug me. “We’re not gonna die after all!” she said, excitement flooding her voice. She then turned and jumped into Lucas’s arms.
He spun her around, letting out shouts of joy.
My gaze drifted back to my beloved. It was then that Jackie’s lips parted, and instead of a howl or a snarl, all that came out was, “Dean?”
A thousand white-hot sparks seemed to suddenly swim into my vision. I felt myself becoming too light on my feet and feared I was about to pass out. Her skin still looked pale and mottled like a zombie’s, but I recognized that spark in her beautiful brown eyes. Did she really just say my name? I couldn’t believe it. “Jackie!” I ran to her and gasped in amazement as her skin cleared up and returned to its natural color, right before my eyes.
“Dean,” she whispered in a soft voice, “wh-where am I?”
“You’re… I just… It’s hard to explain, but you’re okay, Jackie. You’re okay!” I hugged her as tightly as I could. A great flurry of emotions ran through me, much different and not dark like the ones I’d felt just moments before. This time, there was happiness, excitement, and pure joy washing through me, illuminating every corner of my jaded mind with a new sense of hope.
She squeezed me back just as tightly and melted into my embrace. Nobody could have asked for a better miracle. “The last thing I remember is getting stabbed,” she said. “I died, didn’t I? I turned into one of those…those things.”
I held her at arms’ length. “You did, but I gave you the cure.”
“Who are all these people?” she asked, looking around.
“Cured zombies,” I said.
I turned and began to laugh hysterically. The army of greenish-hued, scabbed-over beings were all regaining their natural pigmentation. Their cold, lifeless eyes had morphed into orbs of confusion, but they were filled with life again. Some stumbled around in a daze, some hugged each other and wept, and others collapsed. Some were too far gone, too injured, and died on the spot. My heart went out to them as cries echoed through the air and loved ones hugged their limp bodies. Even though it was sad, most of the people had been cured. They’d been left for dead, destined to live out the remainder of their existence as flesh-craving, mindless zombies, but the cure changed everything. One drop had resurrected them from the dead and given them hope—a second chance at life.
“Dean, this is incredible,” Jackie said. “We’ve gotta find a way to get this cure manufactured. We’ve got to tell the world!”
I smiled. “That’s the plan,” I said. When I saw Val searching through the crowd, I waved her over.
Her eyes lit up as she approached. “Lucas told me! He told me everything! Thank you!” Val cried as she embraced me in a painfully tight hug.
I felt myself grinning so wide that the corners of my mouth ached. It was the miracle we’d all been praying for—not just for Val, but for all mankind. There was still hope in that dead world. We could finally end the virus once and for all. I couldn’t wait to find my mom and tell her that Val was alive, and we could be a family again. My mom’s last wish, when she thought she was dying of cancer, was that Val could be part of her life. She regretted giving her up. I always knew there was emptiness in her heart, and now I understood, but we would never have to be apart again. Val was my blood sister, and I couldn’t have been more proud to have her in my life. “It’s so good to see you smiling again,” I said, smirking like an idiot. I’d never been so happy, but then reality came crashing back in on me.
It wasn’t over. The townspeople still demanded their revenge. I looked up into the stands at the stunned spectators, their mouths hanging open.
The speakers screeched, and then the mayor’s voice boomed, “We’ve come to a conclusion, folks. The zombies are not monsters, but victims of this horrible scourge. We’re thrilled they’re cured. We will delay the execution of Lucas Meadows and Dean and Nick Walters until we figure out how these criminals got their hands on the cure.”
“What?” Val asked. “What’s going on?”
“Long story,” Nick said, “but at least these maniacs are giving us a few more days.”
“We’re a town built on honor and morals,” the mayor lied. “We’d like all of the cured to first meet with our doctor to tend to your wounds, and then you are all free to go your own way. Please go in peace. I want to thank all
the great people of this town for attending this historical event. This will be a day we’ll never forget, for this is the day I found the cure! God bless America!”
The crowd cheered endlessly as the mayor strutted around, waving his hands in unwarranted victory. The crowd didn’t notice as the armed guards handcuffed us at gunpoint and led us off the field.
Kate screamed for our release, but her shouts fell on deaf ears.
Chapter 13
As they herded us along, a policeman barked orders for the girls to be put in a cell in the women’s section. Val was viewed as guilty by association, and Jackie and Claire were classified as coconspirators and scheduled for execution with us. They clearly had no interest in giving the girls their own separate trial and allowed our verdict to be shared with them as well.
Lucas, Nick, and I were thrown back into the same jail cell. We hadn’t even had a chance to make ourselves at home in the miserable jail before Tahoe showed up.
I thought maybe I could reason with him, assuming the weasel had any shred of a human conscience.
“Congratulations on finding the cure,” he said.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “A scientist, a brilliant doctor, came up with it, back at Kelleys Island, where I was living.” I stepped closer. “They better not hurt the girls.” I gripped the bars and met Tahoe’s gaze. “You owe them, man. You said so yourself. They saved your life back on that dark, deserted road. If you don’t wanna help us, at least help them. Get Jackie, Val, and Claire out of Kingsville.”
“Nice speech, Dean.”
I wanted to pound him so bad. “You owe them, Tahoe!” I shouted. “Go tell your dad, the chief of police, how they dressed your wounds, gave you antibiotics, and saved your sorry butt.”
“I will, but don’t worry. The ladies are fine.” His eyes mirrored frustration, and his lips were set in a grim line. “What I need right now are those vials.”
Gripping the bars, I shot him a venomous look. “So do we! We can’t leave that bag in the hands of a madman, can we?”
“It’s no secret that I despise you,” Tahoe said to my brother. “If it weren’t for Claire and Jackie, you would’ve left me lying on the side of the road bleeding. I stood no chance in that kind of condition against zombies.”
“What goes around comes around. You helped Earl try to kill Val, and I’m not one to play good Samaritan to a murderer. It’s as simple as that.”
“Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? That I didn’t deserve your help?” Tahoe met my brother’s gaze straight on. “How do you sleep at night, Nick?”
“You should ask yourself that same question,” Nick retorted.
Tahoe shook his head. “What they did to you was—”
“Something that happens in horror movies,” I interrupted.
He nodded.
“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you,” I spat. “How could you let them throw us into an arena like that, unarmed, forced to battle hordes of brain-slurpers? Who does that?”
“This entire town showed up to watch us get torn to shreds, just for entertainment,” Nick said. “It’s just…sick!”
“Nick, we both know there’s no love lost between us, and I’ll have to live with what I’ve done. You don’t know how sorry I am.” He paced back and forth in front of the cell, then stopped and looked directly at us. His face was strained as he spoke. “Listen, the vial at the lab has been used up in the testing process. I need more. Give me another one, and I’ll cut you loose.”
Cut us loose? Like he has that kind of authority. I didn’t believe him for a minute, in spite of the uniform he was wearing.
“We’re all fresh out,” Lucas said. “Sorry.”
Tahoe rolled his eyes. “Are you saying that’s all you had?”
“The vial’s empty, isn’t it?” Lucas said.
Tahoe’s voice grew in intensity. “There has to be more! There just has to be! I have just as much to lose as you do. Please tell me the truth.”
I glared. “Your credibility kind of stinks. You killed our friends and—”
Tahoe threw his hands up in the air. “I had no part in that! You can have the bag! I don’t care anymore. Just give me one more vial.”
“What makes you so sure I know where they are?” I asked.
Nick cocked a brow. “Bag? What bag?” he asked, playing dumb.
“Maybe the vials grew legs and walked away,” Lucas joked.
“C’mon! Don’t play stupid with me,” Tahoe said. “I know nobody from this town took that bag.”
“And you believe them?” Lucas asked. “Boy, I think you’ve been drinking the water.”
“We had just seen Claire shot,” I said. “We were frantic. The last thing on my mind was hiding a bag of vials. Besides, we didn’t have the time.”
I knew one of the town’s good old boys must have stolen it when they’d searched the truck that night. Suddenly, a thought struck me. Getting out of jail was key, and I thought if I pretended to know where it was, the idiot might free us. We could find the bag using Lucas’s tracking device to get our hands on those vials, then get the heck out of there. Or maybe we should just leave the bag in fate’s hands. Val was cured already, and that had been the whole point of our mission. Maybe we should just bolt while we’re still alive and breathing. I looked at Nick and winked, hoping he’d catch on and play along. “That does it. We’ve got no choice. We’ve gotta tell him where we hid the bag, man,” I said to Nick. “He might be able to help us. Surely we can spare one vial.”
“No!” my brother shouted, talented actor that he was. “We can’t have it falling into the wrong hands.”
Lucas caught on quick too. “I’m the one that hid it, and I’m gonna tell him. He’ll never find it without me. I don’t know about you two, but I’m not staying in here to rot—or worse, playing American Gladiators again!”
Tahoe fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. His eyes lit up, and he seemed to hang on Lucas’s every word. “So…where can I find the medicine?”
“Let us out, and we’ll take you to it,” I said.
He nodded. “I’ll figure out a way. Trust me.”
The sheriff burst in, as if on cue. “Open the cell door! I need to question this little punk about his life-saving potion.”
“No!” shouted Nick. “Leave him alone. Take me!”
“You’ll get your turn, hotshot.” The sheriff jerked me forward and out the door.
He led me to a white room decorated with several long, horizontal mirrors that I knew were one-way glass. I knew I was being watched from the other side. I’d seen far too many episodes of CSI and Law and Order for them to fool me.
They sat me down behind a steel table, and the sheriff began to pace. “I need you to answer some questions, murderer.”
The accusation stung, and if he was trying to give me a guilt complex, it was working. I felt so bad for killing Jason. He deserved better than the hand he was dealt. The contaminated water had made him act the way he did, and I wish there’d have been another way. I would live with the guilt for the rest of my life. He was just another victim in this crazy mess. “Jason…he was acting crazy. Your water is contaminated from the dead zombies in the river. Don’t you get it? You’re drinking poisoned water.”
“Our water is fine, thank you.”
“No it’s not! It was why Jason was acting so irrational and moody, why he opened fire into our Jeep, killing Claire, why he knifed Jackie, and why he tried to kill me.”
“You killed the mayor’s son!”
“I know, and I’m so sorry about that. I’m not a murderer. I was just trying to defend myself. He came at me with a gun, and I—”
“You’re a cold-hearted, murdering dog.”
I about lost it. “I am not! Not at all!” I shouted, walking over to the mirrors. I looked directly into them and screamed, “You all know Jason was acting crazy. He tried to kill somebody last week. Think about it! Even your animals are acting crazy. I me
t an old man who said his dog went insane over the last two months. If you don’t believe me, I challenge you to give everyone bottled water, including the animals, for one week and see if things change. It will! Then go clean out the river and bury the zombie bodies. Get your river back and quit poisoning your citizens into mass lunacy!” I let out a breath and continued my tirade. “The trial you gave me wasn’t even fair. I’m sorry Jason is dead. If I could go back in time and do things differently, I would. I’m so, so sorry. I wish it would’ve been me! I’m not a killer!”
The sheriff grabbed my arm and walked me back to my seat. “We’re not here to discuss our drinking habits or why you killed Jason. The court has already found you guilty, a unanimous decision, and you’re still scheduled for execution.”
They wouldn’t listen to a word I said. Anger exploded inside of me, and I pounded the table, even though I would have rather beaten the sheriff to a pulp. Granted, my loud rant probably made me seem like the killer they thought I was, but I was so darn angry. Slamming things had always been how Nick and I coped with fury. It was in our DNA. I wanted to flip the table over completely or pick it up and throw it at the one-way mirror, but I resisted the urge. If life ever went back to normal again and I survived that ordeal, I planned on getting help for my anger management issues, but for the time being, I had to suck it up and rein it in the best I could.
“I want to know about the cure,” he calmly said.
“It’s a singing group,” I said. “You know…an English alternative rock band that played great music that my mother loves. The one guy wore a lot of eyeliner, I think, and—”
The Zombie Chronicles - Book 3 - Deadly City (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) Page 8