Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home

by Nathan Brown

  Animals don’t attack a new prey if they are feeding on a kill. But these things aren’t necessarily animals, so I can’t exactly be sure whether that rule is going to apply here.

  Mike looked at Joseph and gave him the universal “stay quiet” and “follow me” gestures.

  “When the doors open,” Mike told Joseph. “You haul ass for the parking lot. If either of those two gets up, I’ll handle it. Just don’t stop moving.”

  Before Joseph could say anything, Mike sprinted up to the automatic ENTRANCE door and drew his pistol. The doors slid open and one pricked up his head. Mike raised the pistol.

  Joseph saw his chance and pushed the cart towards the door as fast as he could without losing balance.

  Mike stared into the eyes of the feeding madman, keeping his pistol trained between his target’s eyes. The feeding monster did not attack, but only growled strangely as he continued to chew on his macabre meal. Joseph flew past Mike’s back and pushed the cart over the threshold with a clack-clack.

  * * *

  Joseph hit the parking lot without slowing down. The parking lot was horribly quiet. Mike soon joined him and they kept running, past the body of the man that attacked them earlier, straight toward the Blazer.

  Mike had the keys out and pressed the unlock button. He stopped and opened the glass hatch of the rear door. Joseph quickly began throwing everything in the back. He soon kicked the empty cart out into the parking lot, sending it careening into someone’s abandoned car. Mike closed the glass and headed for the driver’s seat. Joseph ran around to the passenger side and jumped in.

  Mike slammed the truck into gear and exited out a side driveway next to the outdoor lumber yard near the back of the building. He turned left through the small break in the median and headed toward the Wal-Mart that had recently opened behind Sutherlands, the one he hadn’t noticed on the way into town. Mike drove through the parking lot and coasted past the entrance.

  “I’m not going in there,” Joseph said when he saw the large and, apparently, fresh smears of blood on the automatic sliding glass doors.

  “Don’t blame you. If that blood means one of those things got in there, it’ll be a slaughterhouse inside. We’ll go somewhere else,” Mike said, driving through the parking lot back toward the road.

  He stopped the truck in front of a bright yellow crotch-rocket. A full-faced helmet hung from the handlebars and another from the passenger foot peg. Mike slid out of his seat, walked around the front of the Blazer, and grabbed both helmets. He walked back around the front to the door, sat back in his seat, reached over his shoulder, and put the helmets on the back seat.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Joseph demanded.

  “They might come in handy. Besides, the owners won’t be needing ‘em any more,” Mike said, pointing past Joseph.

  Joseph turned his head to where Mike was pointing.

  “I don’t see any …”

  Joseph looked more closely at the bike and could see it had been dropped recently. He saw motion between two cars that sat one row over. The person was most likely the owner of the bike, as he was wearing a black, Kevlar-padded rider’s jacket with matching yellow trim. A second person stood up, blood smeared over most of her face and clotted in her hair. It was too far for Joseph to be certain, but he was pretty sure the woman had been shot or stabbed in the chest at some point. He wondered if they had been mugged earlier that day.

  “Does that look like a stab wound there on her chest?”

  “Could be. Most of the ones I have dealt with so far looked like they’d been mauled or maimed in some way,” Mike answered, easing the Blazer out onto Southwest Parkway. He drove as sensibly as possible as they approached an accident in the street, just before the upcoming intersection at Taft Boulevard. They were both surprised to see a uniformed Wichita Falls Police Officer directing traffic. Mike slowed down to ask for a detour route. He followed the traffic cop’s instructions to the letter.

  Joseph didn’t volunteer to get out and stay with the police … and Mike didn’t ask him to.

  “The one you dealt with … it had a wound, didn’t it?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah. He had complained about a bite last night. Wait … How did you know I’d dealt with one already?” Joseph said, eyeing Mike.

  “You said you didn’t have much of a chance to look at the body like you did in my Ma’s living room. Stood to reason you’d killed one,” Mike said almost gently. “Who was it?”

  “A guy from work. Funny thing is, the more I see, the more I am starting to think it wasn’t really him, if you know what I mean.”

  Mike drove them to the Albertson’s grocery store at the corner of Southwestern Parkway and Kemp. Once again, he parked more than halfway out in the parking lot, away from other cars.

  “We need water and canned goods, basically anything loaded with preservatives and won’t spoil,” Mike said getting out.

  “Right.”

  They took two carts from the nearest cart return. Mike kept the gun and a hatchet tucked into his waistband, concealed beneath his un-tucked shirt. Joseph laid the Louisville Slugger in the shopping cart’s child seat. The pair entered the store calmly and, after seeing how calm the store appeared at this point, decided to split up.

  It wasn’t until Mike had disappeared from sight that Joseph became aware of the heavy, copper smell in the air. He scanned the area and noticed blood had pooled in several places on the floor. Some of the lights were out as though one of the circuit breakers had tripped. He hated the fact that he could hear one or two of them feeding somewhere in the store. He hated it because there was the possibility that they would run into zombies and would have to fight for their lives. But he found that he didn’t mind the sound so much as he had at Sutherlands because, oddly enough, it somehow made him feel better about not paying for the stuff they were taking.

  Joseph went straight to the canned goods aisle. He was startled to see an infected person standing in the middle of the aisle, drunkenly swaying to and fro. He wrapped his right hand around the smooth handle of the bat and braced himself. The thing noticed Joseph and immediately charged. He calmly waited, bracing the cart with his left leg, gripping the bat with both hands, until the mangled man lunged over the length of the cart. Joseph took a half step back and brought the bat arcing up under the thing’s chin. The blow was solid, if not fatal. It fell straight back. Before it had a chance to get up, Joseph stepped around the cart and brought the bat down on its face. After a few twitches, the corpse went limp.

  Joseph returned the bat to the child seat. He maneuvered the cart as close as he could to the shelf and quickly began to transfer everything that was easily reachable into the cart. He set each item into the cart as quietly and speedily as he could. Every third can, he took a second to listen and scan both directions of the aisle. He worked his way quickly down the aisle, grabbing a little bit of everything. He didn’t even bother looking at the labels.

  Another infected person, this one female, suddenly rounded the corner at the back end of the aisle and sprinted towards him. Jagged ribs protruded through her torn flesh and entrails hung out of her gaping side. Joseph cursed as he stepped around the cart to get the bat. The middle-aged woman slammed into him with the power of a NFL linebacker just as he reached it. Joseph jumped forward with the force of the impact. He landed sprawled out on his stomach and fumbled to retain his grip on the bat. The woman was already on all fours and scrambling toward him. He rolled onto his back with the bat over his head.

  The woman latched onto his leg and dragged herself forward, mouth open. She bared her bloody teeth and reared back to chomp into his leg. Joseph didn’t scream, though he wanted to. He kicked the woman in the face with his free leg. At the same time, he sat up and swung the bat in an overhead arch. The bat crunched down on the back of the woman’s skull, bouncing her face off the floor with a heavy thud.

  Joseph kicked at her hands, freeing his leg. He scooted back and got to his feet. The woman moa
ned and feebly tried to get back up. Joseph brought the bat across in a perfect golf stroke. He heard a strangely satisfying crunch, and the woman stopped moaning.

  Keeping the bat in hand, Joseph now went back to “shopping.” When he reached the end of the aisle, he turned around and headed back to the checkouts at the front of the store. Mike was already there, waiting with a cartload of water and other bottled drinks.

  “Run into trouble?” Mike asked, noticing the thick, glistening coat of blood on the black bat and the new spatter on Joseph’s clothes.

  “A little. Let’s bag this stuff and get back to the truck,” Joseph said, checking over his shoulder.

  “Keep watch,” Mike said, pulling Joseph’s cart toward the bag carousel. He started scooping cans out by the armload and dropping them into plastic bags. Joseph turned his back on Mike and put the red-tinged bat on his shoulder. He watched and waited, listening to the random moans of the things as they shuffled about the store floor.

  “How many of them did you drop?” Joseph asked.

  “None.”

  “Did you see any bodies?”

  “No.”

  Joseph heard a scream from somewhere in the back. He was sure there were more of those things in the store, and they were probably moving toward the screams. Something bumped into one of the registers farther down the line.

  “Mike, buddy, please tell me you’re about done,” Joseph said as three blood soaked people staggered from the door of a side office. “Mike! Drop what you’re doing and grab your hatchet.”

  Mike looked up and saw the three things about to charge.

  “Screw the rest of this stuff. Let’s take what we’ve got and get back to the truck before these things trap us in here,” Mike said.

  Joseph sidestepped past the first cart to where Mike was standing. He started pushing the cart loaded with water and bags of groceries. Mike pulled his gun out and back peddled out of the store with Joseph.

  The three things tried to climb over one another and the abandoned cart.

  “Joe, move,” Mike said, grabbing the hatchet with his left hand.

  Joseph started at a near sprint toward the Blazer. He saw a trio of normal people walking toward the storefront. He slowed down a bit so Mike could catch up.

  “Ya’ll don’t want to go in there,” Joseph yelled.

  Mike backed into Joseph and kept pushing. Joseph took the hint and started hurrying toward the truck again. The people continued toward the door. Joseph could clearly see they weren’t armed.

  “Mike we gotta stop ‘em. They’re walking right into three of those things,” Joseph said, almost on the verge of panic.

  “Joe, we do anything more than try to warn them and we’ll have more to worry about than jail time.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. You tried. If they’re smart, they’ll start running the hell outta there in a moment.”

  Joseph looked over his shoulder in time to see the automatic doors slide open. The one that was coming out of the door looked like the whole front of his throat had been torn out. Blood stained the front of his shirt. He grabbed the young man closest to the door and bit his face.

  Mike looked toward the doors and back at the truck.

  “There’s nothing we can do for him. Start loading the truck and let’s go,” he said.

  “You load the truck if you want. I’m at least going to help the other two.”

  “Joe! Dammit!”

  Joseph ignored Mike and ran toward the young man being attacked.

  God, please just don’t let the other two crazies start coming this way.

  Joseph charged straight in and swung the bat at the man’s head. Both the infected man and his victim dropped to the pavement. Joseph didn’t waste time trying to finish off the man with no throat. He turned and began to run back to Mike and the Blazer.

  “Don’t just stand there … run!” He screamed at the dumbfounded bystanders. “Get your friend and run!”

  Joseph got back to the truck. As he approached, Mike caught him across the face with a right backhand. The blow sent a sharp sting through Joseph’s check.

  “You try another stunt like that and I’m leaving your ass behind. You get me? Shit. They’ll be coming this way any second. Get in the truck; we gotta go.”

  Joseph picked himself up and climbed into the passenger seat. Mike slid into the driver’s seat a second later. He turned the key, slammed the truck into gear and peeled out. Joseph looked out his window and saw the other two flesh eaters emerge from the store and grab the young man he’d just tried to save, the one who’d already been bitten in the face.

  One of the young man’s friends made the fatal mistake of trying to help him. The third zombie, a woman, turned and sank her teeth deep into the man’s arm. Joseph watched with morbid fascination as the woman peeled the flesh from her victim’s arm. The third person in the ill-fated party finally had enough sense to take Joseph’s advice and ran back to his vehicle.

  Mike guided the truck to the far end of the parking lot and turned left on Kemp. He ran the red light and accelerated.

  “I’m sorry I hit you back there,” Mike said. “It was uncalled for. But listen to me, okay? As much as you or I don’t want to admit it, we’re going to have to act like a team for the time being. If that’s gonna continue to happen, there needs to continue to be two of us. Understand? … How’s your cheek?”

  “S’alright. I deserved it. I could’ve been killed or bitten, and I know it,” Joseph said, rubbing his jaw. “Still … that really fuckin’ stung.”

  “You’re conscious aren’t ya? It was just a love tap.”

  “Yeah? Well I’d love to tap you.”

  …

  “That didn’t sound as awkward in your head as it did when you said it … did it?”

  “Fuck you, Mike.”

  * * *

  The newscaster did his best to read the news clearly, calmly, without displaying any visible signs of panic. If he panicked, he knew his viewers would do the same. He had a duty to them, a responsibility to inform them, and it is one that he fulfilled diligently. The newsroom crew also was aware of this responsibility, and they too remained calm as they carry out their various tasks. After years of dealing with emergencies, they have learned all-too-well how to shut down their emotions. They do their jobs, even when every part of their being begs them to start running around in circles, screaming like brainless banshees, as a majority of the regular public is already doing.

  He was halfway through reading an “authorized” statement from local officials when his chief camera operator falls to the floor. The boom operator, Mitch, saw his fellow crewman in distress and dropped his microphone, unleashing a wailing complaint of high-pitched feedback. He bent over to examine his fallen colleague.

  “Hey, Stan, are you ok? Stan, can you hear me?” Mitch asked, praying that Stan is just overcome by stress or exhaustion. He reached over, picked up Stan’s left arm, and checked the wrist for a pulse. He put his ear over Stan’s face, hoping to feel evidence of any “signs of life.”

  “Holy shit, guys! He’s got no pulse and he’s not breathing! Jim, dial 911! Bob, grab the AED,” Mitch yelled. He gave his orders clearly and to specific individuals, just as he’s been trained to do in every CPR class he’d taken every year for the last five years since his father had nearly died of a heart attack.

  “What are you talking about, Mitch? He’s sitting up,” Bob said to him, pointing over his shoulder.

  Mitch began to turn around; his racing heart briefly relieved. Before he could face his fallen colleague, however, Stan lunged at him. The cameraman took hold of Mitch’s shoulders and tore into the flesh of his neck.

  “Get him off me,” Mitch cried, trying to hit his attacker and pull away at the same time.

  Mitch pulled away and lost a chunk of bloody skin and meat from the left side of his throat. The man wasted no time, jumping back onto Mitch and pinning him to the floor. Mitch turned his head and shoved hi
s forearms into Stan’s chest, trying to protect his face. Not soon enough. Stan snapped his teeth down hard on the upper half of Mitch’s right ear. Mitch screamed in pain.

  Bob finally reached the melee, and smashed the cameraman on top of the head with a fire extinguisher. Stan slumped over.

  “Jesus Christ, Mitch! I thought you said you took CPR! How could you say he had no pulse,” the newscaster said with a scolding tone. He leaned down to take a look at the damage to Mitch’s ear and neck.

  “He didn’t. I could have sworn. I know he didn’t have any life signs,” Mitch insisted, pushing the body the rest of the way off of him and sitting up. “I know it’s been a few months since my last CPR and first aid course, but there’s just no way to miss the signs of life.”

  Mitch got up with a little help from Bob and the pair head to the washroom to get cleaned up. That’s when Mitch noticed something red and bright in his peripheral vision. The “on air light” was still glowing. He pointed to it without a word. The newscaster straightened his tie, ran his hands along the sides of his coifed hair, and returned to his place at the desk … in front of the cameras. The remaining crew finished the scheduled program, while the anchorman did a terrible job of explaining what they had just unintentionally broadcast.

  * * *

  Mike figured he didn’t have to worry about violating any more traffic laws. He sped up. The Kemp Boulevard swept left and slightly back to the right. Mike looked out his window at the state hospital as he passed it.

  Several people were milling around in the courtyards. More clustered near one of the ground floor windows of a building behind the main entrance. Smoke was starting to billow out of one of the buildings further back. The guard shack’s windows were smeared with drying blood. Mike turned his attention back to the road.