The Infected (Book 4): Death Sentence

by Zuko, Joseph

  Dallas stood at the top step, “Yeah.” He looked at each of Blaine’s recruits. Dallas tried to memorize every individual on the church’s roster, their names as well as any interests they might have in common. It was another activity to keep himself busy and out of the local bars.

  Charlie Lowe stood at attention as if he was in line for inspection. He had a naturally thin frame and Dallas guessed it was a struggle at the gym to put any muscle on that body.

  Theo Boggs was built like a college athlete, broad shouldered and ready to make a tackle. His eyes jumped around. He seemed to have trouble focusing on any one object.

  Shawna Rollins was an avid runner and her physique showed it. She possessed muscular thighs and an almost gaunt face. She fidgeted with her rifle. Clearly Shawna hadn’t held that model before.

  He wiggled the toothpick across his lips. “Brother Paul thanks you for volunteering.” He noticed how much they responded to that statement.

  Everyone in that church owes their life to the man.

  If he asks you to go on a mission to save his brother, who were they to say no.

  “Let’s roll.” Dallas turned and took position behind the drive’s seat. Blaine made his way up the stairs and stowed his gear across from Dallas. The others entered the bus and found their seats.

  Taggart slowly walked down the aisle stopping at each team member. “Good luck.” He held out his dirty hand for a goodbye shake. “Y’all take care of each other, okay?” Taggart paused next to Blaine and handed him the keys to the ride. “She’s all gassed up. The front plow ain’t meant to hit cars. Only the… people or whatever they are.”

  Blaine took the keys. “Got it.” He started the mighty engine and the whole vehicle shuddered as it idled. Taggart marched down the steps and pulled the door closed behind him. Dallas locked the bolts into position.

  Blaine put the rig into gear and slowly maneuvered his way out of the field, heading straight for the road. Blaine waved at Brother Paul, who was standing at the back of the church. Paul gave a brief wave and a nod of approval to the team as they headed out into the unknown. The majority of his focus stayed on Dallas, it was an intense stare, begging for him to return with his younger brother. Dallas remained motionless like a statue, unsure of how to respond. Blaine shifted into second and passed the building. Ahead of them sat a barricade of vehicles blocking the driveway. A church member moved a truck allowing the bus to exit.

  This is it. We’re leaving the safety of the church. God help us.

  A somber feeling permeated the bus, as if they were a losing team with nothing to do but think about their failings on the gridiron.

  As the front tires hit the pavement, Charlie Lowe spoke. His voice was deep and rough. It sounded like he gargled gravel every morning to freshen his breath. “What can we expect outside the perimeter?”

  Dallas looked back at them. Fear stretched across each of their faces.

  They need a pep talk. Dallas was never much for making speeches, but now was not the time to let such a silly fear take control.

  “Chaos,” Dallas pulled the soggy toothpick from his lips and flung it out the window. “But, we’ll be fine if we stick together, move fast and keep level heads.”

  Shawna’s eyes narrowed as she asked, “Do we know who has him and what kind of shape Eric’s in?”

  “We have the truck’s location. Beyond that, there isn’t much intel.”

  Sweat trickled down Theo’s forehead. He wiped his sleeve across his brow as he asked, “Like, he could be anywhere and we’re just gonna knock door to door until we find him?”

  Dallas fished another toothpick from his pocket and slid it into his mouth, “I have a feeling we’ll know right away which house he’s in.”

  Chapter 9

  A bedroom window smashed into thousands of pieces. It was destroyed by the army of zombies outside Penny’s home. Thankfully Karen and Leon’s barricade held. Blood covered fists and skulls bounced off every inch of the building’s siding. The walls of the structure groaned. The second bedroom window gave. It cracked like gunfire and sent a shiver down everyone’s spine.

  Karen worked up a lather of sweat as she stabbed her thirtieth zombie in the face. Only a sliver of sunlight shined through the tiny gap between the frame and the pile of dead flesh that made up the wall of gore outside the busted sliding glass door. The young woman to Karen’s left grunted like a weight lifter every time she thrust the spear into a beast’s skull. Blood squirted from their kills and coated the two with black goo. The woman’s natural red hair was caked with dried blood and matted to her scalp. A fresh layer of zombie fluid hosed her crusty locks and added black to the color.

  It didn’t take long for them to completely block up the doorway with bodies. Karen’s spear sounded like it cracked open a coconut as she twisted and yanked the blade from a dead teenager’s face. The stack of bodies in the backyard was high enough to keep any new zombies from trying to claw their way into the house.

  Karen heaved in a lungful of air as she lowered her spear and stepped from the disgusting wall. Juice dripped from the knife blade taped to the end of the walking stick. It drizzled Karen’s white knuckles like chocolate sauce on ice cream.

  They did it. They were safe. At least for the moment. Karen let out a long exhausted breath.

  “What’s your name?” Karen asked as she leaned onto her spear.

  She answered, “Sara,” as she ripped the spear from the skull of her last kill. She backed away from the nasty pile of mangled bodies.

  “Karen,” she offered her a hand and the ladies officially met with a sticky, blood covered shake. “How did you end up here?”

  “Jim helped me back in Portland. He saved me from some really nasty guys. You should have seen him. The man’s got some solid moves.” Sara leaned on her spear and caught her breath.

  “He got to use Krav Maga on someone?” Karen beamed with pride. “I signed him up for that class.”

  “What’s Krav Maga?”

  “It’s a class…” She shook it off before she started to ramble. “It doesn’t matter. Where are your parents?”

  “Gone.”

  “Sorry.” Karen chewed her bottom lip. “They got my Mama, too.”

  “Sorry.”

  They bowed their heads and took the moment to rest. Nothing more needed to be said on the subject.

  Jim entered the dining room. The wife and husband couldn’t help but smirk at each other’s goop covered faces. “Front door is secure.” Jim eyed the sliding door. Black blood stained the wood slats. It was a horror show of wrecked body parts. For some reason he couldn’t stop gazing at it. As if it was a demented work of art.

  Karen looked over the homemade spear, “Build this yourself?”

  Jim turned and faced her. “Devon and I got stuck in a Big 5 after my car was totaled.”

  Karen raised an eyebrow. “The guy that said “dude” all the time?”

  Sara and Jim shared a glance. His head dropped to his chin as she turned away. Both tried their best to keep it together. “Yeah. We had to pick between heavy shotguns and ammo or a light knife on a stick.”

  Karen passed the primitive weapon to her husband. “I’m going to check on the girls.”

  Sara nodded at the sliding doors. “What are we going to do about this?”

  Jim reached for the stick that controlled the vertical blinds. He pulled it slowly down the track until the off-white plastic strips covered the mess. It was like he put a Band-Aid on someone’s disemboweled body. Jim let go of the draw stick and looked back at the ladies. The flat expression on both of their faces was priceless. He shrugged his shoulders and headed back into the kitchen.

  Karen pulled the empty magazines from her jean pocket and passed them to Jim, “Can you fill these for me?”

  “No problem.”

  Karen nodded at Sara, “You want to get cleaned up, hun?”

  “Yes please.” Sara leaned the spear in the corner and followed Karen out of the dining ro
om.

  Jim propped his spear up against the fridge as he entered the kitchen. The box of ammo for Karen’s gun sat close to the range. Eric’s limp body lay on the floor next to the sink. He let out a weak cough and his eyelids fluttered open. Jim hadn’t noticed him until just now.

  Karen must have saved his ass. Lucky bastard gets to live a little longer.

  Jim rested against the kitchen counter as he worked the rounds into Karen’s magazines.

  Frank muscled the duffle bag full of guns and ammo into the kitchen. He grunted as he set the bag on the counter next to Jim, “You working on a plan?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Good. I was starting to get worried we were stuck in here.” Frank unzipped the bag and unloaded a few boxes of ammo onto the counter.

  Troy stood at the kitchen’s entry. He pointed at Jim’s head and said, “We should change the dressings on your wounds. In fact we should get everyone cleaned up as best we can. Who knows how this disease spreads.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Jim said as he finished the first mag and started in on the next.

  “What should we do about him?” Troy motioned at Eric.

  Jim drew in a long breath. “Try and get him cleaned up. I guess.”

  Cliff sat on the floor with his back to the door. His legs were splayed out in front of him. Cliff’s face had gone slack. His head looked like it was nodding at something, but it was just the vibration from the zombies hitting the door.

  The race into this house.

  Boarding up of the door.

  It all felt like a dream. Jim had interrupted his downward slide into the abyss.

  It’s time.

  Time to get back to shutting off the system for good.

  He wished Jim had left him out in the yard. Then his pain would be gone. He would be back with his family. That’s where he wanted to be. He needed to hold his family again.

  Tina!

  The love of my life.

  He begged to be back in her arms once more.

  Why didn’t Jim leave me out there? Why did he even bring us here? Anger clouded his mind. Cliff noticed the strange man staring at him from across the room, but he didn’t care.

  Leon squatted in the corner of the foyer. He’d moved the circular saw out of the man’s reach. Leon’s .38 special was tucked in his front pocket and he kept his hand on it, just in case.

  No one else seems worried about the carpenter guy going nuts again. The others might not have noticed it, but he clearly did. Leon had seen it before in his line of work. When a man loses everything he holds dear he becomes unhinged, untrustworthy and a danger to others.

  If he doesn’t give a shit about himself, how can he possibly care about us?

  If we live or die, it’ll mean nothing to him. So Leon watched with an eagle eye to keep everyone safe, but his attention was also pulled toward the kitchen. He couldn’t help himself, but he kept checking out Karen’s husband.

  Leon told himself. He isn’t that good looking. What does Karen see in this guy?

  He’s not that big of a deal.

  He’s got the broad shoulder thing sure, but his face is all kinds of messed up.

  Leon looked a little closer and noticed Jim’s features were distorted because of some beat down he suffered recently. His nose was swollen. His black eyes looked like he was wearing a bank robber’s mask. He looked like a mental case with that bandage on his forehead.

  Karen and the young woman passed Leon in route to the back bathroom where the kids were hiding. The young lady, even though she was covered in infected gore, was quite attractive.

  Well at least there were some options now.

  Karen isn’t the only fish in this sausage filled pond.

  I just wish I hadn’t picked up that radio and embarrassed myself in front of everyone.

  “You alright, Leon?” Karen caught him off guard.

  He looked up at them. His legs were getting stiff from the squat so he stood up and gave them a stretch. Leon towered above the young lady. “Oh yeah, I’m fine.”

  Karen motioned toward the door. “Kind of feels like you’re back in that jail cell where we found you, right?”

  All the black blood on Leon’s face kept them from noticing it turned red.

  Damn it! Why did she say that? I’ve got to do something. Shit.

  Leon checked the young girl’s reaction before he spoke. He lowered his voice and raised an eyebrow, “My cellmates have vastly improved.”

  Now everyone knows I was in jail yesterday. Play it cool Leon. You’re a law breakin’ rebel.

  Girls like that.

  Right?

  The young girl didn’t seem to care one way or the other. She had the same slack look as the carpenter sitting on the floor.

  Maybe she was still cheesed about the radio thing?

  “I just wanted to say sorry, again, about the radio thing. No hard feelings. I hope?” Leon extended his hand toward Sara.

  She reached and gave it a shake. “We’re good.”

  Karen must have noticed the embarrassment from his body movement, because the next thing out of her mouth was. “I’m glad you were here. Again, we wouldn’t have made it without you. I’m going to check on the girls and let them know we’re okay. This is Sara, by the way.” And like that Karen was gone, heading down the hallway for the back bedrooms, with the young chick in tow. Leon looked at the slats secured to the door. The place did feel like a prison. For the first time he wished he was back in his cell.

  Karen’s knuckles wrapped against the bathroom door. “Girls, you can unlock the door. We’re okay.” Baby whispers were followed by the door knob wiggling as Valerie worked to get it unlocked.

  “Mama?” The little ones opened the bathroom door and gazed up at their filthy goo covered Mom. “You’re all dirty.”

  “Dirty!” Robin repeated it to clarify just how bad their Mama looked.

  “I know.” Karen stepped into the bathroom and headed for the sink.

  “Hi,” Valerie was instantly interested in the young lady accompanying her mother.

  “Hi,” Robin waved her hand up at the stranger.

  “Girls, this is Sara. She’s a friend of Daddy’s. This is…”

  Sara cut her off. “Valerie and Robin. Your Daddy told me all about you two.”

  Valerie pointed at the goop on Sara and asked, “Why are you covered in…” Valerie’s tongue stuck out with disgust as she said, “…blood.”

  “We were fighting the bad guys and it got messy. Come here so Sara can get in and clean herself up.” Karen waved her children to her side.

  Sara entered the cramped bathroom. She didn’t recognize herself. The reflection was of someone in her thirties. She looked like an old lady with half a dozen rugrats and a fat husband that didn’t lift a finger around the house. She appeared tired, haggard and beaten down by life. It was a stark contrast to the perky young face she was used to seeing in the mirror. Jim’s children buzzed around her. They fired question after question, never waiting for an answer before they asked another. Sara had done a ton of babysitting in her younger years. She liked kids. They were fun and said crazy shit, but right now she needed some alone time and a strong cup of coffee. No mocha or cream, just black as hell coffee.

  Karen ran water over her face and cleaned off the zombie slop. She examined her features. Her lips were swollen and she had a knot on her forehead. “Oh, that bastard.”

  “Bad word.” Valerie let her mother know that she was disappointed.

  Sara sounded distant, “You should have left him in the yard.”

  “Maybe,” said Karen as she handed Sara a towel. “You know the difference between us and the zombies outside?”

  “They’re dead and we’re alive?”

  “True, but the main difference is they want to destroy life.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So we have to do everything we can to save it.”

  Frank and Troy lifted Eric’s limp body off the kitchen floor and ca
rried him into the living room and laid him on the couch. Troy dug though the bag of medical supplies they had taken from the police station. He found a roll of gauze and peroxide.

  “What do you think?” asked Troy.

  Frank eased his tired old body into the recliner that sat next to the couch. “I’ve been trying not to.”

  The corner of Troy’s mouth curled. “I hear ya.” He moved next to Eric and pulled a washcloth from his pocket and began cleaning up blood from Eric’s face. “This guy is such a mess. I have no idea what to do for him. I’d need to douse his whole head with Neosporin and hope for the best. I don’t know why Jim wants to even try and save this asshole.” Troy felt himself babbling. He shifted gears and started again. “What do you think about all this?”

  Frank took out a pack of smokes. He quickly counted them. Only ten remained. “Shit! Bad time to go cold turkey.” Frank slid a cigarette between his lips and fired up his lighter. He breathed out a lungful of thick smoke and asked, “Do you mean our current predicament? Or the world at large?”

  Troy had half of Eric’s face cleared when he answered, “Both.”

  “Well, the world at large has been over populated for some time. We poisoned the land and polluted the waters so I guess it was just a matter of time before Mother Nature fought back.” Frank savored his burning stick. He slowly inhaled and sucked the nicotine deep into his lungs before he began again. “As far as our current struggle goes, I’m confident we’ll think up something to get rid of the things beating down our door. Jim’s got us out of plenty of tight spots.”

  “Say we clear the property of these things, then what?” Troy asked as he cleaned the wounds and secured a bandage around Eric’s skull.

  “I’m going to finish this cigarette, load a few more guns and check in with Jim. There is no reason to plan any farther ahead than that. We roll with the punches.”

  “But what if the punches land a knockout blow?” Troy covered Eric’s bite to the scalp and some of his other scrapes.

  Smoke plumed out of the corner of Frank’s mouth. “We wipe off the blood and get back up.”