Dead South Rising (Book 1)

by Sean Robert Lang

  “I said hurry up, sweet tits. Ain’t gonna tell ya ag—”

  And then there it was. The unmistakable crack of a rifle shot echoing across the pasture. The earth seemed to stop spinning, in motion no more, the bullet having pushed against the rotating planet, bringing it to a standstill. The equal and opposite reaction. She half expected to float up and up and up, gravity relieved of its duty. At least for the moment.

  Sammy belly-flopped into the dirt, his hand snapping to the side of his head, magnetized. His blood-stained cowboy hat sailed from his head. Tumbling from his grip, the Smith and Wesson thumped to the ground. And out of reach. His eyes bulged, streaked with terror and surprise.

  It happened quick, not in slow-motion like Jessica had expected. Hoped. Everything was on super fast-forward. And she’d lost her bearings for a second, lost sight of Sammy’s pistol, a clump of weeds swallowing it, hiding it.

  Gills spun to one knee, reaching behind him, drawing one of his handguns. Then fired a fusillade of shots at the shed. Metal slammed metal. Jess covered her ears. She could still hear bullets piercing and punishing the tin, even from as far out as they were.

  David gave in to gravity, skipping to his knees, and face-planted in the field. Jessica guessed it was just too much for him, the physical and mental stress. But she slid over to him, a lightning-quick once-over, just to be sure a bullet hadn’t strayed, found an unintended target.

  Even with her ears covered again, she heard another distinct rifle shot clap against the encroaching evening air. It meant Randy was still alive, and she breathed another breath for him.

  She glimpsed Gills, expecting a cranial explosion at any second. Even shielded her eyes in anticipation. Hearing be damned. But the stout Mexican kept right on throwing bullets back at the building. He dropped to his stomach, popping off strategic rounds, careful not to expend every last one. Then she eyed his second, identical Colt 1911 holstered snuggly behind his back. One of his ‘wings,’ as he’d called it. If she could just … reach—

  Then, silence, save for the ghosts of gunshots already fired lingering.

  “Goddamnit, son of a motherfucking bitch! Fuck!”

  Jessica’s gaze honed in on the source spewing the profanity, on Sammy. A very much alive Sammy.

  No, no, no. Shit. Randy missed. He missed. Damn.

  But Randy hadn’t missed. He just didn’t make the ever-important kill-shot.

  Sammy rolled on the ground like wasps were swarming, his hands to the side of his head. And he cursed. And cursed. And then cursed some more. Loudly. He was livid, but not dead, the side of his face a slimy, bloody mess.

  She couldn’t see the wound, what with him rolling and groaning and bitching and whining. But he’d been hit. To give Randy another chance, she scrambled away from the whining wounded duck.

  When she did, the earth beside her spit soil and grass into the air. The echoing whip-crack of a rifle immediately followed. Randy had taken another shot, missed. The ground spewed more dirt and grass, another miss. Flecks of debris stung her cheek and temple, and she hugged the ground in a hurry. She wasn’t ready to chisel ‘collateral damage’ onto her own tombstone as cause of death.

  Gills reciprocated, firing another round of shots. In between blasts, he glanced back at Sammy. “Yo Sammy! You bueno, brother?”

  Sammy curled up into a fetal position. “No, bueno, mi amigo. No bueno. Motherfucker shot my goddamned ear, again!” His normally smart-ass, grinding tone had taken on feminine qualities. Jessica almost laughed at him.

  Instead, she turned her attention back to Guillermo’s gleaming weapon holstered near the small of his back.

  “Shit,” Gills exclaimed when another clod of dirt exploded near his face.

  Randy was taking chances, just like she had ordered and urged him to do. Begged him to do. And for this, Jessica was most thankful. She just prayed he would hurry up and kill these bastards. Soon. She was all for chances, encouraged them, but unnecessary ones would kill them all. Eventually.

  C’mon, Randy. You can do it. You can take them out. You can—

  She heard the whizzing scream of a bullet above her. A little too close for comfort, as the old cliché went. Had she been on her knees, well …

  Jessica couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t worry about being hit. Being shot. She’d have to trust in someone else, as tough as it was for her to do. She believed in feeding the universe what she hoped to get out of it. Right now, she wanted the deaths of two ill-intentioned thugs, and she wasn’t sure what she had to sacrifice to make that happen. Tit for tat, and all that.

  Her limited options unfolded rapidly before her. Running away made the most sense. With Sammy squalling like a baby and Gills distracted by Randy the Not-So-Accurate-Sniper, she and David might have a chance. But David’s physical condition was far from conducive to a speedy escape on foot. He’d practically passed out on the steps before being dragged out here.

  Scratch fleeing on foot.

  The next (and more likely) option was to grab Guillermo’s second pistol, and blast these two assholes away where they lay. Save the day that way. She was a better shot than Randy, and being near point-blank range, their backs to her, she couldn’t miss. It’d be even easier than the damn fish in a barrel bullshit. Much easier.

  Of course, her intuition and gut screamed at her to run. Randy could pin down Sam and Gills with sporadic gunfire. Hold them back. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb would be so focused on suppressing the tin shed threat that she and David could scamper off into the wild dark-blue yonder, and out of range. Randy could fall back, get to the car, get the hell out of there. Then, they could all meet up later. Done and done. It could work out so perfectly, so flawlessly.

  Except it couldn’t.

  In her efforts to distract Sammy and Guillermo earlier, she’d pulled the keys from the ignition, to keep the outlaws from using the remote or key to open the trunk. A delay tactic. She’d wanted to stall them for as long as possible. And she’d succeeded. Phase one complete.

  But now, as she covered her head and shielded her face from spraying debris, she reached to her pocket, finding what she’d normally be happy to find—the keys. The same keys that Randy would need to start the car and escape. She’d single-handedly just assured his fate by carelessly pocketing the car keys. And with that simple old-world habit, she’d failed him. Failed them.

  She wanted to cry. A desperate situation with a glimmer of hope now reeked of helplessness. It could have worked out so damn perfectly. So smoothly. Now she’d have to take that risk. Steal a man’s gun. Kill that man with it.

  Sliding snakelike toward Guillermo, she stretched her arm, and another divot of dirt hopped like a frog on fire. She trembled, and her breathing betrayed her.

  Chapter 40

  David considered dying. Just letting go. Giving up. It would be the easy choice. The passive option. All he had to do was lie there, prone in the weeds and dirt and cow shit and sticker burrs and bugs … and never get up. With Randy’s horrible aim, a stray bullet would surely hit him. If he was lucky. And if a .243 caliber chunk of lead gone astray didn’t do him in, then Sammy would surely oblige. Happily. Then there was Guillermo, who could probably kill him with a well-aimed fist. David welcomed any of those options. Hell, all of those options. Simultaneously. Because it meant he could rest his tired mind and body, and possibly see his daughter again. That is if he went to the same place in death she went. Oh, how he missed her.

  He’d resolved himself to death the moment they started marching through the field. Dead man walking, just like the shufflers that ambled about aimlessly day and night.

  But while lying there face-first on the ground, ruminating on his own demise, something made him look over to his left. It wasn’t Sammy’s caterwauling or flailing about. He’d tuned that out already. And it wasn’t the pieces of pasture showering down on and around him with every ill-aimed shot from Randy’s rifle. It was none of those things.

  It was a quiet resolve that caugh
t his eye. A determination. A will to win, a will to live. It was Jessica’s stealthy, nerves-of-steel-slithering toward Gills that snagged his attention. And he realized what she was about to do.

  And it did something to him. It was the kick in the soul he needed. That elusive spark of zeal. Despite bleak odds, she was moving toward the danger, toward the answer, toward their only hope of salvation and survival. The hard choice, but the right one.

  Bryan’s innocent tone rang through the gunshots like a celestial trumpet: Right, because we want to do the right thing. The right thing. Right. Thing.

  David moved, spinning on his stomach like a helicopter blade, and faced the danger right along with his cousin.

  Guillermo was on his belly and elbows, and Jessica’s hand was almost upon his second Colt 1911 when he instinctively (or coincidentally) reached behind him to draw it, his hand falling on hers. He turned his head, his black ponytail snapping the ground like a whip. And time seemed to freeze, his eyes alight and dancing with the realization that things would get very, very bad for him and Sammy should this petite woman succeed in pulling that fully loaded firearm from his holster.

  Gills latched onto Jessica’s probing wrist, his teeth clenched and bared, veins bulging with determination and anger. And desperation. Jess didn’t even scream, all her energy funneled into getting the gun. Do or die, simple as that.

  David did what he had to do, the only thing he could do. Though his broken ribs ground together like sticks sparking fire, though his face and muscles and lungs throbbed a torturous ache, he dug his knees and toes and fingers into the earth, a flying push-up of sorts, launching himself over Jessica and straight at the head of the man determined to win the weapon tug of war.

  His elbow landed squarely in Guillermo’s ear, planting the Mexican’s scarred cheek hard in the dried-up ground. There was a grunt, and David’s advantage did not last long as the superiorly stronger Guillermo quickly bucked both David and Jessica off his back like a hacked-off rodeo bull.

  David rolled to the side and onto his bruised back, hands clutching his torso while he grimaced in more pain and more damage done to his beat up body.

  “You’re a deadman,” Gills promised through a glower. He was on his knees, pressing to his feet. His primary Colt 1911 empty, he tossed it aside, reached behind him to draw the other.

  “No, you are,” Jessica said. She stood behind him, aiming the man’s own pistol at his back.

  Gills clenched empty hands, turned to face Jessica. His expression decried an unfair defeat.

  “Knife. Ground. Now.”

  Slow and steady, he unsheathed the Bowie knife, held it a moment.

  Jess aimed the pistol at his head, squinting one eye. “I won’t miss.”

  He tossed the knife to the grass.

  As Jessica distracted the disarmed Mexican, David glimpsed the suddenly quiet Sammy, who had found his own firearm. Clawing, groping, he was trying desperately to reach it. To even out the odds.

  Pushing through pain he’d never experienced before, David willed his body to action. It was as though his muscles moved via an outside force, too spent, too tired, too beat up to function on their own. An energy loan. From above.

  I’ll pay you back, I promise.

  David scrambled toward Sammy, fingers splayed cat-like, and he latched onto the man’s shredded ear. Or rather what was left of it. Randy’s first shot had taken yet another piece. If things kept up at this rate, Sam would have no ears by the end of the week. And maybe no head.

  A howling. An angst-filled, primordial howling. Sammy’s head was too blood-slicked to get a good grip, but David had effectively hooked his target nonetheless. While one hand turned and twisted the ragged flesh that was once Sammy’s ear, he reached for the man’s revolver with the other. And won.

  David rolled off the hollering man, quickly pointing the pistol, thumbing back the hammer. And all that old anger came rolling in, feeling right as rain and as predictable as the tides. And it was a high tide, indeed. He could end it, finish it, right then and there. It would be over and done. They’d never have to worry about Sammy or Gills ever again. His hand trembled, finger teasing the trigger. God he wanted to squeeze that trigger.

  Jessica yelled, “Randy! Come out! It’s over!”

  Sammy’s wailing continued, f-bombs abound, but it was indeed over. Realizing this, he quickly shut his screaming down, hand to his head, his eyes locking on the man who now held his life in a rickety balance. One that was tipping.

  Huffing and grunting, David pressed and pushed to his feet in phases, wobbly, all the while keeping the hand cannon aimed at Sammy.

  “Down, on your belly,” Jess ordered Gills.

  She turned to Sam. “You, too. Spread eagle.” Then she smiled a sinister smile. “Sweet tits.”

  Scowling, Sam rolled onto his belly, one arm out, the other hand plastered to the side of his head. “You gonna kill us? Huh?”

  Ignoring Sam, Jess glanced toward the shed again. “Randy! Come on out.” An uncomfortable moment passed. “Randy?”

  She shot a concerned glance at David.

  David didn’t want to take his sights off of Sammy, wanted to fire a bullet into his thick caveman skull. And Randy not answering only served to fan the flames of fury. “I’ll check,” David managed, dragging himself back from the inferno roaring inside of him. “You got these two?”

  Still breathing hard, she nodded, “Yeah.”

  David started slowly toward the shed, then stopped. Randy appeared from around the corner, rifle propped to his shoulder using one hand. His other arm dangled heavily at his side.

  Jessica turned, curious and concerned about David’s expression. “Randy!”

  “I’m okay,” he called, though his face told a different story.

  Seeing that Jessica and David had disarmed their oppressors, Randy let the rifle fall to his side, letting it dangle in his grip as impotently as his other blood-streaked arm.

  “Are you okay? Were you shot?”

  Randy nodded. “Got tagged. But I’m okay.”

  As he drew closer, David and Jess saw blood running down his left arm. But he walked a proud pace, strong. This obese and sometimes awkward fellow floated on a cloud of fortitude. He’d done well. Very well.

  “Let me see,” said Jess.

  “It’s okay. I’ll live.”

  “We need to get you back—”

  Randy laughed a pain-tinged laugh. “It’s okay, Jess. Really. Missed the bone. Just shredded some skin and muscle.”

  David watched her study him a moment, her lips twisted in apprehension and doubt. He knew Randy well enough to know he was trying to be tough. For her.

  “Well, you took good care of me,” she said, “so I’ll take good care of you.”

  His face beamed through his beard.

  Returning their attention to the unusually quiet outlaw prisoners, Jess said, “What about these two?”

  David understood in an instant, right then and there, that a second chance stared him in the face. Redemption. The opportunity to make the right decision. For once. His anger cooled, abating as though doused with liquid nitrogen. It was a new experience, this sudden, overwhelming calm. He didn’t understand where it came from, or how it had pervaded him. But he accepted it. Welcomed it. Despite this, what he said next would prove to be almost as painful as the beatings he’d endured.

  “We let them go.”

  Jessica blinked hard at David. “What?”

  “We let them go.”

  “Are you out of your mind? They were going to kill us, David. Kill us. Do you realize what you’re doing?”

  He touched his swollen lip with the back of his hand, his gaze on the two men lying prone in the grass, their backs to him. Then nodded, even though it hurt to do so. “Yes. I do.”

  Randy chimed in. “David, are you sure? I mean, I didn’t agree with cuffing them to the tree and leaving them, but that was before—”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” David sa
id easily. “We’re not murderers. I’m not going to purposefully murder someone. No matter what they’ve done or said to me.”

  “Listen to the man. It’s the most sense he’s made,” Sammy said.

  “Shut up, flat ass.” Jess said. Then to her cousin, “David, listen to me. We’ll have to watch our backs forever. They’ll come after us. We’ll never be safe with these two … assholes … on the loose.”

  “Jess, had I not acted so rashly, they could very well have taken what they wanted and left.” He breathed an obviously painful, deep breath. “I started it. It was my fault.”

  Sammy chimed in again, “That was the plan. But you had to—”

  “I said shut the fuck up.” Jessica racked the 1911’s slide, pointed it straight at Sammy’s back.

  Sam splayed himself as much as he could. He looked like a skydiver in mid-drop. “Easy, girl. Easy now.”

  Jessica’s lips pursed, and she took in heavy breaths through flaring nostrils. David could tell she was not buying into his decision. Wanted to end it here and now. Just as he’d wanted to do himself only moments ago.

  “Where is it, Jess?” David asked.

  She glared at him, lips twisted into a pale swirl.

  His brows climbed his forehead. “Where’s the stuff they want?”

  She hesitated, the seconds ticking by, then jabbed a reluctant thumb back toward the trailer house. “Behind the house. Beneath that pile of rotting corpses they killed.”

  David raised his voice. “Ya hear that, boys? Now you know where your shit is. You can take it and go.”

  Guillermo did a pushup, started to press to his feet.

  “Aaa,” David said, “not so fast, Gills. Randy, train your rifle on them. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. You two are going for a walk. A long walk. West. Away from here.” He wagged the Smith and Wesson’s barrel toward the field. “Gonna put you out to pasture, so to speak. You keep walking until we’re well outta sight. Until this whole place is outta sight. And then you keep walking. Comprende?”