DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

  11

  Geek Goes Boom

  “You really think this’ll work?” Heather whispered in Cary’s ear.

  “If Kevin says it will,” Cary placed a comforting hand on Heather’s shoulder, “then I believe him.”

  Heather peeked up over the top of the car that Kevin had instructed her and Cary to stay behind. Beside them were three fully loaded shotguns, seven different handguns, and a pair of hunting rifles. Leaning against the rear wheel next to Cary was an iron-tipped poker. Cary had taken to bringing it with him every time they went out. It was great for killing zombies. Only…that wasn’t the target today.

  The bad men were rolling, and all indicators were that they were coming this way. Kevin was at the other end of the long stretch of road that ran alongside the western edge of the huge cornfield that was starting to grow what seemed like a foot a day lately as the summer reached its hottest point. Heather was guessing it was getting close to August at the very least. She did know that it had been three weeks since Mike’s death.

  ***

  Her mind drifted back to that long day…there had been a lot of arguing between Cary and Kevin about how Mike had become one of those things. They’d finally agreed that it had to be transferable by taking in any infected blood. It wasn’t enough to just get some on you, they’d both had plenty of experiences with that, and eventually they were only certain that Cary—as well as herself—shared immunity.

  Kevin had related about clearing out some RV park with Mike, their friend Darrin who’d been shot and killed by these bad men, and the Bergmans. He’d talked about that woman Ruth like she was some kind of zombie-slaying superhero. Quite frankly, Heather was sick of hearing about this Wonder Woman.

  They’d come to the conclusion that you had to ingest it, or maybe if infected blood got in an open wound or into your eyes. (That seemed to be the case with Mike.) After her account of what she’d remembered, they decided that some of the gross, smelly blood that had trickled down Mike’s face from that piece of zombie guts that landed on his forehead had to be the cause.

  Kevin and Cary had gone out and dug a hole at the edge of the cornfield. While they were absent, Heather found some rags and fetched a bucket of water. She’d cleaned Mike and then found him some clothes that sorta fit. She’d had to pin a few things up, but nobody would notice; it wasn’t like Kevin or Cary were gonna inspect him and comment on her tailoring skills. Then she’d found a pretty nice table cloth and wrapped Mike’s body in it and started to sew it shut. She’d left it open from about his chest down like an open casket.

  When the two men returned, they were hot, dirty, and sweaty. They came up the stairs and stopped cold when they saw their friend all done up in Heather’s handiwork.

  “Oh, Heather.” Cary had sunk down to his knees.

  She looked at the men’s faces and briefly felt a twinge of sadness. Maybe they’d wanted to do all that themselves and she’d ruined everything.

  “He looks…” Kevin paused and swallowed hard making a strangled sound in his throat, “…he looks great.”

  Kevin had taken Heather in his arms and hugged her really tight. Slowly she wrapped her arms around him and sank into the hug, patting him on the back gently and whispering reassurances. Then…Cary ruined everything by coming over and throwing his arms around the both of them. She felt a tinge of guilt at her feelings towards Cary, but only a tinge.

  They’d sat quietly while she finished closing the makeshift shroud. Afterwards, they’d carried the bundle out to the grave. Everybody said a few words, and with a gentle reverence, they covered the grave and planted a marker with ‘MIKE’ carved into the face of the cross.

  That night, Kevin had announced that he was ready to “take the fight to Shaw and his band of animals.” He laid everything out to her and Cary in clear and concise detail. When he was done, he asked the two of them if they felt his plan was doable. Cary nodded, but Heather simply shrugged. She didn’t understand anything beyond the fact that those guys, Shaw and his men, had taken a group of women and then shot one of Kevin’s friends and now he wanted to get revenge.

  The next day, Kevin left with a pack full of gadgets. He said he didn’t have everything he needed, but he would be scavenging as he went. He was gone for a week, and Cary took that time to make several trips into Heath. Each time he left, he came back with a backpack full of stuff and went into the barn where he’d stay for hours.

  For that entire week, Heather was alone. A few times, she ventured out, determined to do a little scavenging of her own. Plus, she pitted herself against a zombie or two. She had a feeling that it was very important that she learn to take care of herself. Each day that passed with Kevin gone was a day when it was possible that he’d run across some situation that could kill him.

  “It’s fate,” Cary said cryptically one day for no reason.

  She began to worry that Cary might leave and not come back. He didn’t seem too close to Kevin and hadn’t spoken ten words to her since Kevin left.

  One morning, she’d been walking up one of the rows of corn. She’d seen a few zombies roaming around and decided it would not do to wait for Cary to deal with the problem.

  Three of the invading zombies lay sprawled where she’d dropped them with a well-placed spear thrust—no sense leaving Mike’s very efficient zombie-killer propped up in a corner—and she was stalking the fourth. She heard the low moan—almost like it was calling for its friends—a few rows over. Moving between a pair of brown stalks, careful to make as little noise as possible, she saw it. The lone figure had stopped. It suddenly and inexplicably turned around without warning. The zombie toppled through the corn and landed on its back in her row!

  Heather had screamed and jumped back. Her hand went to the pistol on her hip, all thoughts of stealth vanished in an instant. Then she noticed the thin silver blade jutting from the thing’s left eye.

  “Heather?” Kevin had stepped over and through into her row.

  “Kevin!” She’d forgotten herself and bounded over to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

  He’d wrapped his free arm around her in a hug, his other still being used to clutch a five-foot tall spear that looked funny…pointed on both ends. She’d been so excited that she planted her lips on his before even realizing exactly what she was doing. Kevin’s eyes had grown so wide and bulged out so much that she was surprised they didn’t shoot out of his head.

  “Sorry.” She stepped back, brushing herself off. She remembered feeling like she wished she could be anywhere else at that exact moment. Luckily, as he always seemed to do, Kevin simply glossed over everything.

  “Like my new javelin?” Kevin had asked, holding out the funny shaped spear.

  “It’s…” Heather wanted to scream at his stupid, antiquated way of looking at her. “It’s nice.”

  They’d walked back to the farmhouse after he’d hunted down the other zombie and finished it off with his javelin. They woke Cary and, while she’d made them a breakfast of pancakes with canned fruit, Kevin explained what he’d done.

  After finding all the things he was looking for which he listed off individually to nods of approval, gasps of surprise and amazement—she couldn’t tell which—from Cary, he set his plan into motion. Apparently he’d fashioned a series of motion detectors with little transmitters. He set a gray box that looked like a fancy radio on the table, and then produced a small case with a bunch of big, brick-sized batteries inside.

  He’d set it up so that if something moved past his motion detectors, it would make his ‘radio’ beep. He said that he’d placed the motion detectors high enough so that a vehicle would trigger it, but that it was unlikely a zombie would. Also, he placed them in groups of three. They would trigger in rapid succession for a vehicle, but not so much for a slow, stumbling zombie wandering past.

  This morning, they’d gotten a signal. Then, in a steady series, group after group sounded. Something was on the road and coming their way. They’d been ready and wait
ing. Now it was time to put Kevin’s plan into full-effect.

  ***

  “Heather!” Cary hissed. “Pay attention! Kevin’s flashing the signal.”

  “Sorry.” She blushed, glancing up the road to see the bright, reflecting flash from the small mirror he’d held. One flash. Two flashes. Three. Four. Five.

  “Five vehicles,” Cary said grimly. He flashed back once to acknowledge.

  “You ready for this?” Cary turned to face her, eyes wide with excitement.

  “Yep.”

  “Alright,” he said. “You know what to do and where to meet if things go badly, remember these—”

  “These guys will want to take me alive, so be invisible and run for the field the first sign of trouble.”

  “As soon as Kevin detonates that rig, you have to start shooting anything that moves,” Cary lectured. “This won’t be like killing zombies. These are living people. They’ll scream, maybe even beg.”

  “What was it that you and Kevin kept saying while we were grabbing everything this morning?” Heather asked, but only paused for a second before answering her own question out loud. “The rules don’t apply.”

  Cary looked at the girl with a raised eyebrow and a puzzled expression. She was saying something and, right this moment with his entire body thrumming from the overload of adrenaline, he didn’t have a clue what. But it was important somehow. Well, he’d sort it out later. He could hear the distant rumble of approaching vehicles. He looked up at the long stretch of road; Kevin had disappeared. A glance back towards Heath revealed a few zombies already stumbling out of the ruins, coming to investigate the new sound.

  “Good thing they can’t run,” Heather said, checking the setting on the pistol-gripped shotgun she selected from the ones at their feet.

  “None of us would’ve lasted a week if those things could run.”

  “I’ve never seen any of those films,” Heather shrugged.

  “Yeah,” Cary moved to the front bumper with his shotgun and took a peek at the approaching convoy, “well, now you’re livin’ them,” he whispered.

  ***

  Kevin took a deep breath. The bitterness of dirt and cornstalks was all he could smell. He considered that for a moment. That meant the wind was blowing towards Heath, not from it. Funny how his senses and abilities of observation seemed to grow every day. By his best reckoning, it was mid-August. This nightmare had begun in mid-April. That meant, at the most, they’d survived four months so far. So much had happened so quickly.

  His mind flashed through the highlights…and lowlights. One of the focal points of the debates he, Cary, Mike, and Darrin used to get into when fantasizing about the zombie apocalypse was over how fast it would overwhelm society. Kevin had always argued that society would endure and that it would only be a disaster, rivaling the mortality rates of the Black Plague. He’d been so wrong. The Romerophiles were much more accurate. People had simply refused to believe what was staring them in the face. Or trying to eat their face more likely. And the impact on first-responders had actually been grossly underestimated. Events had unfolded much too quickly.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised. He thought back to the world he’d known; it was rude, crass and self-centered. Hell, nobody said “please” or “thank you” anymore unless they were Canadian. And the phrase “excuse me” well, that had actually become a rude retort rather than an apology. Everybody was so engrossed in their own lives, even if it was at the expense of those around them. Children were suing their schools over the “Pledge of Allegiance” instead of just sitting it out. Coaches couldn’t bench their athletes without parents coming out of the stands with clenched fists. The world had gone to Hell-in-a-hand basket.

  The rumble of the approaching vehicles shook him out of his thoughts. He could ruminate on the downfall of humanity later. Right now he needed to focus. He considered the vehicles as they turned down the long stretch of road that would take them to Heath. A large pick-up with a snowplow blade led the way, although they’d pretty much cleared this path long ago. Next was a large flatbed. It was obviously for whatever items they expected to haul out of town. That was followed by a school bus that had been transformed into an urban-assault vehicle. It was loaded with men who were probably well armed. The last two vehicles were military-style Hummers. Both had ominous and frightening .50 caliber machine guns. That might be a problem if even one survived the blast. Just one of those guns could mow down his entire cornfield in minutes.

  He flipped up the red safety cover on the toggle-switch and tried to gauge his estimated blast zone. If Cary did his job right, this had the potential to go very well. The lead truck passed by where the makeshift bomb was hidden. That had been the first test; would they notice if something was out of place or if the ‘landscape’ had been altered. The answer to that appeared to be a big negative.

  “Now,” Kevin breathed, willing Cary to implement his role in the operation. Nothing. Seconds seemed to pass, each one allowing the caravan to slip past what he considered to be the optimal place for his bomb to inflict the most damage.

  Boom. Boom.

  Two shotgun blasts came almost on top of one another. Exactly as he hoped, the third vehicle slammed on the brakes. He couldn’t tell from his position if the vehicle had actually been hit, but it had stopped. The vehicles behind it did likewise in an accordion-like manner, all bunched up.

  Kevin flicked the switch. There was a brief pause, a moment where he was filled with dread. He’d failed. He’d wired something incorrectly. Then…a huge explosion roared and sent a pillar of flame and smoke skyward. He’d greatly misjudged the power of the blast. A wall of heat rolled over him and his ears rang, drowning out all sound.

  Somehow, he’d ended up on his back and now found himself staring up at the clear blue sky. Only…it was speckled with…

  “Oh shit!” Kevin rolled to his left as a jagged piece of metal plunged deep into the ground where he’d been only a moment before. All around him, a deadly rainfall of debris, including the entire axel of a large vehicle—the school bus—came crashing to earth.

  Kevin smelled smoke, not just the acrid smell of his explosion but something else. Something like hair! That’s when his mind finally registered the burning sensations on his head. Both hands came up. When had he lost his leather hat? He began patting at his head, tamping out the places where his hair had actually caught fire. Looking around, he saw debris everywhere, not all of it metal.

  There were parts. Body parts. Directly in front of him, a blackened...was that part of a leg?...lay in the furrow between tires and some jagged metal. Taking a breath, and immediately choking on smoke that was growing thicker by the moment, Kevin tried to sit up. He felt dizzy and his insides felt as if some giant had scooped him up and shook him like a salt shaker.

  A muffled popping sound made its way through the thick haze that wouldn’t release its gripping hold of his skull. Something had grazed one cheek leaving a stinging trail on the left side of his face. Some of the nearby cornstalks fluttered, but not together as if in a breeze. Kevin glanced down at the wide, browning leaves and tried to make sense as a hole about the size of his pinky appeared in one.

  He staggered forward, one step after another as the world seemed to tilt suddenly on its side. Kevin’s eyes rolled back in his head as he plummeted gracelessly to the dry, dark earth.

  ***

  Cary watched the convoy close. They still seemed so far away, but Kevin had emphasized that it had nothing to do with damaging the oncoming cars or trucks. His job was to hopefully get the lead vehicle to stop and close up their ranks. Still, he saw the two Hummers at the rear and had no doubt that those .50 cals would punch right through this car they were using as cover. If he waited just a couple of extra breaths, he might be able to hit the driver of the lead truck and bring it to a stop in between the trailer and the overturned Lexus. The deep trench-style ditches on either side of the road would keep those big-ass machine guns out of play long enough fo
r him and Heather to beat feet out of here.

  “Cary?” Heather asked, pointing to where Kevin had told them to wait for the lead portion of the convoy to reach before opening fire, obviously upset that they’d past it.

  “Move out,” Cary said slowly. Then, one more breath and, “NOW!”

  Together they both popped up. Heather could see two people sitting in the cab of the truck. They weren’t close enough for her to clearly see their expressions, but she could see enough to recognize exaggerated O’s where both of their mouths were. Cary’s shotgun roared, startling Heather enough to move her finger to reflexively pull the trigger.

  Following Cary’s example and remembering everything Mike and Kevin had showed her about the shotgun, she jacked another round, getting a strange sensation at the power as the spent, red casing ejected, tumbling end over end through the air. She pulled the trigger again only barely registering that the lead truck had slammed on the brakes just as Kevin had hoped and predicted. She didn’t actually hear the second shot from her or Cary’s weapon.

  A huge explosion lifted Heather off of her feet and threw her backwards. She landed at an awkward angle, headfirst with her feet in the air in the ditch on the left-hand side of the road. Unable to slow her momentum, her feet came over and she ended up face down. Suddenly everything went dark, and her entire body was wrung of every bit of oxygen.

  Cary grinned wide when, a split second after he fired, he saw a spider web race across the driver’s side of the windshield. He paused, just a little too pleased with himself. He heard Heather let off another round.

  Oh no you—

  His mind began the thought, but before he could finish, a hellish explosion shattered it. A wave of energy and heat hit him squarely sending him flying. Up and back he flew, his eyes un-able to stay open against the blinding flash. He slammed hard into the side of the long-since gutted delivery truck which rocked from the combination of the impact and the blast, but settled back on all four wheels. Cary’s inert body collapsed beside the vehicle, unconscious and oblivious to all the debris crashing around, sometimes only inches from him.