DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

  “Ruth’s one of those things,” Erin sobbed.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Heather explained as she pointed up the street. There was definite movement in the shadows. Looking the other way, the direction they were heading, showed more of the same.

  “Erin,” Kevin crouched down in front of the girl, “I know you’re upset, and I probably shouldn’t have asked a stupid question like that right now—”

  “Ya think?” Heather quipped, chucking him in the ribs with an elbow.

  “I need you to hold it together for just a bit longer. Can you do that for me, Erin?”

  The girl scrubbed at her face with her hands and nodded. The trip continued, reaching the restaurant as the five-ton truck came around the corner. It pulled up and a young man leaned out of the driver’s side window. “We better hurry!”

  “Everything is right by the door,” Kevin agreed as the man climbed down. Shari leaped from the back.

  There were various noises of agreement as the four formed an impromptu line with Kevin at one end and the man, Peter, at the other. They made short work of the stack of canned goods. The entire time, singles and groups of the undead converged in their slow but steady gait on the source of the noise. Soon, their moans could be heard over the idling engine of the large truck.

  “Last one,” Kevin called.

  “Is that everything?” Heather asked, a hint of confusion in her voice.

  “Nope,” Kevin answered as he handed the box to Shari. “But it’s all we have time for.”

  “Agreed.” Peter took the box from Heather and slid it onto the bed of the truck. He shut the opened tailgate and jammed the locking pins in place.

  “Heather and I will ride in back,” Kevin said as he climbed up onto the rear bumper.

  “Where are we going?” Heather asked as she was pulled up.

  “For now,” Peter looked over his shoulder at the closing mob, “away from here.”

  “Get us clear and we can plan from there,” Kevin agreed. He joined Heather, taking a seat on one of the boxes. The doors to the cab slammed and the grind of gears sounded as the truck lurched forward.

  “What about the rest of the stuff?” Heather asked wistfully, watching the restaurant disappear from view as the truck turned right and accelerated.

  “We can always come back, or someone in need will pass by.”

  “Yeah, somebody like Shaw and his men,” Heather snapped.

  Kevin kept his mouth shut. He had already said the wrong thing once today. Now, Heather was acting weird. Something had her pissed off and he had no idea what that might possibly be.

  There was a small thud and a bounce, jostling both of them as well as sending a couple of boxes tumbling. Kevin looked out the opening slats that ran down the side in time to see a zombie bent at an obscene angle flying through the air.

  “Hang on!” Peter’s voice called over the rev and roar of the engine.

  Instinctively, Kevin grabbed Heather and pulled her in close. A series of thuds and thumps were accompanied by a jerk and shudder. It was as if they were driving over a long series of closely-spaced speed bumps. Over Heather’s head he could see at least a dozen zombies sprawled on the road or tossed across the hoods of the cars sitting abandoned along either side of the street.

  “He’s gonna wreck,” Heather cried.

  “This truck is a monster.” Kevin stroked her hair in an attempt to be comforting. “It can take much worse.”

  Inside, his mind was screaming in panic. Was this guy an idiot? He was gonna wreck and get them all killed! Everything shifted to the left as they took a right turn at what he was certain to be too fast for the truck to keep from tipping over. Oh yeah, he thought, this guy’s gonna kill us all!

  They straightened out. If Kevin’s internal telemetry was correct, they were now going back the way they came. Another left turn brought everything sliding and tumbling to the right of the cargo area. They turned again and again, each time tossing Kevin, Heather, and the dozens of boxes and a couple of odd shaped, hard plastic cases around.

  “What the hell is he trying to do?” Heather shoved a box from her lap after another sharp turn. “He’s trying to kill us!”

  “No,” Kevin rubbed a goose egg on his left forearm that promised to turn a lovely shade of purple later, “he’s trying to confuse and shake the zombies. I think he has an idea of where he wants to go, but he’s trying to ensure he can go there without bringing a horde of these things with him.”

  “Yeah,” Heather snapped, bracing her arms against a box and the side of the bed of the truck as they took another hard right, “well when we get there…I’m kicking him in the balls.”

  Eventually, the truck stayed going straight; the only big jostle came when they sped over a set of railroad tracks. The engine suddenly cut off. They rolled through a partially burned down residential area and into something resembling a park. The truck veered of the remnants of the road and into the tall grass, coming to a stop amidst a few trees and a bunch of thick shrubs.

  Kevin struggled to his feet, pulling Heather up beside him, then waded through everything to the rear of the truck and jumped down. The doors to the cab opened and Peter, Shari and Erin climbed out.

  “Sorry about all of that,” Peter apologized. Kevin noted that the man’s expression matched the tone of his voice. “I had to try and pull a confuse-and-lose routine on those things to give us a chance.”

  “It’s okay.” Kevin shrugged. “Besides, I think you actually missed a few bumps in the road and were five or ten miles per hour too slow on a couple of those corners.”

  Everybody stood in silence for a few seconds before breaking out into laughter.

  “My name is Peter King by the way,” the man said as he extended his hand.

  “Kevin Dreon,” he clasped the man’s hand, “and this is Heather Godwin.”

  “I’ve heard a bit about you so I am afraid I’m at a slight advantage.” Peter briefly explained his history and how he came to be captured by Shaw’s men. He told Kevin how things worked at The Basket as well as how extremely well fortified their defenses were.

  Kevin listened, trying his best not to look at Shari or Erin as he heard how the women were treated by Shaw and his men. The more he heard, the more he came to realize that any attempt he might have made to rescue the Bergmans would have most likely ended badly for him and those with him.

  “So,” Kevin dreaded the next question, “what happened to Ruth and Angela?”

  “Ruth was nailed to a cross,” Shari said, obviously fighting back tears. “Whether before or after she was bitten, I don’t know. Occasionally…they make examples.”

  “She was a helluva fighter.” Kevin put a hand on Shari’s shoulder. The words seemed foolish and far short of the actual emotions he felt upon hearing that the woman he was pretty sure he had fallen in love with, was not only dead, but had suffered a heinous fate.

  “Angela Bergman is in the pens,” Peter said after being fairly certain that neither Shari nor Erin would want to answer the predictable follow-up question.

  “What are the pens?” Heather asked.

  “It’s where Shaw keeps the women that aren’t claimed by one of his men,” Peter explained. “They are for…recreational use by anybody.”

  “So how did you end up with Shari and Erin?” Kevin asked.

  “I claimed Shari—”

  “You what?” Kevin’s hand was on the handle of his big blade before he realized it.

  “Wait!” Shari stepped in between Peter and Kevin, her hands firmly on Kevin’s chest. “It wasn’t what you think.”

  “This guy claims you and it isn’t what I think?”

  “No!” Shari glanced back at Peter. Kevin noticed something change in her expression. “They were doing terrible things. It was this big joke; see how loud you can make Shari scream and cry. One of them used to make me hold him like a microphone and sing…and that was the least degrading thing.” Her voice cracked and she turned back to
Peter and sunk into his open arms.

  “I had to sew her up.” Peter looked at Kevin, daring him to keep hold of his anger. “I claimed her solely for the purpose of taking her away from that.”

  “And Erin?” Kevin asked, aware that he was almost afraid of the answer. Despite all he’d seen, he still struggled to accept how humanity tended to lean so strongly towards depravity.

  “Pregnant females are removed from the general population and kept on one floor,” Peter explained. Kevin noticed that the man hadn’t used the word ‘women’. “One of my duties involved making the rounds and doing the check-ups. Since I knew where Erin was being held, Shari insisted that we not leave without her.”

  “Otherwise I would still be there,” Erin said, shooting an angry glare at Peter.

  “I couldn’t save everybody.” Peter kept eye contact with Kevin as he spoke. “I would’ve if it were possible, but I’m not a soldier or a movie action hero. I’m just a med student from Cleveland.”

  Kevin felt himself liking this guy. He knew exactly how the man felt in some ways. The last four months had wiped away just about every illusion he’d held about how cool it would be if the whole zombie apocalypse thing happened. He’d come to realize that bad actors—or probably even the good ones—could not convey the pain of seeing a friend die. There was no way to show how the nightmares haunted your sleep, tormenting you with the guilt of committing murder; even if it had been a demented pedophile who absolutely deserved it.

  “So what about Darrin and Mike?” Shari asked.

  “Darrin was shot by those guys the night you were taken.” He went on to explain the rest, including how Cary had showed up. Peter seemed particularly interested when he heard about the possibility of immunity and kept noticeably studying Heather’s bite scar, chewing on his lower lip absently as he did so.

  Kevin explained how he’d figured out where Shaw had taken the Bergmans, and how he, Mike, Cary, and Heather were actually planning a rescue. He avoided talking about his main reason being Ruth, a strange voice in the back of his mind told him that would not be a good idea.

  “So,” Peter said once Kevin was finished, “what do we do next?”

  “I still think that heading someplace remote is our best bet,” Kevin offered. “But having been here for a week and seeing so little zombie activity, I think we can really take advantage and load up on supplies.”

  “What happens when we hit the road and reach some of those stretches that are clogged?” Peter asked. “How do the five of us move all these supplies you are talking about? Also, I’ve got Erin pegged as due to deliver any day now.”

  “We avoid major populations and travel the back roads. Nobody’s gonna bitch if we drive through their yard.”

  “True, but I crossed most of Northern Ohio, and I can tell you that there are places in the middle of nowhere with five-mile-long traffic jams. Also, these things are travelling in packs that number in the hundreds if not the thousands, and they can show up anywhere; not just in the cities,” Peter explained.

  “Why can’t we find a place not too far from here then?” Erin asked. “Why do we need to go someplace like Montana?”

  “South Dakota,” Kevin corrected. “It has a sparse population, and…” he trailed off. Erin had a point. Time and again, things that he’d assumed to hold up from the movies and countless zombie books that he’d read were proving to be only halfway accurate at best. Why should they travel several hundred miles, constantly putting themselves at risk of drawing unwanted attention—living or dead—if they didn’t need to?

  “Also,” Peter was nodding at something else Erin said that Kevin had missed during his internal monologue, “we are swapping the devil we know for the devil we don’t know.”

  “I don’t understand,” Heather said.

  “This guy Shaw,” Peter replied, “we know who he is. We also know that he just got his ass handed to him. From where we were hiding, we saw a dozen vehicles storm the area. I only actually counted four in their retreat. Plus, we watched a few of his men try to escape on foot. It wasn’t pretty. His numbers have to be way down, and it’s not like he can just open up a recruiting office or put out an ad for replacements.”

  “The right location could be defended against the living and the dead if we set up in the anticipation of having to deal with both,” Kevin continued Peter’s line of reasoning. “That’s the thing I never considered when we used to talk about this sort of scenario.”

  “You used to plan for this?” Peter asked incredulously.

  “It was sorta like a hobby,” Kevin said with a sheepish grin. “Trust me, nothing seems to have worked out like we planned.”

  “He was kind of a geek,” Heather said with a laugh.

  “Then, since you probably have the majority of ideas that we could use immediately,” Peter announced, “you should lay them out for everybody to sift through. I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants these past few months; it would be nice to have a plan of sorts.”

  “You asked for it,” Heather quipped.

  Kevin shot her a dirty look, then began laying out his plans. Everybody listened intently, occasionally interrupting with a question or request for clarity. After almost an hour, blessedly uninterrupted by zombies, they had the outline of a plan. And Heather had an idea as to where they could implement it.

  2

  Home Sweet Home

  I keep having the same dream.

  I’m back in my apartment in Seattle. I’m sitting on the couch with my Basset hound, Pluck, and I am watching television. My buddy Bill Wright is sitting in my recliner drinking a beer. He’s yelling at the ineptness of our team’s quarterback. Then, out of nowhere, he looks at me and shakes his head.

  “How you just gonna leave Thalia and Emily, man?”

  “I didn’t just leave them,” I snap back. “I led that herd away from the camp. I saved them like I was supposed to.”

  “Is that right?” Bill was starting to change before my eyes. He always did this. That would mean—

  “Just like you left old Pluck there to get his guts torn out baaa…” Bill’s transformation was complete. He was a putrid mess, and a dark, mucous-like liquid dripped from his open mouth. His eyes were filmed over and bloodshot in black. For some reason, he was wearing a field utility jacket. I couldn’t recall if he’d been wearing it the entire time. The name on the breast stitched in white read “Ed.”

  Looking down—God, do I always have to look down in this dream?—I see my loveable foot warmer of a dog. He’s on his side, his belly torn open, its contents spilled out on the couch in a stinking wet pile. His tongue hangs out one side of his mouth, all black and hideous looking. That’s when, almost on cue, the banging and pounding begin on all the doors and walls.

  “They’re gonna get in.”

  I look up and see Jack standing in front of the television, one side of his head has a neat bullet hole; the other is a gaping mess. Only, that seems normal, I’m more concerned that the game isn’t on anymore and what looks like a bunch of home videos are playing. It is scene after scene of me telling Thalia that I would always watch out for her.

  “Is it my fault that you died, Jack?” I ask.

  “Absolutely.” Jack comes and sits on the couch with me and Pluck. He starts scratching the undead hound behind those big floppy ears. “Barry is your fault, too. But if we are gonna make a list, do you want me to go alphabetical or chronological?”

  “Are you gonna recite them?”

  “No,” Jack says with a conspiratorial grin. “But I will go over the highlights. It started with Mary Kinnet, the girl at the gas station. You shot her and left her to be torn apart.”

  “She was bitten,” I protest.

  “Are you gonna make me skip ahead to Steve Johnson, the guy you took out into the woods and shot in the head?”

  “That’s not fair, he asked me to.”

  “How many others, Steve?” Jack picked through Pluck’s bloody entrails.

  “
Why don’t you just say it?”

  “You mean this?” Jack plunged a finger into a hole that suddenly appeared in his head. A hole I’d put there. “Actually, you did the right thing, I was gonna turn.”

  “Really,” I gulped.

  “No,” Jack said without emotion. “That was just a tiny kernel of your conscience dying, so you could feel better. I would’ve been okay actually.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know, Steve.” Jack got up and walked to the door. “All of this is going on in your head. However, if I were Jack, I’d tell you that you did the best you could for everybody. You’re the leader of the group, like it or not. But most of all…Thalia needs you. NOW!” Jack left my apartment, slamming the door.

  I opened my eyes. Light flooded the hallway. I was in the supply closet again. Alone. Hmm, I thought, that last part was new. I climbed to my feet, every muscle and joint in my body protested…some audibly. My stomach began its immediate symphony of gurgles and groans in a twisted harmony with those creatures outside.

  I stepped out into the hall. I couldn’t believe it, but the smell was actually worse. It was like every foul odor in the world had been poured into one bottle, shaken vigorously, and dumped on my head. The problem being…I think I’m getting used to it.

  “So…what’s for breakfast?” I rubbed my hands together. “Jack? When you get out of the bathroom, would you make us some bacon and eggs?” I called. The moans outside rose in volume.

  I sauntered up the hall and knocked at the bathroom door. “Yo, Jack…you gonna be outta there anytime soon? A bunch of your friends are outside and want to see you. Plus,” I leaned my back against the door, “you’ve been in there like, forever.”

  I chuckled at my own sick sense of humor and walked out to what had served as a game room. There was a ping pong table, a pool table, and a dart board. There was also a wall of stand-up video games. But those weren’t gonna help me pass my day.

  First things first, I reminded myself. Walking through the room, I checked where everything had been boarded and nailed up. Everything was still holding up. My saving grace was that whoever had first stayed here, even before Billy and Ian, had cut off the stairs leading up to the deck in back. There would’ve been no way to secure that expanse of glass and sliding doors. Habitually I stopped in front of the vending machine. The glass had been busted out long ago, leaving empty racks. Not even a pack of gum.