DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

  “Thalia!” I snapped. She may just be a little kid, but give her credit, she didn’t even glance my way for a second. Her eyes were locked on that dog. Or rather, what was left.

  I started forward and raised my own weapon.

  “No!” Thalia said. I could not see her face, but I knew crying when I heard it. “Buster was mine and Emily’s dog. I do this.”

  Then she started saying something in Spanish. Again, I couldn’t understand a word, but I know praying when I hear it.

  The problem I faced was that if I stood here like an idiot and let this little girl handle her business…and she got nipped…I was gonna catch every kind of hell imaginable…and probably some new varieties as well. The best I could hope for was that they would not throw my ass out in the snow.

  I edged just a bit closer. I guess Thalia knew that I couldn’t just stand there. She rushed that dog with her blade raised and came down hard with it on the furry little head.

  I’ll be honest, I was having my doubts about my own ability to hack that little dog. She might have been Thalia’s and Emily’s, but everybody spent their fair amount of time scratching her belly or rubbing her ears. More than once she and I had played a little fetch.

  “I’m sorry, Buster,” she said with a sniff as she pulled her weapon free.

  For just five years old, she had just pulled a pretty wicked move. I was impressed. Still, we needed to get back to the cabin. We walked in silence for most of the way. When we reached the blazing funeral pyre, Thalia stopped. She stared up at the bodies, and even though they were all sort of lined up together, I knew which one she was looking at, so I just stood quiet and let her have her moment.

  “Do you think there is a Heaven?” Thalia asked, breaking the relative silence. I mean, it wasn’t perfectly quiet. I had never really noticed how loud a fire was until all of this.

  I stalled for a moment. Hell, Thalia, I’m only seventeen. I don’t have any idea what I believe. That was what I thought; what I said was, “Maybe.” Seriously, that was the best I could do.

  “I think there is.” With those words, she turned and walked up to the cabin.

  I followed and expected to be greeted by a flurry of questions. Instead, it was just more sad looks and quiet. Thalia went over to the bench where Misty was sitting by herself. I could not see or hear anything, but Misty looked at Thalia for a second and then got up and moved to a chair on the opposite side of the room. Melissa, Cheryl, and Melinda had obviously gone back to their beds. Dr. Zahn was sitting in a chair by the fireplace beside Jake and Christina. Jon and Sunshine were over in a corner whispering, and Brad was suiting up to head for the crow’s nest. Levent and Rabia were at the table, both seemed to be praying. They each had their eyes shut tight and were rocking forward and back just a bit. From where I stood I could see their lips moving but couldn’t hear anything.

  That is it. That is all that is left of our group. One way or another, we had lost everybody else. It had been a nasty several days. I was headed to the back to look for something to eat when Jon waved me over.

  “I want you to come with me,” he said barely above a whisper. I glanced at Sunshine and could tell that she wasn’t too happy.

  “Where we headed?”

  He didn’t answer and just walked to the big bathroom that we had been converting into more sleeping quarters; we wouldn’t need those for a while now. At least I knew where he was taking me. The question was why.

  We entered the room and Jon walked right over to the figure tied up in the corner. He pulled off the gag and crouched down in front of her. He had captured her the day we lost everybody. She was one of the would-be raiders. So far, only Jon had been in the room during her interrogations as far as I knew. Heck, I didn’t even know the lady’s name.

  “This is the last chance,” he said with no emotion at all.

  Honestly, I did not see how this lady had held out as long as she did. Just hearing Jon’s voice like that was enough to make me have to pee. She just stared up at him with what was almost a smile on her face.

  “Then what? You beat me up again? Big deal.” Her voice sounded kinda sexy to me even though she was talking through swollen lips and her nose was obviously busted. Well, that or pretty much every girl was starting to sound sexy.

  “Actually…we have a nice big fire outside. You see, you and your people are responsible for a lot of my friends dying…so maybe I will just take you outside and let you join them.”

  It took me a minute, but then I figured out what Jon was saying. I guess it took her a few seconds as well. I saw the look on her face the moment she realized what Jon was getting at.

  “You wouldn’t do that…the doctor lady said that there wouldn’t be any more torture. She promised—”

  “She isn’t in charge!” Jon cut her off. As mean and aggressive as that statement felt, he still was managing to have absolutely no emotion in his voice. Yep, I would have totally wet my pants by now. “And I am not going to torture you…I will simply toss you on that fire and let you die.”

  “How is that not torture?”

  I could not believe she was still arguing.

  “Because…I am talking about execution.”

  “You mean murder!”

  “Call it what you will,” Jon said with a shrug.

  He leaned down and shoved the gag back in her mouth. Then he looked over at me. I was confused. I had absolutely no clue what help he thought that I would be at this point…or any point for that matter.

  “Grab her feet, Billy,” Jon said.

  I don’t know where it came from, but somehow I found my body moving forward. With about as much coordination as the damn zombies, I leaned over and grabbed her feet. We had gone about three steps toward the door when she really began to thrash about. She was trying to say something.

  “Drop her,” Jon said, and let her upper half go. She hit the ground with a nasty thud before I could get my hands to do as they were told. I let go of her feet

  He knelt beside her and pulled the gag down again. The only problem was that she had gotten the air knocked out of her a bit when her upper body hit the floor. She made a few weak croaking noises while she kept shaking her head. Finally, she seemed to get back her ability to breathe, and then eventually to speak.

  “What! What do you want me to tell you?” the woman wheezed.

  “I want to know your numbers, the location of your camp, and how you brought that herd to us,” Jon hissed. “The same questions that I have asked you time and time again.”

  The woman closed her eyes. After taking a few deep breaths, she finally started talking.

  “Our group sort of came together over the past few months. We are what is left of probably six or seven other groups, and if you think we are something…then you have no idea. Down in the valley around La Grande, there are probably three major groups and a dozen or so little ones all within about twenty miles of each other fighting over every scrap.

  “Some of us got together after our groups were either wiped out or sent running and we decided to head up into the mountains. Didn’t seem that any of the others were too excited about heading up into this frozen bit of hell.”

  Jon urged her to continue, but she gave a slight shake of her head and glanced at the bottle of water on the counter. I hadn’t given it much thought, but now that I looked closer, her lips were pretty chapped and I could tell just by her face that she hadn’t eaten much if anything in a while. I guess that went the same for water. Jon grabbed the bottle and held it to her lips, allowing her to take as much as she wanted. I guess he was a one man good-cop/bad-cop team.

  “And how about a little something to eat?” the woman asked after making this sigh that sounded like she had just found a small slice of Heaven.

  “You give me some solid information and I will think about whether or not you will live long enough to merit me dishing out something for you to eat or not,” Jon said.

  Hmm, I guess Bad Cop was back. For just a moment,
I thought that she was going to shut down and clam up, but I imagine she was pretty tired of being kept tied up in a dark room with no food, and water only when somebody thought about giving her some. And by somebody, I mean Jon since he was not allowing anybody else to ‘visit’ the prisoner.

  “Look, we were hungry…there were seventeen of us and we ran in to this guy, Patton I think was his name, who told us that you people had kidnapped his daughter and then kicked him out of your camp. The whole team was ready to come in with guns blazing, but then some of his story stopped adding up. First he had found your camp by accident, then you people had raided his…just weird stuff. I mean, this guy could not tell even the simplest lie. He was really bad at it. Plus, we separated him and his friends and the stories were all over the place.

  “So, long story short, our leader, Vern Tasker. Finally had enough and when he told this jerk he was no longer welcome, the guy went crazy—”

  “Just stop right there,” Jon interrupted. “You don’t think that we found them? The guys were strung up and the girl was missing? So if you want me to think that things got heated and that your people…this Vern Tasker or whoever, took the time to hang Patton and the men, but that the woman was spared?”

  I saw the lady’s shoulders droop. She really did not have any idea who she was messing with. I bet she thought that Jon was just some guy…normal like Steve or me or Brad. She was dealing with a Marine. All I could do was sit back and watch. I could tell by the look on her face that she knew she was busted.

  “We did it…alright?” she said after a long pause. “When we ran into Patton and his crew, we initially were going to ask them to join us, but he was unhinged. The problem we had was that so were the others. It got ugly fast and before you could say anything, Vern had the guys strung up. He took the woman into his tent, but that isn’t what you think!” she said that last bit really fast. I could see the darkness on Jon’s face, and I imagine that the lady did as well.

  “Okay…then you tell me what I should think.”

  “She was in pretty bad shape,” the lady explained. “He was actually concerned that she had been snagged by Patton and his group against her will. She was pretty out of it. I never saw her again. The next day, we found out that at least some of that lunatic’s story was true…you people did exist.”

  “So you just decided to harness a mob of zombies and take us out,” Jon was stating more than asking.

  “The zombies just turned out to be a lucky break,” the lady said, shaking her head at Jon’s accusation. “We got up early that morning to make our move and the herd was just passing by. We fell in behind them.”

  Jon glared at her for what seemed like forever. Seriously, I don’t know how the woman did not wet her pants unless she was just so dehydrated…

  “Okay,” she finally caved. “A few times, when they started to wander off course, Vern got the idea to send somebody around and ahead of them and lure them back on track.”

  “Then maybe I should just throw you in a pit with a few and be done with you,” Jon said with an icy tone that I was certain could not be a bluff.

  “I am telling you everything! I am telling you the truth!” she insisted.

  “Then tell me where your people make their camp.”

  She seemed to squirm for a few seconds. Jon gave me a nod and indicated that I grab her feet. I did not know what pit he might be referring to unless he meant the moat that circled our cabin on the hill, so maybe we were back to throwing her in the fire. I really did not want to be here at this moment.

  “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “The best I can do is give you the general area that we roam. We have not been able to set up a permanent camp yet. We tried twice, but got ran off by bigger groups. Believe it or not, there was some talk about trying to join up with your group, but our scouts saw the little girl and we just figured that maybe it was one more tiny piece of Patton’s story that was true.”

  “If I show you on a map where we are—” Jon started.

  “I can show you whatever you need to know,” the woman said. “Just, please…don’t throw me in a fire or feed me to one of those…things. I would rather you just shoot me and put me out of my misery than to go out like that.”

  “I am going to put the gag back in, and I will be back in a few minutes. When I return, I will bring a map. If you try to screw around, you go straight to the bonfire. Understood?”

  She nodded. Jon gagged her and then motioned for me to follow him out. I gave her one last look on the way, I thought I saw tears in her eyes. Maybe Jon had actually broken her. But what do I know?

  We stepped from the room and Sunshine was standing there with the doctor. I could tell right away that they weren’t happy.

  “I thought we discussed this already,” Dr. Zahn said with a tight-lipped expression on her face.

  “Nothing happened…I did not lay a hand on her,” Jon said.

  I was a little surprised. I mean, I get that the doctor is a tough old lady, but Jon is a Marine. They ain’t scared of nothing or nobody. Yet, he was definitely on the defensive. I guess I sort of expected him to just tell her that it was none of her business or something like that.

  “You better not,” the doctor said with a scowl, then she pushed her way past and went into the room.

  “Sunshine, I told you I wasn’t going to hurt her,” Jon said as he took her hand.

  I was not comfortable at all standing here in the middle of this. I searched the room, but where could I run? One way I had the kids, in the back, the women were all crying their eyes out over the losses of their husbands, Jake was nowhere to be seen and Brad was in the crow’s nest on watch.

  “You mean you weren’t going to hurt her again?” Sunshine emphasized that last word and planted her hands on her hips. That was my cue to leave.

  I headed for the door. It might be freezing outside, and there might be zombies…but that was a much better place to be than where I currently stood.

  As I reached the door, I heard Jon call out, “Don’t go far, we still have things to deal with!”

  At first I did not think he was talking to me. But as I stepped outside, I realized…there were not that many other choices left. Like it or not, I had just moved up the ladder.

  ***

  I was standing on the porch minding my own business, sipping my morning cup of instant coffee. We did not have much of this stuff left and I wanted to savor each and every cup.

  I was trying to clear my head of everything that was busy trying to drive me bonkers at the moment. I could not wrap my mind around how things had gone so bad so quick. Just a couple of months ago, it looked like we had secured ourselves the perfect place. I guess nobody really thought about how tough the winter was going to be without the basics.

  Basics…now that is a laugh. It used to mean something a whole lot different about six or seven months ago. Damn, has it been that long?

  So it turns out that Shelly Casteel—the lady prisoner—and her group were not doing too well. When they ran into Patton, I guess the group split on how to deal with him. The guy that took charge, Vern Tasker, I guess he decided that they needed to take us out and move in. Anybody that argued with Vern got booted from the group or killed according to Shelly.

  When the herd came through, Vern had some of the group help pave the way using some construction equipment that he had found and managed to get running. I guess they scouted us for a week, but could not get any good numbers since we were staying inside so much due to the bad weather. They thought there were only eight or ten at the most.

  Jon had all the bodies of the people we killed from her group lined up in the snow. Vern Tasker was not among the dead. So now Jon wants to take me and Jake on our own scouting mission. If their numbers were what she said they were before attacking us, then there are only five of them left.

  I asked Jon why me and why not Brad, he says that I show the good makings of a fine soldier. He says that if I were to have joined the Marines, I proba
bly would have done real well for myself. When I said that I still did not understand why he chose me instead of Brad, he got a look in his eye that almost seemed to be anger.

  “You follow orders, son,” Jon said. “Brad was one of those liberal types. He thinks he can talk his way through everything. Those days are gone for the foreseeable future. I need somebody who will do what they are told when they are told.”

  “Is that why you brought me in when you threatened to toss Shelly on the fire?” I asked.

  “You are a smart kid, Billy.” And then Jon turned and walked away. That was a ‘yes’ in my book.

  Anyways, in the morning, we head out for the area that Shelly says they last made camp. Jon says that he does not expect them to be there if they have any brains at all. That has me wondering, If that is true, then why are we going out in this awful weather and risking death by zombie or just plain freezing?

  ***

  “See that building with the red sign hanging down in front of it?” Jon whispered in my ear.

  “Yeah.”

  “That Dumpster beside it should allow you to climb up on top of the building. From there, I want you to move to that far corner and keep down. Jake and I are going to come around from either side of the complex and slip in one of the ground floor units.”

  We had already snuck up to the rickety looking apartment building and gotten an idea of the layout. It was a horseshoe-shaped complex. The ground floor units were set up with all sorts of trip lines. Those would obviously cause havoc for a zombie, but they would not do much against a person who knew what they were looking for.

  A group of four people were inside from what we had seen after watching the place all day and night. The place they will have me stationed looks right into the guts of that complex. The grounds are also heavily booby-trapped with all sorts of razor wire and cans hanging from strings. In the short time we observed, it looked like they rotate one person outside who walks back and forth on the balcony which runs the length of the center section.