DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

  Taking a deep breath and making a habitual lunge to test out his prosthetic foot, he made his move as soon as Catie gave the nod. She popped out from beside the house and fired off a few quick shots. This was the riskier form of cover since they were relying entirely on their enemy reacting to the sound. She was in no position to actually hit anything.

  It proved to be a waste of bullets. Kevin was ten steps away from cover, which basically put him in the middle of the open ground between his cover and the truck when somebody from inside the house opened fire with their own gun. He was grateful they were not all that bright. The roar of a shotgun sounded, but he was far enough away that the danger of any substantial hit was almost nil. He felt something tug at his jacket, but he did not have time to see how bad the damage might be.

  Catie signaled for him to stay put. She indicated that she would slip around back. Pointing at her eyes with two fingers and then the front door, she gave him the universal “keep watch” sign. Kevin nodded and moved up snug to the front wheel so he could see. As she vanished over the fence, he let his mind drift back to how this all started just a relatively short time ago.

  ***

  “I don’t know if this is anything to be worried about, but I think I saw some lights moving around over by that big church,” Trent Lomax announced as he walked into the open rec room that served as the community sleeping quarters.

  “What do you mean?” Catie asked.

  “Lights…you know, devices powered by some sort of power supply like batteries,” Trent said with a tone that made Kevin think that perhaps those two did not get along very well.

  “I don’t have time for your crap right now,” Catie snapped as she got to her feet and started putting on her field gear.

  “I told you exactly what I saw. Lights. Big church area. What else would you like me to share?”

  Yep, Kevin thought, these two did not like each other. “We don’t have time for your bickering,” he snapped as he made his way to his feet.

  “Whoa!” Heather and Aleah said in unison.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Aleah reached up and grabbed his wrist.

  “Just up on the roof.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere.” Heather stepped up beside Aleah, folding her arms across her chest. It had been almost two weeks and these two had hounded his every move up to this point.

  A muffled rumble sounded and seemed to shake the walls. Several of the children cried out, many sitting bolt upright in their sleeping bags. The lanterns hanging in the room swayed just a little.

  “What the hell?” Catie snapped as she made her way over to the door and opened it a crack. “We may have trouble.”

  “Maybe I should have stayed in my coma,” Kevin muttered to himself.

  “We need to suit up and get out there to at least see what is going on,” Catie said as she pulled the door shut and turned to face the room. There was a sudden flurry of activity.

  “Okay, everybody just hold on,” Kevin announced and held up his hands. “For one thing, we have no idea what is out there. This could be Major Beers for all we know. We don’t have a chance in hell against a force like that in a firefight. Or, it could be some raiders passing through. Those sorts usually like causing as much mayhem as possible. Plus, if they are trying to flush people out, we would be playing right into their hand.

  “Sean…Deanna, I want you to have the kids up and dressed, but I want you all to stay put. Deanna, you stay in this room with them and keep them calm and quiet. Sean, as soon as everybody is packed, you get up on the roof and keep watch, the first sign that something bad is headed this way, I want you guys to fall back to that toll booth on the interstate. Stay there as long as you can. If you need to, get back across that bridge and find a spot to hide where you can see the freeway. If we don’t come within three days, you guys are on your own.”

  The two oldest children nodded their understanding. Kevin hobbled over to a chair and began to fasten his prosthetic.

  “And just what do you think you are going to do?” Aleah came over and stood above him with her hands on her hips.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Kevin said as he looked up at her. “I’ll be as careful as I can be, but we need to get eyes out there and see what is going on. This is just an observation mission. We are not going out there to fight anybody.” He sat up and looked around at Heather, Trent, Catie, and Aleah. “Does everybody understand? This is not a confrontation…this is scouting to see just what is out there.”

  “And so we are supposed to go out and do what exactly?” Catie asked.

  “What part of scouting do you not understand?” Kevin turned to the diminutive woman. “For now, we are just trying to get eyes on whoever this is. I think we can agree that going up against an unknown number of potential enemies is a bad idea. We do not know a thing about these folks. They could be normal, decent people.”

  “Yeah, because we have run across so many,” Catie huffed.

  “I don’t know how you handled things before,” Kevin limped over to Catie and stared down at her, “but we don’t just attack people for no reason. We don’t know what is going on and until we do…this is a recon mission. Period. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal.” Catie closed the handful of inches that separated her and Kevin and looked up at him with a squinty glare. “But know this, the moment that I feel in danger, I am doing what I have to.”

  “And you know this,” Kevin said back in a whisper, “if you endanger any of these people going all gung ho crazy, I will deal with you personally.”

  The two stared at each other for a moment, neither seeming inclined to break the other’s gaze. Surprisingly, it was Trent who stepped in between them.

  “Enough of the pissing contest,” Trent snapped. “We have bigger problems. And I just want to go on record as saying that I don’t think Kevin should be part of this little mission or whatever it is.”

  “Noted.” Kevin broke away from Catie’s icy gaze. “Now let’s get moving. Deanna…Sean…do you have any questions?”

  Sean started to say something but Deanna gave him a sharp elbow. “Nope…nothing,” he managed.

  Kevin was surprised at how ingrained he was when it came to putting on his gear. He was even starting to get used to his missing foot. While he would not be winning any sprint races, he had become very adept in moving with urgency. He was zipping his heavy leather jacket when he felt something grab his arm.

  He glanced down to see Rose looking up at him. She had her arms out and open. It took him a few seconds to realize what was going on. Taking a deep breath, he knelt down and gave her a hug.

  “Please be careful,” she whispered in his ear. “I was just starting to think I liked you.”

  Kevin pulled away and his smile vanished immediately. He had mistakenly thought that she was making some sort of joke; the expression on her face said otherwise.

  “I’ll be careful,” he assured.

  He joined Catie, Trent, Heather, and Aleah outside the little park and rec building. The night was chilly and a steady breeze added to the briskness. The smell of burning carried on that breeze.

  “The wind is blowing this direction,” Kevin said to nobody in particular.

  “So…what’s the plan?” Trent asked the group.

  “Since the fire is just four or five blocks away, I suggest each of us take one of the streets from D to G and move up to 110th Street, then hook over one block to the west and come back down from the north. That will do a couple of things. For one, that will let us get a look at what sort of activity they might have stirred up. Second, it will have us come at these folks from the opposite direction of the kids,” Kevin said in a rush as he laid out his impromptu plan. “I suggest getting into the back yards. The streets might be a little dicey right now.”

  “I would like to suggest something.” Catie stepped forward. Kevin gave her a curt nod, unsure of what she might say. “Kevin has been out of it for a while and is not famili
ar with our signals. I suggest that he and I move together. We can just skip sending somebody down D Street. Also, we only have the four flare guns, so that would mean that one person would be without if we all five split up.”

  Before anybody else could say a word, Kevin spoke up, “That sounds like a good idea.” He noticed Aleah and Heather both snap their mouths shut. Honestly, his sole reason for jumping in so quickly was simply because he did not want them wasting another second.

  With final pats on the shoulder, and a kiss and hug shared between Aleah and Kevin, everybody slipped away into the night. Kevin and Catie had drawn ‘S. Ave G’ which was the closest to the burning church.

  “So why you and me?” Kevin asked as soon as they were away from the others.

  “You aren’t back to a hundred percent yet,” Catie said as she climbed over the first fence and landed without a sound in the back yard. “You would try to watch out for Aleah and get both of you killed. Same goes with you and Heather…you guys have history and that is the role you are used to and would probably try to slip into without even thinking. Trent does not know you and might leave you in a heartbeat. The fact is, you are our leader and need to be preserved. I am the best person qualified for that act.”

  Kevin tried to think of one single thing she had said that he could offer an argument against and came up empty. Every single bit of it was logical and made perfect sense.

  They moved quietly through the first few yards and Kevin was finding out in a hurry how weak he still was from his recent brush with death. The limitations of his foot were actually the least of his problems at the moment.

  Just as Catie was about to swing herself up and over the fence between the next yard and the one they were currently in, there was a commotion just to their left. The problem, besides the darkness, was that the houses were actually packed in pretty tight. Also, the blaze was in that direction which made everything to their left nothing more than inky black shapes.

  “I’m telling you…I swear that I heard something,” a voice hissed.

  Kevin was certain that whoever it was that was speaking had to be less than a dozen feet from them. Catie had frozen; one leg up and over the top of the five foot high white picket fence that ran the length of the yard.

  “Stop being such a damn pussy,” another voice snapped, making no effort to be quiet. “Ooo…hope it’s not a zombie,” he continued on in a mocking tone.

  “Don’t be a dick, Jerome,” a third voice scolded. “And I still think you could have picked a different place to try out your new toy…why did you have to pick a church?”

  “You think God is gonna be mad at me?” the second voice, apparently Jerome, brayed.

  Kevin had not laid eyes on these guys yet, but he already wanted to kill one of them. He was coming to the quick conclusion that there would not be any sort of possible meeting with these guys that did not end in bloodshed. These were the stereotype of the “bad guys” from every zombie movie and book he had ever come across.

  “Do you practice being such an asshole?” the first voice retorted with a bit of a whiny tone.

  “Shut up, Mel,” Jerome barked.

  Catie carefully slipped her leg back over to the side Kevin was on and slid to the ground. The two of them reached simultaneously for their crossbows. No sense in using bullets yet if they could get away with it. If there were indeed only three of these individuals, they could drop the first two before the one remaining even knew what had happened.

  “Hey, here comes Papi and the others,” the as yet unnamed voice of the trio announced.

  Catie and Kevin simultaneously sank back down. Within a few seconds, there was a lot of commotion as the group grew in size. Kevin thought that he could pick out at least ten different voices, and those were only the ones talking; he had no actual idea how many may be gathered. Also, he was almost certain that he picked out a few female voices in the bunch.

  “So whose idea was it to blow up the church?” somebody called out from the group.

  The more Kevin heard, the more certain he was that these were nothing more than raiders of the worst sort. He was basing his assumption purely on the way these people were talking, but he felt comfortable in his assessment.

  Twice the group responded to approaching zombies; each time it seemed like it was more of a game to them. He heard lots of whooping and hollering mixed in with laughter. His brain was already providing a mental image that was strikingly similar to the motorcycle gang at the end of the original Dawn of the Dead. He had already cast the Jerome individual in the Tom Savini role.

  Kevin risked a look over the top of the fence into the street where this group was gathered around. From his vantage point, it actually looked like they were having a party around a huge bonfire. Several, what appeared to be, rickshaws were parked in the huge open and empty parking lot of the church. The best headcount he could obtain put them at about twenty or so individuals. They were actually dressed how he had expected. He saw a lot of black leather and skull cap motorcycle helmets. The women were in halter tops. (Most looked to be made of leather and resembled something found in stores that sold fetish gear.)

  “So what do we do?” Catie asked.

  “Actually, I say we just keep eyes on them. Hopefully they will leave soon. No sense going to war with these people,” Kevin whispered. “I think trying to make an attempt to talk to them is a bad idea. They don’t seem like the friendly type…just looters.”

  Catie gave a nod. Kevin was actually surprised. He had expected at least some sort of argument or opposition. When he was certain that it was not coming, he settled down up against the fence beside her.

  “You think we should try to make it to that street a couple of blocks up like you planned?” Catie asked, just as he got comfortable.

  “I think we would be tempting fate with them being this close. The others should be smart enough to know that.”

  “You have more faith in them than I do,” Catie said. Kevin thought she might have tried to make that comment under her breath…but maybe she did intend for him to hear it.

  A shriek jolted both Kevin and Catie from whatever each was thinking about. Together they came up to see what was happening just as a half-naked woman ran past with a man in pursuit. Catie was bringing her weapon up when Kevin grabbed her arm and nodded. It seemed that the current group activity involved a great deal of sex. Twos, threes, and a couple of groups of four or five were scattered about, each engaged in assorted sexual escapades that made Kevin blush to be witnessing them with a woman right beside him. He quickly sunk back to the ground.

  “Who has a freakin’ orgy in the middle of a church parking lot?” Catie whispered. She glanced over and was further amused by Kevin’s very visible embarrassment.

  The noises changed and every so often there was a shout of warning. Kevin could not help but look and discovered a few of the group (perhaps they had drawn the short straw) were on the perimeter, guarding the Bacchanalian festival taking place in the glow of the flames.

  “You couldn’t write this crap,” Kevin finally whispered as it sounded like things were winding down.

  Catie chuckled. “Maybe now would be a good time to move and see if we can meet up with the others,” she whispered.

  “Sounds good,” Kevin agreed.

  Together, the pair moved from yard to yard. It was slow going, especially since they were doing their best to be quiet. Twice they had to put down a zombie that had found its way into a back yard. Once, they had gotten surprised when the zombie in question was a creeper hidden in the tall grass.

  They had finally reached the end of the street, but nobody was there waiting for them. Twice Kevin called out in a whisper, but neither time was answered.

  “You think they froze when they heard the sounds?” Kevin finally asked.

  Catie only shrugged and jogged over to one of the houses and began to scale it. Once up, she crouched down and began to walk around to see if she could spot any movement. All she saw wer
e a few individual and small clusters of the undead in the area all converging towards the direction of the still raging fire. They were easy to spot since they made absolutely no effort to conceal themselves. That, she mused, and the way they always seemed to be tripping and stumbling over everything.

  “Anything?” Kevin called up as he grew more and more anxious as well as impatient.

  “Just zoms…but it also looks like that fire is starting to spread,” she called down as she moved to the lip of the roof, swung her legs over and dropped.

  Just as she hit the ground, a gunshot rang out.

  e had assumed she was making some sort of joke; the serious look on her face wiped that thought away.

  3

  Pleased to Meet You

  “Sorry, miss, what did you say your name was?” I asked as I walked back into the bedroom with two bottles of water that I had liberated from my travel bag; which I had yet to unpack, thank you very much.

  “Dick,” a muffled voice wafted through the big down comforter.

  “Katrina Dick, hmm…” I said, trying to sound as serious as possible. I was rewarded with those gorgeous blue eyes peering up at me from a section of the comforter that folded down very slowly. Her blonde hair was sticking up every direction except straight. On some, that might have looked awful; on her it just looked sexy.

  “If you must know, my last name is…” and then her voice trailed off and her expression changed.

  Why were there tears brimming in her eyes? What the hell had I done?

  “Sorry,” she sniffed and waved me off as I made to take her in my arms.

  I scooted to the end of the bed…almost. Actually, I scooted to the end of the bed and then kept going. That is how I ended up falling on my butt. And with that graceful act, the mood was officially dead.

  “Oh, Billy, are you okay?”

  Katrina scrambled out of the covers and crawled to the end of the bed to look down at me. She still had tears in her eyes, but now there was an expression of concern…which quickly evaporated and turned into a grin within about ten seconds…maybe less.