DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

Five minutes later, they had two things: a rifle…and a tied up prisoner.

  ***

  Chad dropped to his knees in a mix of frustration and exhaustion. He had heard people say things about reaching a limit, but he had always simply dismissed it as weakness. In his mind, or at least in his mind before the dead rose and began to eat the living, a person’s limits were a figment of that person’s imagination…a manifestation of their own inability.

  Yet, here he knelt, in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by the now decimated corpses of a small pack of zombie children. His body had nothing left, and his leg no longer felt as if it could hold his weight. Twice he had tried to stand; both times he had collapsed to the ground as a dull ache unlike anything he had ever felt shot up into his hip and down to his foot.

  He had pulled his pants leg up at one point, but it was too dark to see anything. The clouds had come now and darkness had stolen the world from him.

  There were no words for how helpless he felt. He had instead turned to screaming his daughter’s name over and over until his voice, much like the rest of his body, failed him. Now all he could manage was a hoarse wheezing croak.

  Clutching the shovel, his head turned at the sound of every twig that snapped or branch that rustled on the breeze…which was beginning to develop into a rather steady wind.

  The night dragged on, and the deep-seated exhaustion tried its best to force Chad into a state of unconsciousness. Yet, despite it all, he resisted that urge to give in and close his eyes. No, he thought bitterly, I will not give in to that weakness. My daughter is out there and she needs me. I will find her no matter what!

  As a gray dawn began to creep into the sky, Chad at least had an idea of which direction was east. A lot of good that did him. Somewhere around the time he took off across that park for his daughter, he simply lost track of where he was. After rescuing her, he had not cared which direction he ran since he had her in his arms. He cared nothing about making it back to Dustin’s compound. Not that he had anything against the man, but his only care and concern in the world was Ronni. After that…everything else came in a distant second.

  For the first time in a while, he planted the shovel into the ground and used it to try and get to his feet. How he ended up on his back, he had no idea. The taste of bile in his throat was the first indication that he had vomited. Chad wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and felt a thick slime coat his skin.

  It took him some time, but eventually he managed to make it back up to a sitting position. The shovel was beside him, still jutting up from the ground.

  And then his senses returned in full. The pain in his leg had seemed to grow until he now felt it in his skull, each temple threatening to explode. He blinked away the tears and pulled up his pant leg. Now that he was able to see, he wished for the darkness.

  The wound on his calf was an ugly, puckered thing. Clear fluid and something greenish-yellow mixed with the blood that oozed from it when he touched the angry redness that went almost from his ankle to his knee.

  Turning over onto his belly, Chad tried to crawl, but found no more success. The movement of his head caused him to swoon. The world went gray and almost winked out entirely. Freezing like a statue, he pushed the feelings of nausea away. Soon, he was left with only the pain.

  Gently, he eased himself to the ground and simply lay there for a moment as if all he needed was to catch his breath. Minutes ticked away and the world started to melt. He would find himself suddenly aware of his surroundings, which to him meant he must have lost consciousness at some point. His biggest dilemma was in not knowing for how long.

  Each time lucidity danced on the fringes, he tried to grasp it and pull himself up. Each time was met with failure. The pain was unbearable, and now he was starting to shiver. He wiped at his eyes but they would not clear.

  His mind began to mix everything up. He knew he was supposed to do something, but he was not exactly sure what. Twice he thought he heard somebody say his name, but that didn’t make any sense. Who would be calling him here?

  As a light rain began to fall on him, his shivering grew steadily worse. Soon, despite the pain, he had curled up into a tight ball. As the darkness claimed him, he had one single moment where everything seemed to clear. His daughter! She was alone and in danger.

  “Ronni!” Chad cried.

  Through the gloom, he saw a pair of legs coming his way…and another…and another. He knew that his time had come. He was defenseless…he welcomed unconsciousness as it would spare him from a horrific ending.

  ***

  “You can say it any way you like,” the woman yelled, shaking a finger at Jody like he was an errant school boy, “but you are offering us up as sex slaves…whores…basically breeding factories.”

  Jody pinched the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. This had been going on for over an hour. Not that he felt he had the right to say that they were not handling it well, but he also knew that the clock was running. Pitts had given them twelve hours to return with an answer.

  It had been the most painful thing he had ever done in his life, but, and this was the part he hated to admit, he saw Pitts’ point. It might not be the most humane way to do it, but he had trouble arguing against the logic.

  The way Pitts had laid it out was simple. His community of between two and three thousand people had one resource that they could not cultivate: genetics. They were at a ratio of over a hundred to one when it came to men and women. (Although Jody was not fond of the sergeant’s definition of “woman” which included every female of child bearing age.) If they wanted to have a chance at sustaining life and keeping the gene pool viable, they needed to increase their “stock” (Another term he used that made Jody’s flesh crawl.)

  “I will make a deal with you, Rafe,” Sergeant Pitts said, “you allow us to bring half of your women to our community and we will give you an equal number of ours. Once they have conceived, you then return the woman and any female child, but keep the males. Both our communities will benefit.”

  “You mean your women are basically used as breeders?” Jody had gasped.

  “They are treated like queens. They have a detachment of guards any time they go out in public to ensure their safety. We had issues with some of the girls being raped early on, that can cause some serious damage.”

  “You’re all heart,” Jody muttered.

  “Listen, you can do this the easy way or you can do it the hard way. The hard way would suck since all of the men in your community end up dead. And of course we would run the risk of losing some of the women as collateral damage—” Pitts was saying this like you might discuss the weather…or crops.

  “You are turning them into baby machines and want me to be okay with that?”

  “I don’t know if you have been paying attention, but mankind has taken a serious hit. If we are going to survive this, we need to change our way of thinking for a while. And if it helps any, we actually allow the girls to pick their mate. We took that old speed dating idea and just tweaked the formula a little. Now, instead of dinner and a movie, it is about who you would like to have a child from. Figure that is the least we could do.”

  “You’re all heart,” Jody quipped again.

  “You have to understand, we are talking about the survival or extinction of the human race.” Pitts looked over his shoulder and raised his left hand above his head, giving a big side to side wave. “Forgot to give them the signal to stand down,” he said sheepishly when he returned his attention to Jody.

  “So we either accept or die…no middle ground,” Jody repeated what he considered to be the general idea of the deal.

  “If that is how you have to sell it, do whatever works. I would hate to see your people wiped out, but the way I see it, as time goes on, because of the fact that both communities will have so many members who have family at the other location, that it will be less likely any surprise attacks occur. And this isn’t permanent. I figure we might be able to sc
ale back in ten or twenty years.”

  “What!” Jody failed to control his tone and ended up shouting. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “This is not an overnight solution…well…not entirely.” Pitts actually had the gall to shoot Jody a wink. “Babies usually come in ones…twos if you get lucky. But this ain’t like breeding puppies. Takes damn near a year for results and then you have to hope there are no complications.”

  “Complications…Jesus!” Jody breathed.

  “Hey, it ain’t like the old days. All the hospitals are closed. We have one actual doctor, a few nurses, and a Navy corpsman. We are trying to get a training program in place, but it is not a speedy process.”

  Jody had to marvel at what he was hearing. Actually, for all intents and purposes, it sounded like they really were trying to build a decent community.

  “So why don’t you just want all of us to pack up and move in?” Jody asked.

  “For one, we don’t have the room. Also, put all the eggs in one basket and it just takes one bad day to break them all and leave you with nothing.”

  “So how long do we have, and how do we decide who to send?” Jody felt a stain spread across his soul. He felt certain that he was assuring his own damnation.

  “As far as how long…,” Pitts paused and seem to give it serious consideration before answering, “…I’ll give you twelve hours to return with an answer. As far as how you pick who to send, that is up to you. I am going to guess, since I don’t trust you to tell me straight…we have to build trust first…but I am willing to guess that you have at least thirty women. You send fifteen and I will send fifteen.”

  That had been the end of the meeting. Now it all sat squarely on Jody’s shoulders; and honestly, the weight was too much.

  “The other option is that we end up dead and those of the women who survive end up going with them anyway,” Jody repeated for perhaps the hundredth time to his group.

  “You are a coward!” the woman spat.

  Jody did not refute her claim. He just stood there. He had long since quit trying to make eye contact with Selina or Kat. He wished that some magical solution would appear, or that he would simply wake up and this nightmare would be over.

  The meeting continued on with no lack of heated conversation. Twice, things nearly came to blows.

  “We need to put this to a vote right now,” Jody finally announced to the crowd. “We may not like it, but my solution to this is that we vote on it and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “Excuse me!” Selina stood up and walked to the stage. “I have something I want to say.”

  She walked up and finally looked Jody in the face. He had expected condemnation, anger, maybe even revulsion. Instead, what he saw was understanding and love. Through all of this, her feelings for him seemed to still be intact. Of course that was based on what he believed he saw in her face. It could have just as easily been pity.

  Selina leaned forward and whispered in Jody’s ear. He listened and then drew away from her. His gaze swept the room and he looked back at her and shrugged. With a nod he stepped aside and let her have the floor.

  “Okay, ladies, here is my proposal.” Selina glanced down at Kat who had actually been the one to come up with the idea. She smiled grimly and gave a single curt nod. “I think we all know that the men here will die for us if that is what we want, but I have a hard time believing that any of us want that. So here is my suggestion. First, I say we do put this to a vote. However, the men will be excluded from voting on this one. After all, while some of you may be fathers or husbands, this is our bodies that are being placed on the block, not yours. So, one penis equals no vote. Second, ladies, if you vote no, then understand that you are offering up the lives of every single man in this community.

  “I do not like this idea any more than you. And I understand that my time may very well come when I am selected. If I were not pregnant at this very moment, I would actually volunteer. Like any bitter medicine, my belief is that it would be better to just get it done and over with.

  “I think we can rely on these men here to respect our choice…whatever it may be. So I am going to give you two minutes to make up your minds, and then we will put it to a vote. Majority rules. Also, I hate to do this, but we will need you men to step outside. This is going to be a secret ballot. I don’t want a woman to withhold her vote because her husband or boyfriend is standing beside her. And ladies, I want your word that we keep this amongst ourselves.”

  Jody watched the crowd as Selina spoke. He saw a few scowls, but mostly what he saw were heads nodding. He was not sure how the vote would go, but he knew she was absolutely correct when she had said that the men of this community would live or die by their decision.

  Thirty minutes later, he and Danny walked up to where Sergeant Pitts had waited. The man was sitting on the hulk of an abandoned car. Jody suddenly remembered the trigger switch in his pocket.

  “So, what will it be, Rafe? And is that you, Sullivan? Well I’ll be…I would have figured you for dead or deserted long ago,” Pitts said with genuine amusement.

  “Fifteen women are packing their things. They will be here at sunrise. We are giving them a chance to say their farewells,” Jody said, placing a hand on Danny’s arm to silence the retort he sensed was on the tip of the man’s tongue.

  “And I will be here with ours for the exchange as agreed.” Pitts clapped his hands together and hopped off the car. “And don’t worry…like I said, they will be treated like queens. Hell, some of them may not want to come back.”

  “See you in the morning,” Jody said dismissively as he turned to walk back to town.

  “Yeah…just one more thing,” Pitts called.

  Jody turned to face the man. He felt his stomach churn and his heart skip a beat. This, he figured, is where the sergeant drops the bomb on them and ruins everything.

  “What?” Jody finally asked, steeling himself for the answer.

  “You may want to clear out these old abandoned vehicles. After a while they leak into the soil. A few of these can really mess up your crops. But I would be extra careful with this one…damn thing is rigged with a fertilizer bomb big enough to blow you to Kingdom Come.”

  Jody sighed as he watched Sergeant Pitts sling his gear over his shoulder and head back to his people encamped just across the bridge. Eventually, Danny gave his elbow a tug and got him moving towards home again.

  “You know it will never work, right?” Danny finally asked. “You know that promise gets broken within a month…tops.”

  “You think Pitts will turn on us that quick?” Jody asked.

  “What? Oh…no, he will actually probably keep his word. I’m talking about that promise the women made to keep the ballot secret.”

  17

  Goodness Gracious Great Geeks Alive!

  “How is anybody supposed to get some sleep and recover with you all bickering like a bunch of politicians?” Kevin asked as he slipped his feet into his boots.

  Aleah and Heather stood with open mouths. Both were so surprised that neither could initially think of what to say.

  “You were in a coma?” Aleah finally mumbled.

  “Umm…nope. I was sleeping. Sleeping and comas are very different. I was not ready to be up and about yet and I paid the price. My body couldn’t take anymore.”

  “But you got bit,” Heather added.

  “Yeah, so I guess we can now say with almost absolute certainty that cats carry the disease but do not turn…and I am immune. The guessing game is over.”

  “Is that Kevin?” Rose pushed past the two older females and made her way up to Kevin with her head tilted a bit to the side as if she were trying to figure out just what she was seeing. “You are okay?”

  “A bit of a hangover feeling still sort of dances around in my head like Dutch cloggers, but other than that, I feel fine. Oh, and I have a nasty aftertaste in my mouth,” Kevin told the girl as he stood up and did a quick pat down of his weapons. “So I only he
ard parts of it, but you said Catie and everybody split up after a bunch of zombies showed up?”

  “This was not just some bunch, Aleah was saying millions,” Rose explained.

  “Yes, well, I am sure there were a lot, but I doubt millions. Perspective is a funny thing.” Kevin grabbed his pack and slung it over his shoulder. He staggered just a bit.

  “Whoa!” Heather, Aleah, and Rose all said in unison.

  “I’m okay, just a little weak. I need food and I need to brush my teeth.”

  “But the zombies are here now…we have to run,” Aleah insisted.

  “And we will. I can eat and walk at the same time, so I imagine that I can wolf down a few stale energy bars while pedaling a bicycle.”

  “You sure you are up to this?” Trent had come up now and joined in on the conversation.

  “The alternative is staying here and risking the whole eaten alive thing…which sounds like no fun. Now let’s get moving.” Kevin headed towards the door and actually had to stop and stare for a few seconds before everybody leapt into action.

  Kevin went room to room pointing out the supplies he felt were priorities as everybody hurriedly rushed around grabbing whatever he told them to stuff in their bags. Both Heather and Aleah tried to ask him questions on a few occasions, but he brushed them aside saying that now was not the time or the place.

  After a trip up onto the roof to get a look around, Kevin had decided on their best course of action. He hurried downstairs and had everybody push their bicycle to a rear exit that opened up on the asphalt playground.

  “But they are out there,” Trent balked.

  “They’re everywhere” Kevin shrugged. “This is the most open area we have at our disposal. We need to make a run for it here, and if we get out of the playground alive, then we just might make it.”

  “That is not very inspiring,” Trent said under his breath.

  “So if you are all done with the tongue wagging, let’s get moving,” Kevin said.

  He started dismantling the barricade that had been in place. Every single movement created sound that seemed ten times louder in everybody’s ears as they pulled aside desks, chairs, and book shelves that had been wedged in place to help prevent the doors from being forced open. The last part was removing the boards and then the chain that was run through the handle of the two doors a number of times and then secured with a padlock.