DEAD Series [Books 1-12]

by Brown, TW

  What could she possibly be thinking? This was something out of a terrible B-grade horror or action movie. If she were watching this unfold on screen, she would either be mocking the absolute incredulousness of it (if it happened to succeed by some string of miracles that faced greater odds than winning the lottery while being struck by lightning as you hit a hole-in-one); or she would be saying that the “stupid woman deserved to die for being so stupid.”

  Yet, how could she walk away from the woman that she saw as responsible for the murder of her brother and his wife? How could she walk away and allow such evil to continue to exist?

  Standing up, she walked to the southern edge of the main school building. She could see the herd of zombies that had taken off after Glenn. They had gone almost halfway around the track that she had told him to lead them on. Her job was to wait until it was clear enough, which is the time she had to try and find the baby, and then force open the doors. The zombies would pour in on their heels and they would use the confusion to make their daring rescue of the baby and then escape.

  She dropped to her knees, completely oblivious to the pain of the tiny bits of gravel that dug into them. Her chin dropped to her chest and she felt a knot come free in it.

  “I am an idiot,” she said to nobody.

  Cynthia climbed to her feet and made her way to the skylight that gave a view into the room with the children. Her eyes scanned until they rested upon Baby Xander. He was sitting with a pile of blocks scattered between his chubby outstretched legs. His fingers clutched a block in each hand and he was waving them at the little girl who sat across from him. She was laughing…and so was he.

  She had almost no time. If she was going to act, it had to be now. Cynthia uttered a curse and felt her right hand clench as it gripped the hilt of her machete.

  ***

  “… and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

  “And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.

  “And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders…and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth,” the man cried, standing on a stack of hay bales at least ten feet high.

  “What fresh hell is this?” Dustin muttered.

  “That’s why I came and got you,” Ronni whispered. “He started about five minutes ago. He keeps repeating the same thing. Do you know what it is?”

  “Revelations,” Dustin said with a sigh. “It is one of those verses that the nuts like to grab and run with. I think it is what might have that little cluster all riled up. Somebody had been holding secret meetings. We don’t know who, and the only time we can know for sure that somebody is part of the group is when they either come out like this and start screaming scripture, or when they go and kill themselves.”

  “But I thought suicide was one of those things that sent you to Hell automatically,” Ronni said as she followed Dustin around the huge barn. Looking around, she knew exactly where they were headed.

  “It is, but when people start twisting up scripture, they can make it say anything they want. Every religion did it to some extent back before all this…some maybe more than others. Heck, I was probably guiltier of that than most. The best defense against that sort of thing is to read the book for yourself, but too many people were content with letting others read it and tell them what it said and meant.”

  “So you think these people are taking something from the bible and making it about the people that are immune?” Ronni asked. “But why?”

  “My guess is that this is coming from somebody who is immune just like you, but the reason why could be anything.”

  They stopped in front of one of the long bunkhouses. Dustin knocked on the door and then opened it, sticking his head inside. “Scott Colson, can you come out here?”

  He pulled the door shut and took a spot leaning up against the wall. Ronni could still hear the man shouting out those verses. She thought that she heard something else too, but she couldn’t be sure. She did not have time to consider it, because the door opened and Scott emerged, he was fastening a pair of knives to his belt.

  “What’s up?” Scott asked, and then he cocked his head and his eyes shut. “Another one?”

  He opened his eyes and shot an angry glance past Ronni towards the direction of the man who was hollering out the Revelations verses at the top of his lungs. It sounded like he was getting into a bit of a frenzy. Ronni was now absolutely certain that she was hearing the shouts of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” in the background.

  “Yep,” Dustin said with a nod. “It’s Virgil Snead’s boy. Can’t recall his name, but I know his face and I knew his dad. Virgil died pretty early on, but his boy survived. Both of ‘em got bitten on a supply run. The boy drove all the way back here from town with his dad in the truck. He had him seatbelted and had shoved a gag in his mouth. You couldn’t convince the kid that his pa was dead. He had to be sedated and actually locked up for a little while after we put old Virgil down.”

  “So he what…thought that his dad was going to get better or something?” Ronni asked.

  “Well…seeing as how they both got bit and the boy was basically fine…yeah. He refused to believe that his dad was a zombie,” Dustin explained. “He didn’t actually settle down to a point where we could let him out until a handful of folks joined us that had all been immune to the bite.”

  Scott stopped in his tracks and gave Dustin a hard look. Pursing his lips, he glanced at Ronni. She nodded, encouraging him to go ahead. They’d had the talk last night in the room with her dad. Chad had been asleep through it all.

  “I think we are gonna head out of here as soon as Chad is able,” Scott said.

  “But—” Dustin began to protest, Ronni cut him off.

  “I never told anybody that I got bit out there,” she whispered, but as she continued to talk, her voice grew louder. “None of the kids knew…but I have been getting strange looks, and that whole suicide thing…plus, people keep leaving stuff outside my dad’s door. Crosses and bibles and stuff. The only people that knew he got bit out there was you and Scott when you found him, and then the medical folks who worked on him. Somebody in that very small group is one of that group of weirdoes. I’m just afraid of what they might do next, and I think that my dad is going to feel the same way.”

  “Where will you go?” Dustin asked.

  “Don’t take this personal, but we’d rather not say,” Scott answered after Ronni shot him a questioning look with raised eyebrows.

  “We really appreciate what you did by letting us come here,” Ronni spoke quickly. “And I wanted to be a teacher really bad, but things here are getting scary.” She paused long enough for the voice of Virgil Snead’s son to emphasize her point. “And I think something bad is gonna happen here real soon. I just hope that you come through it okay.”

  “I understand,” Dustin nodded. “And I wish you guys the best. So when do you think Chad will be up to travelling?”

  “That is sorta what I wanted to talk to you about,” Scott said. “I know that they are a valuable thing, but is there anything that I can do to convince you to part with one of your horses? We were thinking that we could fashion a travois. Slipping out at night would be the best way to go…keep the crazies’ chances of spotting us down to a minimum.”

  Dustin sighed. He looked down at Ronni and then at Scott. An expression clouded his face and he glanced around with an odd scowl. Finally he turned back to the pair.

  “What about Brett? He was with you guys when you arrived. Aren’t you going to take him with you?”

  “We hardly ever see him,” Ronni said. “He went missing and that was that.”

  “He didn’t even want to come with me when you called for help to go try and fi
nd Chad, remember? It’s like he doesn’t really want to have anything to do with us,” Scott added. “I don’t know what his trip is. And before you ask, I got no idea if he is one of those immune types or not. All I know is that I never see the guy. It is like he has been avoiding us.”

  Dustin chewed his lower lip in thought for a few seconds. Scott took that hesitation as the man not wanting to part with the horses.

  “Hey, I totally understand,” Scott broke the uncomfortable silence. “Those horses are pretty valuable. I guess I wouldn’t want to part with them either.”

  “Huh?” Dustin’s eyes refocused and his head popped up. “Oh…no…that’s not it at all. I was just thinking about Brett. I just realized that I haven’t seen him much since a few days before I left with your dad to find Ronni. This started a while ago…not just recently.”

  Now it was Ronni and Scott’s turn to stand silently. They had no idea what the man was getting at. The voice of Virgil Snead’s son had reached a rather peculiar pitch. To Ronni, it sounded like somebody who was making fun of some Deep South preacher. When he said the word “Lo” in his recitation, it was turned into two syllables and sounded like “low-ah!”

  “Listen…” Dustin began slowly, “I don’t want you guys to leave here. Your dad is a great man, and each of you has stepped right in and become a part of things. I think there is another way.”

  “Short of killing these kooks—” Scott started with a laugh, but it died on his lips when he saw Dustin’s expression. “Wait…do you mean…”

  “That is exactly what I mean.” Dustin’s countenance had clouded over again, and the storm in his eyes was threatening to burst forth. “When I started this place, I had some far-reaching ideas, but things happened that opened my eyes. The time for being a radical is long gone. We need to think about trying to survive and make a life for ourselves…a future.

  “Like you both already said, it is just a matter of time before something pops off here. Why should we wait for this minority to strike? We have a few ideas as to who this is, and I say we consider Brett a part of the problem. If we get a group of individuals together that we can definitely trust, I say we hit them tonight.”

  “You heard ‘em, folks,” a voice called from up in the open door of the big barn’s hayloft. “Now grab ‘em!”

  ***

  Jody spun to discover that they were actually surrounded. Figures emerged from the tall grass and brush from every side. Movement out of the corner of his eye forced him to glance at one of the upstairs windows of the farmhouse. A dark shadow filled the open rectangle. They had walked right into a trap!

  “Sergeant Rafe,” a voice called with a good-natured laugh, “so nice to see you.”

  “Fucking Pitts,” Danny muttered.

  “Sergeant Pitts,” Jody returned the hail and shot Danny a murderous glance that warned him to keep his mouth shut. “Looks like maybe you folks had some trouble?”

  The sergeant stepped out onto the porch of the house, the busted in door making him have to take a long stride to get past the debris that he had obviously taken great pains not to disturb. Jody was tired of the sick feeling that seemed to hit him in the gut almost every day.

  “Trouble?” the sergeant asked with a nonchalant casualness that caught Jody off guard. “Oh…you mean the fires! No…no trouble at all.”

  Jody was not only confused, but he was becoming more than a little frustrated. There was certainly something going on here that he was not privy to; he just wished that Sergeant Pitts would quit the games.

  “I was told that there were a series of explosions early this morning before sunrise. When dawn broke, we could make out at least five very distinct pillars of black smoke. That indicated to us that there might be a problem.” Jody took a few steps toward where the sergeant still stood up on the porch looking down on him and his group.

  “And you were correct in your observations.”

  The sergeant produced a cigar and cut the end, shoved it into his mouth and took his time to light it; puffs of smoke billowing from his mouth as he primed the stogie and got the end to burn with a bright cherry. He brought it from between his lips and took a few seconds to regard it before jamming it back into the corner of his mouth.

  This is all a freaking show, Jody thought. His anger was building and it took all of his control not to make a try at putting one of his precious bullets in this man’s face. Something was wrong here, and he was finding that his curiosity had vanished. It was replaced by annoyance that was blossoming into a robust anger and hatred for Sergeant Bill Pitts.

  “You are to be commended, Sergeant Rafe,” Pitts said around his cigar as he came to the edge of the porch. “You see…there were some back at our community that did not hold you and yours in very high regard. They felt that you all would turn on us the first chance that you got.

  “Yet, here you are, not arriving to swoop in and mop up our remains, you come here to check on our well-being. That shows me that perhaps there is hope that we can be allies…friends even.”

  “You ever read the story of the boy who cried wolf?” Danny blurted.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Sullivan,” Sergeant Pitts said with a chuckle. “And yes, I am familiar with the tale. However, you must understand that a rather sizeable faction of my people thought that we should either force you to evacuate your location, surrender your women, and either be executed or put to work as forced labor in our compound. I sought only to prove that there is more benefit in having you as an ally, but first I had to demonstrate your intentions.”

  “And what makes you think that we were not coming to “mop up your remains” as you put it?” Jody snapped. He was siding with Danny on this…even if it got him killed.

  “Margarita.” Pitts gave a nod.

  Jody glanced at the woman and then back to Sergeant Pitts. He was still obviously missing something. “Yeah? What about her?”

  “For one, she is with you,” the sergeant answered, gesturing for the woman to come and join him. “For another, she is not wearing the white baseball cap that she had stored in her things. I assure you, had she been wearing it, we would not be having this conversation. You all would have been shot as soon as you arrived.”

  “And what made you so sure that we would arrive at this exact location?”

  “Because we herded you this way using some of the zombies that were attracted to our little display. Also, I am assuming that Margarita was walking somewhere in the front of your formation. It is a very easy thing for a person to creep ahead just a tad and for a short period of time. In that few moments, it is very easy to get those following to alter their course just slightly.” The sergeant extended a hand and brought Margarita up alongside him.

  “And if she had been pregnant?” Jody retorted. He knew the answer before Sergeant Pitts could even get it out of his mouth.

  “The woman is unable to get pregnant.”

  Danny started to chuckle. Then he had his hands on his knees to keep from falling. His laughter was loud, long, and just a bit contagious. Jody snickered, and even a few of Pitts’ men started to join in despite not having any clue as to why.

  “You want to share what is so funny?” Pitts finally asked.

  Jody shot a look at George Rosamilia who was turning a deep shade of red. Whether it was from anger or embarrassment, Jody could not tell, but the man’s expression was one that he thought he might cherish for a long time.

  Margarita whispered something in the ear of Sergeant Pitts. In no time, the man was joining in the laughter.

  ***

  “It’s locked!” Deanna cried.

  She looked down and from her vantage, she could see over the rail. Zombies were coming up the stairs. They were filling it, and there was absolutely no way that they could get down. They would be torn apart.

  “Here,” Sean rasped.

  He handed up his belt knife. That represented their other problem. In all of the events that had transpired, Deanna had absolutely no w
eapons with which to defend herself.

  “What do I do with this?” she asked. She could not keep her eyes off of the zombies coming up the stairs.

  “These locks are shit,” Sean said with what was a mix between a sob and a laugh. “Just wedge the knife in and give it a jiggle. You will undo the latch…no problem.”

  Deanna was really studying Sean. He was clutching his hand to his body and blood was everywhere. His skin was starting to turn a sickly yellow and sweat covered his face. But there was something else. When he looked up at her and she could see his eyes…she saw it. He was as good as dead. He slumped against the wall and sighed a deep sickly sound.

  Hurry up,” he slurred, his voice barely a whisper now. “I can feel them getting closer.”

  Deanna turned to the task and shoved the blade in the seam right by the lock. She tugged and pushed. It would figure, she had gotten the one apartment in the projects that had a maintenance man who did his job. She was about to give up. She knew that the zombies were close. Maybe they could take their chances with what was beyond the door that led to the fifth floor apartments. Sure, there was something banging on the other side…but…

  Snick.

  “I did it!” Deanna squealed.

  She reached up and shoved the hatch open. It finally tipped and fell with a clang to reveal the late afternoon sky. Looking down, Deanna almost lost her grip on the ladder. The zombies had reached the landing. But worse than that, the undead face of Sean looked up at her, mouth open, long strand of dark drool slipping from the corner of its mouth.

  Before she could snap out of it and act, the boy grabbed her ankle. She turned and tried to climb, but a tug almost brought her to instant death and the mob waiting below. Maybe that would have been better.

  Deanna felt something, but she kicked and broke free. Climbing up, she grabbed the hatch and flipped it shut. It closed with a metal clang that seemed to echo through all of Chicago’s Southside.